Final Report
External Evaluation of Land and Housing Justice Action
EC Funded Project 2013-2016
November 2015
Prepared by
Tomas Freitas
Independent Evaluator
Dili, 30th of November 2015
External Evaluation of Land and Housing Justice Action
EC Funded Project 2013-2016
November 2015
Prepared by
Tomas Freitas
Independent Evaluator
Dili, 30th of November 2015
Contents 2
Acronyms 4
Acknowledgments 5
Executive Summary 6
Introduction 9
Research Methodology 10
Chronology Evaluation 12
Program Rationale and Logic 13
Interview findings - Haburas 14
Interviews with members of Haburas 15
Interviews with Rede Ba Rai Secretariat 16
Interviews with members about the RBR Secretariat 17
Interviews with Matadalan Ba Rai 20
Interviews with Land Defence Group of Covalima 20
Interviews with HAK 22
Interviews with Grupo Alvu Stratejiku of Baucau 23
Interviews with DNTPSC of Baucau 24
Interviews with Grupo Alvu Stratejiku of Viqueque 25
Interviews with Partners of HAK and FTM in Viqueque 26
Interviews with BELUN 27
Interviews with Partners of BELUN 28
Interviews with DNTPSC of Viqueque 29
Interviews with FTM 29
Interviews with Partners of FTM in Maun-Fahe 30
Interviews with DNTPSC of Maun-Fahe 30
Interviews with Luta Ba Futuru in Maun-Fahe 31
Interviews with the Community of Betano in Maun-Fahe 31
Interviews with Kdadalak Sulimutu Institute 32
Interviews with UNAER in Ermera 33
Interviews with Grupo Defende Rai of Oecusse 35
Table of Summary of Findings per activity 37
Conclusion and Recommendations 40
Annex of List of Interviewees 41
Acronyms 4
Acknowledgments 5
Executive Summary 6
Introduction 9
Research Methodology 10
Chronology Evaluation 12
Program Rationale and Logic 13
Interview findings - Haburas 14
Interviews with members of Haburas 15
Interviews with Rede Ba Rai Secretariat 16
Interviews with members about the RBR Secretariat 17
Interviews with Matadalan Ba Rai 20
Interviews with Land Defence Group of Covalima 20
Interviews with HAK 22
Interviews with Grupo Alvu Stratejiku of Baucau 23
Interviews with DNTPSC of Baucau 24
Interviews with Grupo Alvu Stratejiku of Viqueque 25
Interviews with Partners of HAK and FTM in Viqueque 26
Interviews with BELUN 27
Interviews with Partners of BELUN 28
Interviews with DNTPSC of Viqueque 29
Interviews with FTM 29
Interviews with Partners of FTM in Maun-Fahe 30
Interviews with DNTPSC of Maun-Fahe 30
Interviews with Luta Ba Futuru in Maun-Fahe 31
Interviews with the Community of Betano in Maun-Fahe 31
Interviews with Kdadalak Sulimutu Institute 32
Interviews with UNAER in Ermera 33
Interviews with Grupo Defende Rai of Oecusse 35
Table of Summary of Findings per activity 37
Conclusion and Recommendations 40
Annex of List of Interviewees 41
Acronyms
BELUN Instituisaun BELUN
CEFOBOM Centro Foin Sae Boa Ventura
CO Committee Organiser
DNTPSC Dirasaun Nasional Teras Propiadade Sistema Cadastral
EC European Commission
ETM Ekipa Tau Matan
FECM Fundasaun Edukasaun Comunidade Matebian
FTM Forum Tau Matan
GAS Grupo Alvu Stratejiku
GDR Grupo Defende Rai
HABURAS Fundasaun HABURAS
HASATIL Hadomi Agrikultura Sustentavel Timor-Leste
HAK Asosiasaun Hak Azasi dan Keadilan
JOHALD Joventude Hamahon Dezenvolvementu
KSI Kdadalak Sulimutu Institute
LAIFET Labour Institution for East Timor
LBF Luta Ba Futuru
LHJA Land Housing Justice Action
LH Lao Hamutuk
LUTA HAMUTUK Institusaun Luta Hamutuk
UNAER Uniaun Agricultura Ermera
MANEO Masine Neo Oecusse
MBR Matadalan Ba Rai
PMU Project Management Unit
RBR Rede Ba Rai
RDTL Republica Democratica of Timor-Leste
BELUN Instituisaun BELUN
CEFOBOM Centro Foin Sae Boa Ventura
CO Committee Organiser
DNTPSC Dirasaun Nasional Teras Propiadade Sistema Cadastral
EC European Commission
ETM Ekipa Tau Matan
FECM Fundasaun Edukasaun Comunidade Matebian
FTM Forum Tau Matan
GAS Grupo Alvu Stratejiku
GDR Grupo Defende Rai
HABURAS Fundasaun HABURAS
HASATIL Hadomi Agrikultura Sustentavel Timor-Leste
HAK Asosiasaun Hak Azasi dan Keadilan
JOHALD Joventude Hamahon Dezenvolvementu
KSI Kdadalak Sulimutu Institute
LAIFET Labour Institution for East Timor
LBF Luta Ba Futuru
LHJA Land Housing Justice Action
LH Lao Hamutuk
LUTA HAMUTUK Institusaun Luta Hamutuk
UNAER Uniaun Agricultura Ermera
MANEO Masine Neo Oecusse
MBR Matadalan Ba Rai
PMU Project Management Unit
RBR Rede Ba Rai
RDTL Republica Democratica of Timor-Leste
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the logistical and communications support provided by HABURAS during this assessment. Special thanks to Fernando Antonio, Roberto A da Cruz, Horacio Goncalves Da Costa, Antonio Delimas, Rozito, Bendito, and Januario for their assistance during the interviews in Dili and also in the municipalities. The author would also like to thank the HABURAS Director as well as the Project Management Unit and all the staff who have contributed their time and knowledge during the evaluation process. Lastly, I would like to thank my research assistance Nelson Seixas Miranda for his hard work in taking notes during the evaluation process. The views expressed in this document in no way reflect the views of HABURAS or the delegation of the European Commission in Timor-Leste. For further clarifications or additional information the author can be contacted on thomas_freitas@yahoo.com
Executive Summary
This external evaluation was an assessment to measure the general achievements of each and every partner in delivering the planned activities, as well as the way they managed the activities. Haburas is the main partner; other consortium members include HAK, KSI, FTM, BELUN, and RBR, implementing the Land and Housing Justice Action program, which is funded by the European Commission (EC).
The program has been implemented for the last 14 months; according to the set goals, Haburas and its partners have to collaborate with State Actors (SAs) and Non-Sate Actors (NSAs) at the municipal and national level. This project was developed through various activities such as training, dissemination of information, prevention, awareness-raising, promoting dialogue, promoting the rights of vulnerable communities to land and housing, advocacy, networking, lobbying, and provision of legal assistance.
While there are achievements there have also been challenges, both for the partners as well as for the Project Management Unit (PMU).
To better understand this situation, the HABURAS foundation recruited an independent evaluator to do an assessment of the program and activities during the contract.
Besides this main report, the evaluator also provided a collection of Annexes which includes a document on management of Rede Ba Rai, an analysis of the human resources for implementing this project, and a description of challenges and obstacles faced by the PMU.
The evaluation took more than twenty working days, involving people from Dili, and communities from Baucau, Viqueque, Maun-Fahe, Covalima, Ermera and Oecusse. This assessment gathered around 20 organisations, 4 state actors, 16 community leaders, and 28 ordinary people; altogether more than 76 people were involved in this assessment.
There are a number of achievements that have been gained by HABURAS and partners of the Consortium such as: HAK, which has been very successful in empowerment of its partners in Baucau and Viqueque; members of GAS such as the Village Chief of village of Tirlolo who is able to explain the right to equal land and housing, and a female lawyer in a local NGO who can articulate in simple terms Articles 54 and 58 of the Constitution. The evaluator also admired other GAS members in Viqueque who are strongly committed to success in this program even though they are volunteers only.
The evaluator has been amazed with the work from FTM in Viqueque and Maun-Fahe (Same) which has socialised the right to equal land and housing at the village level, even though it has at times faced difficult questions from the community.
The evaluator was excited by all the hard work that has been done by Matadalan Ba Rai, in improving the capacity of their partners Grupo Defende Rai (GDR); for example in Covalima, they have defended victims in Camenasa and Oques that has been affected by mega-projects such as the Suai Supply Base, Airport and Auto Estrada. In Oecusse they have defended the rights of people in Sakato, Nepani, Lifau, Lalisu, Cunha and Tono, that has been affected by the mega-project of ZEEMS.
The evaluator is also impressed with KSI and the hard work that they have done with their partners UNAER in Ermera. Based on the interviews with seven of the members of UNAER in Gleno, the evaluator was impressed with their answers to the evaluators questions; for example two of participants who were still of quite a young age and had only attended training 3-4 times, were able to explain very well about the concept of land reform. The evaluator was also impressed by the explanation by the Village Chief village of Buruma, who was able to explain how to facilitate a land dispute mediation, which can be seen to be a result of the hard work done by BELUN with their mediation training.
