CASE STUDY
Ujamaa Community Resource Team
Organizational growth leads to increased community land rights
“Over the years, I have watched UCRT mature. Both the organization and individual team members have become stronger, more accountable, results-oriented and more effective as a result of Maliasili’s training, technical support and mentoring.”
About UCRT | visit website
Land is life for pastoralists and hunter-gatherers, and UCRT helps to ensure that they own, manage, and benefit from it. When these communities have the skills, knowledge and rights to manage their resources, they are better off and so are the places and wildlife where they live. This belief is what brought a group of young activists together more than two decades ago, and it remains UCRT’s guiding vision today as they work with more than 70 communities across roughly 2 million hectares in northern Tanzania.
Our Support
Five years ago, UCRT realized that if they wanted to help more communities across northern Tanzania own, manage, and benefit from their land, they needed their organizational skills to match their field skills. Since then, each year we work together to identify their major organizational challenges, prioritize them, and find solutions. With a refined impact model, strengthened communications, new partnerships and networks, and a system to track their progress, today UCRT has more staff, more money, and more support for their work.
Our support has allowed UCRT to achieve more and extend their reach and impact across new communities and landscapes
A revised 2014-2016 Strategic Plan, which included an increased focus on the CCRO (Certificate of Customary Rights of Occupancy) model, which is an effective legal tool UCRT has pioneered to secure communal grazing and forest lands
A doubling in their budget, resulting in increased funding for field operations as well as staffing and other core capacity needs
A doubling in their senior management team, providing for new key positions, including a program manager, financial manager, and legal advisor
A suite of essential communications products and plans, contributing to key policy successes and strengthened donor relations and marketing
New networks, funders & collaborators, including its involvement in the Northern Tanzania Rangelands Initiative, which has helped UCRT build collaborations and leverage financial and human resources to support its work.
Impact
Secured more than 250,000 hectares of new forests and rangelands in key northern Tanzanian ecosystems in 2016 alone.
Received the Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa in 2016 in recognition of UCRT’s achievements and increased visibility, documentation of results, and global networks & partnerships.
Increased the number of women owning land and property in the communities where UCRT works.