There are however also a number of issues that need to be addressed for the future.
According to the findings, Haburas as the main actor for the program, needs more discipline and needs to be more proactive in managing the three different divisions including Matadalan Ba Rai (MBR), the Project Management Unit (PMU) and Rede Ba Rai (RBR). Haburas needs to show an example for the others in terms of how to prevent conflicts of interest. Haburas needs to be cleverer in managing activities and programs, think outside the box to help other members of the consortium that might struggle in the execution of activities, and think like a leader of the land network with nineteen organisations behind it.
The Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai needs to lead the movement to help people who are looking for justice like the communities of Aitarak-Laran, Kaisidu, Ossurua, Betano, Suai and Oecusse.
The Secretariat needs to be more organised and better at time management – it does not need big funding to write a letter to the authority of ZEEMS in Oecusse, does not need one week to organise a press conference about starving farmers in Tono, or two weeks to facilitate the community at the Suai Supply Base to go to Maun-Fahe and share their experience with the community in Betano.
Rede Ba Rai has extensive human resources in civil society who are experts in analysing the draft laws of the Land Acts. Rede Ba Rai would do well to reflect on the past when the Secretariat worked without the EC grant, with the volunteer spirit and success in advocating on land issues.
Members of the Consortium need to work together as a team not as competitors. According to the program, each partner in the Consortium has to meet four targets; however, if one of the implementing partners fails in achieving their targets, this means failure of the whole program. There is a requirement for members of the consortium to unify all their training modules.
Partners in the municipalities such as GAS, GDR, UNAER and the Victims Association have to be more proactive in advocating on issues from the municipalities. If the community wants to move fast, partners need to help them to do this because it is better to resolve problems in the municipalities themselves rather than in Dili.
Introduction
The European Commission (EC) to Timor-Leste has funded the Land and Housing Justice Action (LHJA) program. This program has been offered to Haburas Foundation as the main lead and Consortium members such as HAK, FTM, KSI, BELUN, and RBR for the implementation of programs and activities. According to the contract the duration of the project is forty two months starting from February 2013 to November 2016. This external evaluation was conducted after 34 months of the project. The Haburas Foundation as main lead for this project recruited Tomas Freitas as independent evaluator for the evaluation of the program. The evaluation was conducted over twenty working days, with a total budget of US$5000. The aim of the assessment was to evaluate the achievements of each and every partner in delivering the planned activities, as well as the way that they managed the activities. The evaluation project was part of the total grant from the EC to Haburas and each partner, which in total was approximately EUR 800.000 for the duration of the project, according to the contract with the reference number EuropeanAid ID: TL-2009-EUP-2901959605, as agreed between Haburas and EC on 12 February 2013.
Twenty days to conduct this evaluation is a limited amount of time, as the Terms of Reference had high expectations. The evaluator would like to recommend to Haburas that in the future more time and budget be allocated for this kind of evaluation.
Research methodology
@Literature review or desk review - review of relevant documents, for instance; Matrix log-frame, Activity Plan, and narrative reports. Desk review also included analysing report documents, to try to identify the logic and rationale of the program.
@Face to face interviews or direct interviews with Haburas and other partners such as RBR, HAK, FTM, KSI, BELUN and other partners of RBR such as HASATIL, LAIFET, LAO HAMUTUK and the community of Aitarak Laran in Dili; as well as partners in municipalities such as Baucau, Viqueque, Maun-Fahe, Covalima, Ermera, and Oecusse. The objective of the interviews was to identify the achievement of each and every partner in delivering planned activities, as well as the way they managed the activities.
@Focus Group Discussions with partners of HAK in Baucau and Viqueque, with partners of FTM in Viqueque and Maun-Fahe, with partners of Haburas in Covalima and Oecusse, and with partners of KSI in Ermera.
@ In-depth interviews - further interviews after focus group discussions, or after first interviews, the objective of which is to conduct the investigation in more detail. In-depth interviews were also conducted in Dili, Baucau, Viqueque, Maun-Fahe, Covalima, Ermera and Oecusse.
@Specific interviews were conducted with special target groups including in Dili with the Chief of the Aldeia of Aitarak Laran, in Maun-Fahe with LBF and the community of Betano, and in Oecusse with farmers of Suco Tono.
Strengths and weaknesses of the methodology
The strengths and weaknesses of the methodology are varied; in Dili the face to face interviews meant that most of the time the evaluator met only with the Director him/herself, or just the program manager or even sometimes with just one staff member alone. This meant that it was difficult to verify whether what he or she said was the truth. During the interviews in Dili with Haburas, MBR, RBR, PMU, HAK, FTM, KSI, BELUN, LAIFET, LAO HAMUTUK, and HASATIL, only four organisations had more than one person participate in the interview. The majority of the time the person involved in the interview was the one in charge of the organization.
The strength of the direct interviews or one on one meetings is the ability to find out exactly the capability of each person in answering the questions, and we can also investigate in more detail if there is any doubt.
The weakness of direct interviews or one on one meetings, is that many times the responder only relies on one source, or he/she is not confident to explain something that he or she is not responsible for.
The strength of focus group discussions is that everyone who is involved in the meeting can be accountable to each other; they can each add more facts and provide many reasons, and can remember exact facts related to the activities.
The weakness of focus group discussions, is that many times the Village Chief or the elders or especially males always talk first and set the opinion, which makes it hard for other participants to intervene or disagree; female always talk after all males have spoken, and many times there are only very few women in the meetings so it makes them feel uncomfortable to speak up and support their reasons.
Chronology of the evaluation
The evaluation began on 5th of November. From 5-6 November the evaluator reviewed the contract document between Haburas and EC, as well as the interim reports 12 December 2013 - 30 November 2014 from PMU to EC, and the 2014 quarterly report of the Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai. From 7-8 November, the evaluator contacted and made appointments for the interviews in Dili. from 9-14 November interviews were conducted with partners in Dili including with Haburas, MBR, PMU, RBR, HAK, KSI, FTM, BELUN, LAIFET, HASATIL, LAO HAMUTUK, and the community of Aitarak-Laran. On 16 November, interviews were conducted in Baucau with partners of HAK; on 17 November in Viqueque with partners of HAK and FTM; on 18 November the in Maun-Fahe with partners of FTM; on 19 November in Covalima with partners of MBR/Haburas, on 20 November in Ermera with partners of KSI. On 21-23 interviews were conducted in Oecusse with partners of MBR/Haburas. The preliminary findings report was prepared from 24-27 November, and from 30 Nov – 1st Dec more interviews were conducted with RBR staff. Preliminary findings were presented to PMU, EC and members of the Consortium on 2 December. From 3-7 December was spent preparing the final report.
The author would like to thank the logistical and communications support provided by HABURAS during this assessment. Special thanks to Fernando Antonio, Roberto A da Cruz, Horacio Goncalves Da Costa, Antonio Delimas, Rozito, Bendito, and Januario for their assistance during the interviews in Dili and also in the municipalities. The author would also like to thank the HABURAS Director as well as the Project Management Unit and all the staff who have contributed their time and knowledge during the evaluation process. Lastly, I would like to thank my research assistance Nelson Seixas Miranda for his hard work in taking notes during the evaluation process. The views expressed in this document in no way reflect the views of HABURAS or the delegation of the European Commission in Timor-Leste. For further clarifications or additional information the author can be contacted on thomas_freitas@yahoo.com
Executive Summary
This external evaluation was an assessment to measure the general achievements of each and every partner in delivering the planned activities, as well as the way they managed the activities. Haburas is the main partner; other consortium members include HAK, KSI, FTM, BELUN, and RBR, implementing the Land and Housing Justice Action program, which is funded by the European Commission (EC).
The program has been implemented for the last 14 months; according to the set goals, Haburas and its partners have to collaborate with State Actors (SAs) and Non-Sate Actors (NSAs) at the municipal and national level. This project was developed through various activities such as training, dissemination of information, prevention, awareness-raising, promoting dialogue, promoting the rights of vulnerable communities to land and housing, advocacy, networking, lobbying, and provision of legal assistance.
While there are achievements there have also been challenges, both for the partners as well as for the Project Management Unit (PMU).
To better understand this situation, the HABURAS foundation recruited an independent evaluator to do an assessment of the program and activities during the contract.
Besides this main report, the evaluator also provided a collection of Annexes which includes a document on management of Rede Ba Rai, an analysis of the human resources for implementing this project, and a description of challenges and obstacles faced by the PMU.
The evaluation took more than twenty working days, involving people from Dili, and communities from Baucau, Viqueque, Maun-Fahe, Covalima, Ermera and Oecusse. This assessment gathered around 20 organisations, 4 state actors, 16 community leaders, and 28 ordinary people; altogether more than 76 people were involved in this assessment.
There are a number of achievements that have been gained by HABURAS and partners of the Consortium such as: HAK, which has been very successful in empowerment of its partners in Baucau and Viqueque; members of GAS such as the Village Chief of village of Tirlolo who is able to explain the right to equal land and housing, and a female lawyer in a local NGO who can articulate in simple terms Articles 54 and 58 of the Constitution. The evaluator also admired other GAS members in Viqueque who are strongly committed to success in this program even though they are volunteers only.
The evaluator has been amazed with the work from FTM in Viqueque and Maun-Fahe (Same) which has socialised the right to equal land and housing at the village level, even though it has at times faced difficult questions from the community.
The evaluator was excited by all the hard work that has been done by Matadalan Ba Rai, in improving the capacity of their partners Grupo Defende Rai (GDR); for example in Covalima, they have defended victims in Camenasa and Oques that has been affected by mega-projects such as the Suai Supply Base, Airport and Auto Estrada. In Oecusse they have defended the rights of people in Sakato, Nepani, Lifau, Lalisu, Cunha and Tono, that has been affected by the mega-project of ZEEMS.
The evaluator is also impressed with KSI and the hard work that they have done with their partners UNAER in Ermera. Based on the interviews with seven of the members of UNAER in Gleno, the evaluator was impressed with their answers to the evaluators questions; for example two of participants who were still of quite a young age and had only attended training 3-4 times, were able to explain very well about the concept of land reform. The evaluator was also impressed by the explanation by the Village Chief village of Buruma, who was able to explain how to facilitate a land dispute mediation, which can be seen to be a result of the hard work done by BELUN with their mediation training.
There are however also a number of issues that need to be addressed for the future.
According to the findings, Haburas as the main actor for the program, needs more discipline and needs to be more proactive in managing the three different divisions including Matadalan Ba Rai (MBR), the Project Management Unit (PMU) and Rede Ba Rai (RBR). Haburas needs to show an example for the others in terms of how to prevent conflicts of interest. Haburas needs to be cleverer in managing activities and programs, think outside the box to help other members of the consortium that might struggle in the execution of activities, and think like a leader of the land network with nineteen organisations behind it.
The Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai needs to lead the movement to help people who are looking for justice like the communities of Aitarak-Laran, Kaisidu, Ossurua, Betano, Suai and Oecusse.
The Secretariat needs to be more organised and better at time management – it does not need big funding to write a letter to the authority of ZEEMS in Oecusse, does not need one week to organise a press conference about starving farmers in Tono, or two weeks to facilitate the community at the Suai Supply Base to go to Maun-Fahe and share their experience with the community in Betano.
Rede Ba Rai has extensive human resources in civil society who are experts in analysing the draft laws of the Land Acts. Rede Ba Rai would do well to reflect on the past when the Secretariat worked without the EC grant, with the volunteer spirit and success in advocating on land issues.
Members of the Consortium need to work together as a team not as competitors. According to the program, each partner in the Consortium has to meet four targets; however, if one of the implementing partners fails in achieving their targets, this means failure of the whole program. There is a requirement for members of the consortium to unify all their training modules.
Partners in the municipalities such as GAS, GDR, UNAER and the Victims Association have to be more proactive in advocating on issues from the municipalities. If the community wants to move fast, partners need to help them to do this because it is better to resolve problems in the municipalities themselves rather than in Dili.
Introduction
The European Commission (EC) to Timor-Leste has funded the Land and Housing Justice Action (LHJA) program. This program has been offered to Haburas Foundation as the main lead and Consortium members such as HAK, FTM, KSI, BELUN, and RBR for the implementation of programs and activities. According to the contract the duration of the project is forty two months starting from February 2013 to November 2016. This external evaluation was conducted after 34 months of the project. The Haburas Foundation as main lead for this project recruited Tomas Freitas as independent evaluator for the evaluation of the program. The evaluation was conducted over twenty working days, with a total budget of US$5000. The aim of the assessment was to evaluate the achievements of each and every partner in delivering the planned activities, as well as the way that they managed the activities. The evaluation project was part of the total grant from the EC to Haburas and each partner, which in total was approximately EUR 800.000 for the duration of the project, according to the contract with the reference number EuropeanAid ID: TL-2009-EUP-2901959605, as agreed between Haburas and EC on 12 February 2013.
Twenty days to conduct this evaluation is a limited amount of time, as the Terms of Reference had high expectations. The evaluator would like to recommend to Haburas that in the future more time and budget be allocated for this kind of evaluation.
Research methodology
@Literature review or desk review - review of relevant documents, for instance; Matrix log-frame, Activity Plan, and narrative reports. Desk review also included analysing report documents, to try to identify the logic and rationale of the program.
@Face to face interviews or direct interviews with Haburas and other partners such as RBR, HAK, FTM, KSI, BELUN and other partners of RBR such as HASATIL, LAIFET, LAO HAMUTUK and the community of Aitarak Laran in Dili; as well as partners in municipalities such as Baucau, Viqueque, Maun-Fahe, Covalima, Ermera, and Oecusse. The objective of the interviews was to identify the achievement of each and every partner in delivering planned activities, as well as the way they managed the activities.
@Focus Group Discussions with partners of HAK in Baucau and Viqueque, with partners of FTM in Viqueque and Maun-Fahe, with partners of Haburas in Covalima and Oecusse, and with partners of KSI in Ermera.
@ In-depth interviews - further interviews after focus group discussions, or after first interviews, the objective of which is to conduct the investigation in more detail. In-depth interviews were also conducted in Dili, Baucau, Viqueque, Maun-Fahe, Covalima, Ermera and Oecusse.
@Specific interviews were conducted with special target groups including in Dili with the Chief of the Aldeia of Aitarak Laran, in Maun-Fahe with LBF and the community of Betano, and in Oecusse with farmers of Suco Tono.
Strengths and weaknesses of the methodology
The strengths and weaknesses of the methodology are varied; in Dili the face to face interviews meant that most of the time the evaluator met only with the Director him/herself, or just the program manager or even sometimes with just one staff member alone. This meant that it was difficult to verify whether what he or she said was the truth. During the interviews in Dili with Haburas, MBR, RBR, PMU, HAK, FTM, KSI, BELUN, LAIFET, LAO HAMUTUK, and HASATIL, only four organisations had more than one person participate in the interview. The majority of the time the person involved in the interview was the one in charge of the organization.
The strength of the direct interviews or one on one meetings is the ability to find out exactly the capability of each person in answering the questions, and we can also investigate in more detail if there is any doubt.
The weakness of direct interviews or one on one meetings, is that many times the responder only relies on one source, or he/she is not confident to explain something that he or she is not responsible for.
The strength of focus group discussions is that everyone who is involved in the meeting can be accountable to each other; they can each add more facts and provide many reasons, and can remember exact facts related to the activities.
The weakness of focus group discussions, is that many times the Village Chief or the elders or especially males always talk first and set the opinion, which makes it hard for other participants to intervene or disagree; female always talk after all males have spoken, and many times there are only very few women in the meetings so it makes them feel uncomfortable to speak up and support their reasons.
Chronology of the evaluation
The evaluation began on 5th of November. From 5-6 November the evaluator reviewed the contract document between Haburas and EC, as well as the interim reports 12 December 2013 - 30 November 2014 from PMU to EC, and the 2014 quarterly report of the Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai. From 7-8 November, the evaluator contacted and made appointments for the interviews in Dili. from 9-14 November interviews were conducted with partners in Dili including with Haburas, MBR, PMU, RBR, HAK, KSI, FTM, BELUN, LAIFET, HASATIL, LAO HAMUTUK, and the community of Aitarak-Laran. On 16 November, interviews were conducted in Baucau with partners of HAK; on 17 November in Viqueque with partners of HAK and FTM; on 18 November the in Maun-Fahe with partners of FTM; on 19 November in Covalima with partners of MBR/Haburas, on 20 November in Ermera with partners of KSI. On 21-23 interviews were conducted in Oecusse with partners of MBR/Haburas. The preliminary findings report was prepared from 24-27 November, and from 30 Nov – 1st Dec more interviews were conducted with RBR staff. Preliminary findings were presented to PMU, EC and members of the Consortium on 2 December. From 3-7 December was spent preparing the final report.
Number of interviews during the evaluation process
Program rationale and logic
According to the contract between Haburas and the EC, the Consortium led by Haburas with its partners was required to implement several programs to achieve four types of results. The activities of Result 1 include: 1.1 Production of training and public information materials; 1.2 Training on land and housing rights; 1.3 Training on land defence; 1.4 Training on agrarian reform; 1.5 Radio programming. The targets for Result 1 include increased land and housing rights literacy in key target groups of citizens, NSAs, local authorities and political actors.
The activities for Result 2 include: 2.1 Training in financial management for NSA partners in this action; 2.2 Stakeholders analysis; 2.3 Comprehensive capacity and training needs assessment of key NSAs and other target groups; 2.4 Workshop: Mapping of existing LHR information materials; 2.5 Training of trainers on popular education techniques; 2.6 Paralegal training to NSAs on defending land and housing rights; 2.7 Technical training on dispute resolution for partner NSAs; 2.8 Training on gender in relation to housing, land and environment; 2.9 Training of media on LHR; 2.10 Comparative study tour on land rights and experiences in Indonesia; 2.11 Technical training for district based NSAs; 2.12 Technical training for community and members. The target for Result 2 include: strengthened capacity of NSA’s at all levels to engage in local and national land and housing related development processes.
The activities for Result 3 include: 3.1 Establishment of case management systems (CSM); 3.2 Regular meetings of mediation and legal aid core group; 3.3 Provision of legal aid services; 3.4 Orientation meeting for disputants; 3.5 Disputants mediation; 3.6 Coordination and support to local mediators; 3.7 Mediation training to Las. The target for Result 3 is the effective provision of legal aid and mediation services to LHV communities.
The activities for Result 4 include: 4.1 Training RBR members in network management; 4.2 Regular round table discussion on civic education; 4.3 Regular RBR members meetings; 4.4 Production of advocacy materials; 4.5 Annual advocacy activities; 4.6 Media exposure; 4.7 Website development; 4.8 RBR Yearly internal evaluation; 4.9 Annual General Meeting; 4.10 RBR Strategic Plan for 2016-2020; 4.11 Research on land ownership and inheritance of women and men in Ermera; 4.12 Monitoring of the impact of land law implementation on farmers; 4.13 Sub-grants for district NSA activities and research. The target for Result 4 is the improvement in quality of land rights advocacy and increased opportunities for dialogue between LHV communities, NSAs, SAs and LAs.
Findings
Interviews with HABURAS Foundation
According to the interview with Deometrio Amaral, former director of HABURAS Foundation, the program of Land and Housing Justice Action is based on good quality research which was published through a document called “Komunidade Nian Lian Kona Ba Rai”, Community voices of the land (Matadalan Ba Rai, 2010). Demetrio stated that the expected result from the implementation of LHJA program was improved communication with communities about the needs of the land. The former director also stated that based on research documents the President of the Republic Democratic of Timor Leste has vetoed the proposed Land Act laws. Strategic advocacy is not only at a top level, but also Haburas Foundation with other members of the Land Network (Rede Ba Rai) accompanied and provided legal assistance to communities that were affected by evictions, in places such as in Timor-Plaza, Brimob, and Aitarak Laran.
On the other hand, Virgilio Guterres the current director of HABURAS Foundation stated the land is very important and in the future it will become a big problem. He therefore recommended that the European Commission continue to support this program. In the interviews he emphasised that HABURAS is institutionally responsible for three divisions including Matadalan Ba Rai, Rede Ba Rai and the Project Management Unit, all of which work on the Land and Housing Justice Action program. He recognised it is huge for HABURAS to look after all of them, therefore he proposed that Rede Ba Rai should have its own Constitution and internal regulations, independent and separate from HABURAS. Independent means that Rede Ba Rai can look for their own funding and be registered as an independent institution. The director is also dissatisfied with the Oversight Body (Ekipa Tau Matan) which according to him is not functioning well, causing the Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai to also not perform well.
Interviews with members of RBR about HABURAS
Five members of the Consortium including MBR, FTM, HAK, BELUN, and KSI are dissatisfied with the high structure of HABURAS, which they see as being slow to resolve problems at the Secretariat of RBR, which had previously been considered to be inactive and not making any progress over the past eighteen months. After the previous coordinator of the Secretariat was replaced by a new interim coordinator, the Secretariat appeared to regain trust from its members. However, according to four of the members of Consortium, the intervention from HABURAS Foundation in the restructure of the secretariat of RBR was considered too late, because the problem of mismanagement had been unresolved for more than eighteen months. The same dissatisfaction was also expressed by sixteen member organisations of RBR. However, around half of the members, about eight organisations were not aware of problems at the Secretariat.
Analysis from evaluator
It appears that the problem as explained above has been ignored with little attention paid to what has been happening at the Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai. The implementation of activities has been delayed for more than eighteen months. This is seen to be a serious problem because the Secretariat of RBR has managed to achieve 80% of total activities and the remaining 20% of activities were divided among HAK, MBR, FTM, KSI and BELUN. In interviews some of the members of RBR stated that “the previous coordinator of the Secretariat of RBR has a family relationship with the former director of Haburas”; if this is true, there is in fact a conflict of interest. After analysing the contract and activities plan which lists approximately 31 activities, the evaluator does not see any responsible activities for Haburas as an institution. There does not appear to be a mechanism for holding the Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai accountable. There is no mechanism and monitoring system, which has to written into the activities plan, which could take place through a regular meeting (weekly, monthly, quarterly) between the director of Haburas, the Coordinator of the Secretariat of RBR, and the Coordinator of the divisions of MBR and Grant Manager of PMU.
Recommendation
The evaluator would like to recommend to Haburas to hold a regular meeting, which could be weekly, every two weeks or monthly, just between these four people, which could be called the “EC management team meeting”. The EC representative could at times be invited to attend the meeting. This is a simple mechanism that could contribute towards preventing future problems. It should also be noted that the Oversight Body (Ekipa Tau Matan) is not part of the EC project and does not take part in the monitoring mechanism. If Haburas continues to rely on the Oversight Body, the same mistake could happen again.
The yearly internal evaluation could pick up the problem, but because the Secretariat of RBR is responsible for realisation of this activity, this activity did not happen last year, because the yearly internal evaluation only took place this year.
The evaluator also recommends to Haburas not to appoint someone or anyone that has any family relationship with the institution of Haburas. To prevent miss-management of finance in the future, the evaluator would like to propose to the EC to conduct financial auditing of this program.
Interviews with the Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai (RBR)
Rede Ba Rai in English word means Land Network, which is composed of sixteen organisations and some individuals.
Based on the interviews, the staff and current coordinator recognise that some of the activities and programs were not going well before, but after the change in the coordinator position and the replacement by the interim coordinator from September – November 2015, there are signs to show that the Secretariat is improving. According to staff, the hierarchy of HABURAS as an institution is unable to resolve problems that have been occurring internally at the Secretariat of RBR.
The current structure of RBR is also why the implementation of some activities and programs has been delayed; because recruitment of the PMU coordinator happened late, the activation of PMU did not start until April 2013. Rede Ba Rai also recognised that the capacity of RBR members of RBR is insufficient for conducting activities and programs that have been scheduled, and that the time for the inception process is not enough. Inception in this case means preparation for briefing on how to execute the activities and programs based on the timeline that has been scheduled. However, in the last three months from September to November 2015, according to staff, the RBR Secretariat RBR seems to be going well, particularly after they had five days for strategic planning meetings, which resumed planning some of the programs and activities and finalising their own constitutions and internal regulations for the network. They were able to decide on rules and responsibilities for the Oversight Body Ekipa Tau Matan, for supervising the work of the Secretariat. Although, the evaluator has not seen the report from strategic planning, it seems that confidence about the Oversight Body (Ekipa Tau Matan) has increased.
The Secretariat recognises that it does not get full support from members of RBR; for example when the members had planned to do monitoring of a case of land dispute in the municipalities, on the due date for travel, the members cancelled the trip without a fundamental reason. The Secretariat also feels disappointed with some institutions which are also a part of the RBR, for example when people come to HABURAS or HAK to complain about land dispute issues, they are told “The Secretariat of RBR are not in the office, perhaps you can come back tomorrow”. The interviews confirmed that the Secretariat has just reactivated regular meetings between members, however the Secretariat doesn’t feel comfortable at the meetings when they are asked by members about how many land dispute cases have been registered, and how many cases have received assistance from the Secretariat. Despite slowing down in the execution of activities, currently the Secretariat has called for sub-grant proposals which are open for members of RBR. The idea of calling for proposals from the members is to help execute all activities that have been planned by the Secretariat. Based on the interview with the current coordinator of the Secretariat, the Secretariat has received a few proposals so far from UNAER (Agriculture Union of Ermera), ITA BA PAS Foundation, FORUM TAU MATAN, LAIFET, HASATIL and is expecting more applications from the members.
Interviews with members about the Secretariat of RBR
According to an interview with one of the national organisations which has been active since the initial establishment of the network Rede Ba Rai, this organisation is disgruntled with the performance of the RBR Secretariat, which they see as not being transparent. The organisation is also disappointed with one of their staff members who is supposed to represent the organisation at the RBR, however the staff member has not provided any update on the work of the network back to the organisation.
Moreover, another national NGO based in Dili and also a member of RBR stated that it does not get any support from the Secretariat, even while this organisation worked hard in advocating for an eviction case in the sub-village of Aitarak-Laran. However, in contrast to this, the Chief of the sub-village Aitarak-Laran stated that “the advocacy for the eviction case of Aitarak-Laran has not only involved one single organisation, however has been a combined force from the community of Aitarak-Laran itself, involving some veteran members who are living in the area, together with some NGOs likes LAIFET, HABURAS, HASATIL, and RBR, who have all joined in one advocacy committee to defend the rights of the community of Aitarak-Laran. Despite the case, there is a concern around a continued risk of eviction, because the community has already accepted compensation from the government from $1500-$3500 per household. The Village Chief said, “If one day the government asks my community to leave the place, we have to go but we don’t know where to go”. Currently the number of families who live in that area has increased to fifty.
Analysis from evaluator
The Secretariat of RBR has described the delay in the implementation of program as being not only the fault of the Secretariat, but also came about because of the late appointment of PMU staff, and delays in conducting the inception process for all Consortium members on how to adjust their program and activities.
With regard to the “yearly internal evaluation”, the only internal evaluation report the evaluator has received is four pages from internal evaluator Meabh Cryan; the content of the report doesn’t refer to any reasons of delay in implementation of activities.
The reluctance of the other NGOs to attend to clients that come to complain about their land issues, is a signal of jealousy between the members as well as a disregard to advocate on land issues. It appears to be the case that every member of the Consortium works alone and competes against each other and not as a team to gain the same objective.
It is good to know that the Secretariat of RBR has called for proposals from its members. The case of Aitarak-Laran is like time bomb which will become a problem when come to eviction. Where will these families go? Who will be responsible for the settlement? What can RBR do for the solution?
Recommendation
The “yearly internal evaluation” needs to be reactivated because it could pick up any problems or obstacles that are faced by the Consortium and the members of RBR every twelve months not every twenty four months. This activity has to be organised and responsible for by HABURAS or PMU not the Secretariat. Experience has shown us that the first years didn’t have an internal evaluation due to failure in the Secretariat; if RBR has a good person as the coordinator, the same mistakes do not have to be repeated. Regular meetings between the consortium members should take place every month, and the agenda for the regular meetings should be clear, which includes updating the progress of activities and declaring any problems that might need assistance from other members. The PMU needs to be tougher at this meeting and might need an auto-criticism mechanism to evaluate the programs.
The evaluator would like to propose to the Secretariat of RBR that before granting a proposal, the Secretariat needs to make sure that they are clear on how they are going to execute the program - do they have enough time and human resources for implementation? What is Plan B if Plan A fails? These questions come up as a reflection on the failures of the Consortium in the implementation of activities. To overcome those difficulties, the secretariat of RBR needs to map the resources of each of its members, and to identify the human resources that are available in civil society, for example there needs to be a list of each person that has skills in a certain area, such as good facilitation, evaluation and mediation skills, good analysis, report writing and mentoring skills. The list could be shared among all members.
In the case of Aitarak-laran, the Secretariat now has plenty of time to take the initiative with the members of RBR, and needs to re-plan the strategy on how to find the solution for the community in the area, where now the number of households is increasing. The RBR needs to organise a meeting with government to find the solution for those residents.
Interviews with MATADALAN BA RAI (MBR)
MBR is involved in the current structure of the division, with Antonio Delimas as coordinator and Carlos Salsinha as deputy. The MBR is one division of HABURAS Foundation, and this division has been established in 2010 long before HABURAS obtained support funding from the European Commission. This section only focused on land issues, advocating and mediating on cases of land disputes. According to the current coordinator, they published a book which was based on research, called “Komunidade Nian Lian Kona Ba Rai” which in English means “Community Voices of the Land. They produced a training manual with the title “Complexity of land and property and the actual political land in Timor-Leste”. The MBR also produced 200 pamphlets for campaigning on land issues and provided training to Non State Actors in the municipalities of Covalima and Oecusse about the rights of land and housing for its citizens based on Articles 54 and 58 of the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (RDTL). Although MBR had joining the Consortium, during the first year of the contract with EC, MBR recognised that the execution was too slow at the beginning. The structure of MBR meant that after Roberto da Cruz the former coordinator of MBR left, it affected programs and activities of the division. The MBR not only lost Roberto but also two other staff members of MBR resigned and went to work for international organisations. Despite the change in the MBR structure however, under the new coordinator Antonio Delimas they believe that the MBR will catch-up. The present team consider themselves proactive in advocacy, for instance strong involvement of the MBR in mediating land disputes in Covalima municipality such as at the Airport and Suai Supply Base. The MBR is also considered to have strong links with Land Defence Group (LDG) in Covalima, and has successfully accompanied evictees of the mega-project called Zona Economic Exclusive and Social Market (ZEEMS) in the municipality of Oecusse. The evictees lost their land and houses which were taken by ZEEMS for the enlargement of roads, roundabouts, central electricity, hotels and more mega-projects of the ZEEMS.
Interviews with Land Defence Group (LDG) in the Municipality of Covalima
Seven people participated in these interviews; one person was a representative of the Camenasa Village Chief, two of sub-village chiefs, two of the youth council, and two people were representatives of the community. From the seven interviewees which were all part of the Land Defence Group, two of the participants attended training on land issues 6-7 times; three participants were involved in training 4-5 times and two others attended training on land issues 3-4 times. One of the participants confirmed that MBR has provided training at the village level, for example in the village of Oques. Regarding the material used for the training, seven of them agreed that the material was technical and needs to be made much simpler and given more local examples so that they can understand better. They stated that half of the training manual which was around six pages just explained about the general concept of international conventions. Despite the complexity of the material, three of them explained that they did try to re-read the material just to have better understanding, however, the other four participants when asked were unable to remember the context of the material.
The Land Defence Group asked if MBR could socialise the details about the draft of the Land Act, because they still do not have an understanding of the draft law. One of the members of the Land Defence Group his under pressure from his community to defend his village Oques from a new freeway project which will take an extra 100 meters of land; he therefore believes that understanding the draft Land Act will help his community negotiate with the government.
One of the seven people interviewed is Tito Abilio, who is responsible as Acting Village Chief in Suco Camenasa. Tito is very actively involved in the advocacy process and is confident in explaining the land cases of Novo Suai, Suai Supply Base and Airport in Camenasa. The seven interview participants stated that they heard about Rede Ba Rai but they don’t know exactly what they are doing in Covalima, but only knows HABURAS through MBR work. The participants agreed that the Committee Organiser (Beni) is very proactive in accompanying the advocacy process with other Land Defence Group members, however, they would like to see more clear and systematic planning activities from him. The members of the Land Defence Group agreed that they have a very good relationship with the former director of DNTPSC of Suai Sr. Afonso, however they expressed that the new director of DNTPSC does not really cooperate because he is not from Suai-Covalima.
Analysis from evaluator
The comments from the partners of MBR in Covalima specifically about the training material indicate that they all found it very hard to understand the content of the material. However, it can be asked whether these target groups actually have an interest in this training. They have an interest in the draft laws of the Land Act, because they have all been victims of the mega-project. For example Sr. Tito Abilio from Camenasa, is very enthusiastic to know how many people are working on the Airport project, and also wants to know why no one from his village of Camenasa is working on the project. Despite the training material, the partners also questioned the Committee Organiser’s (Maun Beni’s) activity plan, as they would like to see a work plan that is clear and systematic.
Recommendation
The training that would appear to be the most beneficial at the moment is with regard to effective and efficient advocacy, not just an understanding of the right to equal land and housing.
With regard to the proposition from partners about the CO, the evaluator recommends to Haburas, MBR and the Secretariat of RBR that they should design an activity plan for the CO of COVALIMA, and the plan must correlate to the program, at least for a twelve month period.
Interviews with HAK Association
HAK Association is one of the veteran NGOs which was established back in Indonesian times. As an expert on human rights issues, HABURAS invited them to join the Consortium and together designed the proposal for Land and Housing Justice Action. According to the interview with the Director of HAK Manuel Monteiro, thus far HAK is confident about the programs and activities that have been scheduled to be implemented. Moreover, Manuel emphasised that HAK has produced two training materials including ‘Saida Mak Direitus Humanos’ and ‘Saida Mak Advokasia’, and in addition to that he also mentioned that they have feedback on commentary form from participants after attended training. Based on the report form for March – July 2015, training has been implemented six times about the right for equal land and housing, and six times about monitoring and advocacy of the right to equal land and housing. He also recognised they have a good relationship between HAK and FTM and sometimes with KSI as well. Furthermore, he is very proud of HAK that has 25 members in its Strategic Target Group which is called Grupo Alvu Stratejic (GAS), which is considered very strong in advocating on human rights issues.
Interviews with Grupo Alvu Stratejic (GAS) in Baucau
The interviews in the municipality of Baucau involved five people which included three community representatives, one lawyer from a local NGO in Baucau called Fundasaun Edukasaun Comunidade Matebian (FECM), and one director of DNTPSC Baucau, Sr. Sancho Guterres. The GAS partner in Baucau stated that they have attended training around 4-6 times - they felt that the material on human rights was too simple, and they recommended that extra detail be added as well as more examples from a culture perspective. In contrast to the human rights material, the partners considered the advocacy material to be complex and used too many high technical terms, and the content of the material does not provide any local examples. However, they did enjoy facilitation by a particular trainer who is according to them is always energetic and entertaining which made the participants not get bored. At the interview the evaluator found that that Village Chief of Tirlolo and the lawyer from FECM had enough capacity to interpret the training materials, and can explain very well Articles 54 and 58 of the RDTL Constitution which grants land and property rights to every citizen.
In addition to quality interpretation by its members, the GAS partner also recognised Rozito as being very proactive in facilitating mediation and advocacy land disputes in the municipalities of Baucau and Viqueque. As one of the long term staff members with HAK, according to the GAS Rozito is at the moment focused on advocacy of community land in Kaisidu village, where the land will be taken by government for cement mining. Furthermore, Rozito together with another GAS member is actively involved in mediation of land disputes in the villages of Tirlolo, Buruma and Wailili. According to the Village Chief Tirlolo, between 2013 – 2015 between 40 and 50 land dispute cases have occurred, however not all have been documented.
The GAS partner recommended that future training should be implemented in the villages and sub-villages. They also stated that they will submit a proposal to Rede Ba Rai Secretariat which will includes programs and activities for twelve months. If the proposal is agreed to by RBR, they will conduct an evaluation every three months. In their final recommendation they proposed to hold in future training about the civil code (kodiku prosesu civil) and socialising the draft laws of the land.
Interviews with DNTPSC of Baucau Municipality
In the interview that involved the director of DNTPSC, the director Sancho Guterres recognised that has attended one training organised by HAK, however because this is new position for him (four months), he actually does not know much about the relationship between HAK and DNTPSC in the past.
Analysis of evaluator
Based on the interviews in Baucau, the evaluator can understand why some partners of HAK understand the training material and some do not. This is because some partners have an interest in knowing, because they have responsibilities – for example the Village Chief of Tirlolo needs to know because his community could ask him about the training; the same could apply to the young lawyer - even though she is new in that NGO because she is lawyer she has to use her intelligence to absorb the material and share it with other staff in her office.
With regard to HAK staff in Baucau and Viqueque, or Beni and Ajanu as CO for Haburas in Covalima and Oecusse, this is not something unusual, because usually focal points, committee organisers, district officers, or liaison officers are close to their communities and the community tends to say good things about them. In a short time it is not easy to identify their weaknesses. However, it is the case that Rozito complained that when it comes to the rainy session, it is difficult for him to mobilise activities in two municipalities with only a motorbike, at the same time.
Recommendation
This recommendation is not only for HAK but for all members of the consortium and members of RBR, that need to map their partners capability. For example, HAK needs to have a database of their GAS members, listed individually, and of how many times that individual has attended any kind of training from HAK or other organisations. Such a database system will help any organisation to see how strong their partners are.
The evaluator would also like to propose to HAK to encourage their partners to write down any activities or any cases of land disputes in their area.
The evaluator would also like to recommend to HAK to employee one more staff member, or Rozito can still perform the tasks but HAK has to provide him with a four-wheel drive.
Interviews with partners of HAK in Municipality of Viqueque
In the interview with HAK partners in Suco Ossurua, Postu Ossu and the municipality of Viqueque, the interviews involved one Village Chief, one Sub-Village Chief and one ordinary person who was also part of the 25 members of GAS. In the interviews the Village Chief of Ossurua could explain very well about what is human rights, but for the advocacy material all three participants felt that it was very technical and hard to understand. Therefore they recommended to hold training at the village and sub-village level, and stated that the community of Ossurua needs to know about the draft of land laws, because there are people in the village from Indonesian times who are concerned that they may one day be forced to leave, as there are others claiming that they are the landlord, which has also pushed these people to renovate their houses as well. The fundamental question from the community as stated by the Village Chief is will the community who has lived in this village for more than forty years have a right to a claim on the land?
Analysis of evaluator
The case above shows that the partners are not really invested in the trainings; they only want HAK to socialise the draft laws of the Land Act. And because the community has lived in that place for nearly forty years (even though culturally it does not belong to them), including the Village Chief, they do need socialisation of the draft Land Act as soon as possible, to clarify their rights to land.
Recommendation
For HAK to immediately begin socialisation of the draft Land Acts.
Interviews with partners of HAK and FTM in the Municipality of Viqueque
The interview involved five people which was composed of one Sub-Village Chief, two youth representatives, one local NGO, one Coordinator of the Victims Association and the Director DNTPSC of Viqueque Sr. Mateus Ramos Pereira. Both HAK and FTM claim that these five participants are their members. According to HAK they are part of GAS, and the same was also expressed by FTM. Out of the five interviewees, two of them are local NGOs. Representatives of the victims association stated that they have attended training more than 5-7 times, and the Sub-Village Chief plus two others acknowledge that they have attended more than 3-4 times. All of them remember having attended three days training in Viqueque which was organised by HAK and FTM in June 2014. Interestingly from these interviews, one of the participants still had his notebook with him, and when the evaluator asked if they remembered what kind of material they have received from the training back then, this participant was able to easily answer the question because he had everything written down in his notebook. He could explain very well the difference between material presented by HAK and FTM, and stated that he felt that the material from the two organisations did not correlate with each other, therefore sometimes confusing the participants of training, and he stated that the training manual from HAK ‘Saida Mak Direitus Humanos’ was very simple, but that the other material from FTM which is a manual on training of trainers (ToT) he felt was very technical and to become a good facilitator it is necessary to have more practice to use the material. During the interviews the partners all agreed that generally speaking in trainings participants found it a struggle to stay focused. Two of those partners stated that they had attended a comparative study that was organised by HAK back in 2014. They felt that the program was good and that more of these were needed in future. Besides that, four of those partners told the evaluator they attended the socialisation program conducted by FTM in the villages of Uaniuma, Maluru, Vessoru, Uma Kiik, Uma Wain Kraik and Babulu. Moreover, one of the partners recommended to have more training of trainers (TOT). Furthermore, five of them proposed to organise a Strategic Planning (SP) together with HAK and FTM and develop a proposal, the aim of which would be to access the EC grant through the Secretariat of RBR.
Analysis of evaluator
The interviews showed that the training material of FTM and HAK which includes training on equal land and housing rights, how to become a good facilitator, human rights and how to do advocacy, confused the participants if presented at once in one training activity. The polarity of knowledge also became an issue for participants to be able to absorb the material.
Recommendation
Refer to the same recommendation as proposed to partners of HAK in Baucau, which is to organise a human resources database for the partners.
Regarding correlation of material, the evaluator would like to refer to a suggestion from BELUN that all members of the Consortium need to sit down together and re-evaluate their training materials.
The evaluator would like to endorse the idea from partners in Viqueque to develop a proposal together between HAK, FTM and partners to submit to the Secretariat of RBR.
Interviews with BELUN
An interview was conducted with Izalde Correia Pinto, as Program Coordinator for Land and Housing Justice Action from BELUN. According to Izalde, the activities that were scheduled for implementation this year (2015), is one training in each of the municipalities of Baucau, Manatuto and Bobonaro, and the training was about ‘mediation of land disputes’. The training targeted village chiefs and village councils; for example in Baucau, the training was participated in by 19 participants from the villages of Tirlolo, Bahu, and Buruma and it was held from 26-28 of October 2015. In Manatuto the training was participated in by 17 participants from the villages of Sahul, Kaiteas, Ai-lili, Ma’abat, and Kribas, and it was held in March 2015. In Bobonaro, the training was participated in by 22 participants from the villages of Holsa, Rahinea, Ritabou, Raihu and Lahimeu. Training material was called “Modul Mediasaun” and was about 18 pages long.
Interviews with partners of BELUN
An interview was conducted via telephone call with the Village Chief of Buruma, Sr. Antonio Belo. “The training was good and the training material was perfect, because it explained the options of how to resolve any problem, and those options included negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and tribunal”. Sr. Antonio acknowledged that this is not the first time for him to attend training about land disputes and mediation; he acknowledged having received this kind of training in the past from other institutions such as GIZ, PDHJ, and DNTPSC. As Village Chief, the community always came to him asking to resolve land disputes. Since he became the Village Chief of Buruma in 2012, he has facilitated a mediation process for more than fifty case of land disputes; around thirty cases were resolved through a mediation process, while the rest went to court. When the evaluator ask if he had ever written any of the cases down, he explained that some of the cases are huge and very complicated and therefore he had only documented some of them.
Analysis of evaluator
Based on the interview the evaluator can conclude that Sr. Antonio Belo has the capacity to facilitate mediation because he is the Village Chief. Culturally the community only believes in and trusts the Village Chief or the elders (katuas lia-nain) to facilitate mediation. Sr. Antonio understands very well the training material, but wishes to focus on one technique and that is mediation. This is interesting because there are other options including negotiation, arbitration and tribunal, however he is interested only in the mediation process because according to him that is the most successful process that he has used to solve any problems in his villages.
Recommendation
The evaluator believes that this is a good start for BELUN because it targets the local authority as their beneficiaries. The evaluator would like to recommend to BELUN to facilitate training based on specific targets such as facilitated mediation and resolution of cases. The evaluator also would like to propose to BELUN to organise a database which would only focus on registration of land disputants. BELUN also needs to expand the location of training to other municipalities.
Interviews with DNTPSC of the Municipality of Viqueque
In terms of its relationship with state actors, in this case its relationship with Dirasaun National Terras Propriadade Sistema Cadastral (DNTPSC), five of the interviewees questioned why the DNTPSC has started the measuring system (Sistema Cadastral) of people’s lands and housing while the Land Act has not become law yet. Moreover, if the DNTPSC keeps doing this, the community will think that certain people have the right to certain land and housing even though in some cases the land and housing is still subject to a dispute. To answer the above questions, the director of DNTPSC Sr. Mateus Ramos, says “the measuring system is based on a government plan which is a national program, and this has already begun in other municipalities, so accepted or not it has to keep going”. According to the director, they have a good relationship with civil society in Viqueque; he also mentioned that he had attended and was a speaker at a workshop organised by civil society, and he also presented a topic about UNTAET Regulation 03/2001. At the workshop he also listened to some other speakers from civil society who explained about how to become a good facilitator for the resolution of land dispute, which he thought was good material for a training. In the interview, he stated that DNTPSC will continue to collaborate with civil society however, DNTPSC will not socialise the draft Land Act because it is still considered to be a draft proposal. Before end of the interview, Sr. Mateus Ramos complained that DNTPSC Viqueque doesn’t have any transportation for facilitating their works; he asked that civil society refer this to the national level.
Interviews with Forum Tau Matan (FTM)
According to the Program Manager of Forum Tau Matan Zelia Fernandes, FTM has produced a training manual that includes two modules that are training of trainers and the right to equal land and housing. She also stated that FTM always documents pre-test and post-test before and after training. The pre-test and post-test is a questionnaire form for the training participants to answer questions about the training material. Forum Tau Matan recognises that it has a good relationship with HAK. FTM also agreed that the RBR Secretariat RBR has not been working well for the past eighteen months, however in the last three months many activities have been executed since the RBR Secretariat RBR now has a new interim coordinator. Based on her perspective about the Consortium, she stated that the regular meeting which was supposed to have been organised by PMU every three months sometimes doesn’t really work, because the Consortium members seem not really open to talk about their difficulties in the execution of their own programs.
Interviews with FTM Partners in the Municipality of Maun-Fahe
Interviews in the municipality of Maun-Fahe involved eight people, five of whom are from Centro Foinsae Boa Ventura (CEFOBOM), one person from the local NGO Luta Ba Futuru (LBF), one person from the community of Betano and the last interview with the director of DNTPSC of Maun-Fahe, Sr. Mariano Cortereal Tilman. In the first interview with five participants from the local organisation CEFOBOM, of the five, two of them confirmed that they had attended training 3-4 times, and three others stated that they had only attended training 1-2 times. Of the five only one was able to explain very well about the right to equal land and housing; the remaining four considered the language of the material to be very technical. Five of them recommended that more simple words should be used in the training material, and suggested that the facilitator use more games to keep the attention of participants, especially after lunch time. Based on the interviews, the five participants do not really know of any cases of land disputes in the municipality of Maun-Fahe, including Betano.
Interviews with DNTPSC in the Municipality of Maun-Fahe
During the interview, the director of DNTPSC, Sr. Mariano Cortereal Tilman stated that he just started in this position about four months ago, and so far he had not seen any local NGOs based in Maun-Fahe accompany the community of Betano. He also stated that the community of Betano really needs the presence of civil society to advocate for their problems, which are due to the government taking their land for the oil refinery mega project in Betano. The director stated that the mega-project will affect the community in Betano, because the Village Chief has declared 236 hectares of the land as belonging to the state. From 236 hectares according to Sr. Mariano, 230 hectares will be used for a refinery plant and 6 hectares will be used for new settlements in Novo Betano, which in this case the community of Betano are actually still confused as to who will settle in Novo Betano. According to data owned by DNTPSC, the mega-project of Betano will affect 20 households, and so far 236 hectares of land will get reimburse at $3 per meter square from the government. In a short time DNTPSC will publish information regarding the land that will be used for the mega-project refinery in Betano, and will then see if there are any complaints from the community of Betano.
Interview with local organisation LBF
Luta Ba Futuru (LBF) is a local NGO based in the municipality of Maun-Fahe. This organisation was established in 2009, focusing on the provision of clean water and sanitation to the community of Maun-Fahe. According to the interview with Armando da Silva, Coordinator of LBF, he has participated in training organised by FTM about 5-6 times. Armando could explain very well the concept of the right to equal land and housing. He can describe how to become a good facilitator, and he also still remembers what he learned from the training, for example he stated “first to become a good facilitator you have to become a good leader so you can lead the process; secondly, to become a good facilitator you have to act like a referee which means that you have to control time very well, thirdly, you have to be neutral and impartial”. When the evaluator asked if he knows if any socialisation has been implemented by FTM in Maun-Fahe, Armando stated that he personally accompanied the activities in Sucos Taitudac, Holarua and Betano in 2014, and for 2015 some of his staff accompanied activities in Sucos Fatukahe, Dotik, and Uma Berloic. He also stated that LBF will be considering about whether to monitor land issues in Betano.
Interviews with the community of Betano
During the interview with Sr. Virgilio Salsinha, who works at the Centro Saude of Same, he stated that as a member of the community of Betano he has also been affected by the refinery plant mega-project. Sr. Virgilio stated that the government has already measured his land, of which about 900 square meters will be affected by the project. However, he has been unhappy to learn that the government will only pay $3 per square meter. He also stressed that he has been very disappointed about the declaration by the village chiefs of Betano, and he rejected the idea that the land belongs to the government; he stated that even though they don’t have land title, every single community who lives in Betano is recognised that their ancestors used to live in the area. Sr. Virgilio also stated that they have never received any assistance from civil society in the municipality of Maun-Fahe to accompany their case. They questioned with regard to Novo Betano, who will settle in that place? Will it be the community of Betano who has been affected by the project, or will the new Betano village be only for company workers who will work for the project. He also recommended to NGO Luta Hamutuk to monitor and accompany their problems.
Analysis of Evaluator
Based on the interviews in Maun-Fahe, the evaluator would like to stress that this program of Land and Housing Justice Action is to guarantee that all the community have access to equal land and housing; what is the point of all the hard work in providing training to the partners, if in the end the community of Betano will become victims of injustice. What is the point of all the socialising activities that have been done in the villages when in the end twenty families in Betano don’t have anywhere to go.
Recommendation
FTM and RBR need to re-plan their strategy of how to accompany the community in Betano. Local organisation like LBF can be considered as partners to conduct monitoring in the field. The evaluator would like to recommend to RBR to facilitate partners like Land Defence Group from Covalima to go to Betano and discuss with the community that is going to be affected by the refinery mega-project. It will be a valuable lesson for the people of Betano if partners from Covalima can share their experience about Suai-Supply-Base, Airport, and Novo Suai.
Interview with Kdadalak Sulimutu Institute (KSI)
Based on the interviews with Program Manager of KSI, Jenito Santana, KSI has produced a training manual about the right to defend the land. In the manual there are seven sub-topics which includes (1) the right of citizens to claim the land based on article 54 and 58 of the RDTL Constitution (2) limitations on ownership of the land (3) the right to indigenous land (4) the right to customary land (5) how to obtain title (6) legal structure of Timor-Leste laws and regulations (7) What is land reform?
The KSI recognises that it has just started research on land issues in Ermera, conducted last month in October 2015, and will now be moving to the next step which is data entry data and analysis. Jenito also referred to the radio program which was conducted as a one-off live transmission at community radio in Ermera, which involved several speakers including the Director of DNTPSC of Ermera, coordinator of UNAER, and one community representative from Maudio; the topic of discussion was land disputes and land reform in Ermera, and the moderator was a KSI staff member. When the evaluator asked about production of the film, the director stated that it is now in the process of editing and will be finalised soon. However, according to him, KSI didn’t anticipate a budget for publication of the film which was around $20 per minute. When the evaluator questioned why the execution of activities had been delayed, Jenito responded that he recognised his organisation had been delayed in implementation of the program because one of his staff who had been responsible for implementation had resigned (and a replacement had now been recruited). KSI recommended to PMU that based on the contract that had been signed off between KSI and PMU, that there needed to be submitted a quarterly report. KSI also questioned why PMU had released a payment of 10% after the activities had been implemented.
Interviews with UNAER in Ermera
These interviews involved 7 participants all from a group called Uniaun Agricultura Ermera (UNAER). The participants were composed of five people from Commite Baze (Based Committee) and another two were president and vice-president of the Union. According to the interviewees, two of the members had attended training 7-8 times, another two had attended 5-6 times, and three others had also attended 3-4 times. When the evaluator asked questions to the three participants that had attended training 3-4 times, the evaluator was surprised that they could explain very well about the concept of land reform and also the right of each citizen to land and housing, based on Articles 54 and 58 of the RDTL Constitution. Unfortunately, when the evaluator asked about the other five sub-topics that were included in the training manual, it appeared that all of them felt uncomfortable to answer the questions. Three of the participants admitted that they had accompanied training on land reform in sucos; Mau-Ubu, Hatolia Vila, Mausae, and Fatukero in September 2015. According to the President of the union, Sr. Amaro, UNAER have fully supported all activities and programs conducted by KSI, and as an example he told the evaluator that recently his member had been actively involved actively in a research program which was the responsibility of KSI. The research was conducted from 23-28 October 2015, and samples were taken from four sub-districts including Railaco, Ermera, Hatolia and Letefoho, and from four sub-districts they took three villages, and in each village they took only two sub-villages and then interviewed 25 people from each aldeia or sub-village. The evaluator also asked questions about how they conducted the interviews, and they answered “it’s easy because all of the questions already have been written in the questionnaire form, so we just read the questions”, they stated that besides direct interviews they also conducted focus group discussions. The evaluator kept asking what kind of questions they have to ask to community, and they said the questions were around, how big is the size of your land? Where did you get your land from? When did you get your land, in which regime? Do you have any one to testify? The land that you have, is it secure?
The interviews then moved on to different issues, with the president and vice president asking about the follow-up of the establishment of re-forestation centre in Suco Talo and Manusae, questioning KSI about the reforestation implementation plan. They said that the “trees covering the coffee plantation are getting old”, therefore it needs to be reforested with new plants. UNAER asked about how to re-establish the cooperative that has not functioned for some time. Sr. Amaro also stated that UNAER has not yet been registered as a legal entity, and because of that the local authorities in Ermera have always questioned UNAER’s legal status to defend land issues in Ermera. The Union also asked if the secretariat of RBR can support the implement of some of their activities. According to the president, UNAER is very disappointed with the KSI liaison officer who spends too much time in Dili rather than Ermera. UNAER also asked the Secretariat of RBR to please consult with them first regarding the implementation of activities, before going directly into the field.
Analysis of evaluator
KSI appears to have an attitude that they can resolve all problems; not being aware of their limitations will cause difficulties in the future. The evaluator is concerned in particular about their capacity to execute one of their listed activities that is “Research on land ownership and inheritance of women and men in Ermera” - the evaluator believes that KSI needs assistance from other partners to do data entry and analyse the data and evidence.
Recommendation
The evaluator would like to recommend to Kdadalak Sulimutu Institute to discuss with PMU to find a solution to completing their film. The organisation also needs to talk to Lao Hamutuk about recording of the radio program, as well talk to members of RBR to find out about any resources that can help them to complete the above-mentioned research. The organisation needs to discuss with UNAER any planned activities that have not yet been implemented.
Interview with Haburas partners in the Region of Oecusse
Interviews in the region of Oecusse were a little bit different to interviews in the other municipalities. In Oecusse, the evaluator met four members of local NGO Machine Neo Oecusse (MANEO) and thirteen victims that had been affected by the mega-project of Zona Economic Exclusive Social Market (ZEEMS). In this region the evaluator did not have a chance to discuss training or capacity building that they had received from Haburas. When the evaluator arrive on Saturday morning at the office of MANEO NGO, the meeting began immediately involving eleven people. The participants were composed of a spokesperson for the victims, five members of the victims, one regional coordinator of Haburas, and four staff from MANEO organisation. Sr. Agustino da Costa Magno as spokesperson for the victims stated that the mega project of roads, power station and hotels has affected the communities of Ambeno
.
Firstly, the speakers stated that the project for the widening of the roads has affected the communities of Sakato, Nepani, Lifau, Lalisu, Cunha and Tono. In Suco Sakato, eleven families had to move out of their homes and give away four hectares of their land to ZEEMS for building of the new central electrical power plant. According to one of the victims Patricio Quebo, ZEEMS had promised them to pay them $3 dollar per meter square that they had lost but this had not happened to date.
At the same village, Sakato, Sr. Francisco Lopes Colo, used to have a house of 7x8 meter squared; ZEEMS asked him to pull down his house, which he did, however after the road had been widened, his original house was still three meters away from the edge of road. Sr. Francisco stated that ZEEMS had given him some materials that were not enough to rebuild a house of 7x8 meter squared. The same thing had also happened to Sr. Jose Koa, a journalist for the local newspaper STL, who had to stop working as a journalist because he had to rebuild his own house.
The interviews with Sr. Francisco Xavier, in the village of Umbei, Aldeia Sanane revealed that Sr. Francisco was dissatisfied with the ZEEMS project of road enlargement which had taken his house of 9x13 meters squared and 1100 meters square of land. A widow named Sra. Carolina Fui also experienced a similar situation, where ZEEMS had bulldozed half of house leaving the other half very unstable and exposed to wind and rain. Even after removing the side of the house, the existing house was still three meters away from the edge of the expanded road. Though they were compensated like the others, the amount of compensation was minimal compared to what they needed.
In the interview in Suco Tono, Sr. Joao Batista and Sra. Elisabeth Bobo expressed their dissatisfaction with the decision from ZEEMS which told them not to work on their rice field because if they spread the seeds, it would disturb the road project. However, over a year later the project has not yet started, and now 270 families who live in Suco Tono and who owns 42.1 hectares of rice fields cannot farm their rice.
Analysis of evaluator
Based on the interviews with the speakers and the victims, it appears that they have trust and believe in Haburas to advocate on their issues. They were very enthusiastic to meet with the evaluator and open up about the issues. They hope Haburas and RBR will follow-up their case to the national level.
Recommendation
Haburas needs to talk to other members of RBR about how to follow up the cases of those who have been affected by the ZEEMS project. The evaluator would like to recommend immediately find the solution for the 270 families that have been told that they cannot farm their land in Tono.
Program rationale and logic
According to the contract between Haburas and the EC, the Consortium led by Haburas with its partners was required to implement several programs to achieve four types of results. The activities of Result 1 include: 1.1 Production of training and public information materials; 1.2 Training on land and housing rights; 1.3 Training on land defence; 1.4 Training on agrarian reform; 1.5 Radio programming. The targets for Result 1 include increased land and housing rights literacy in key target groups of citizens, NSAs, local authorities and political actors.
The activities for Result 2 include: 2.1 Training in financial management for NSA partners in this action; 2.2 Stakeholders analysis; 2.3 Comprehensive capacity and training needs assessment of key NSAs and other target groups; 2.4 Workshop: Mapping of existing LHR information materials; 2.5 Training of trainers on popular education techniques; 2.6 Paralegal training to NSAs on defending land and housing rights; 2.7 Technical training on dispute resolution for partner NSAs; 2.8 Training on gender in relation to housing, land and environment; 2.9 Training of media on LHR; 2.10 Comparative study tour on land rights and experiences in Indonesia; 2.11 Technical training for district based NSAs; 2.12 Technical training for community and members. The target for Result 2 include: strengthened capacity of NSA’s at all levels to engage in local and national land and housing related development processes.
The activities for Result 3 include: 3.1 Establishment of case management systems (CSM); 3.2 Regular meetings of mediation and legal aid core group; 3.3 Provision of legal aid services; 3.4 Orientation meeting for disputants; 3.5 Disputants mediation; 3.6 Coordination and support to local mediators; 3.7 Mediation training to Las. The target for Result 3 is the effective provision of legal aid and mediation services to LHV communities.
The activities for Result 4 include: 4.1 Training RBR members in network management; 4.2 Regular round table discussion on civic education; 4.3 Regular RBR members meetings; 4.4 Production of advocacy materials; 4.5 Annual advocacy activities; 4.6 Media exposure; 4.7 Website development; 4.8 RBR Yearly internal evaluation; 4.9 Annual General Meeting; 4.10 RBR Strategic Plan for 2016-2020; 4.11 Research on land ownership and inheritance of women and men in Ermera; 4.12 Monitoring of the impact of land law implementation on farmers; 4.13 Sub-grants for district NSA activities and research. The target for Result 4 is the improvement in quality of land rights advocacy and increased opportunities for dialogue between LHV communities, NSAs, SAs and LAs.
Findings
Interviews with HABURAS Foundation
According to the interview with Deometrio Amaral, former director of HABURAS Foundation, the program of Land and Housing Justice Action is based on good quality research which was published through a document called “Komunidade Nian Lian Kona Ba Rai”, Community voices of the land (Matadalan Ba Rai, 2010). Demetrio stated that the expected result from the implementation of LHJA program was improved communication with communities about the needs of the land. The former director also stated that based on research documents the President of the Republic Democratic of Timor Leste has vetoed the proposed Land Act laws. Strategic advocacy is not only at a top level, but also Haburas Foundation with other members of the Land Network (Rede Ba Rai) accompanied and provided legal assistance to communities that were affected by evictions, in places such as in Timor-Plaza, Brimob, and Aitarak Laran.
On the other hand, Virgilio Guterres the current director of HABURAS Foundation stated the land is very important and in the future it will become a big problem. He therefore recommended that the European Commission continue to support this program. In the interviews he emphasised that HABURAS is institutionally responsible for three divisions including Matadalan Ba Rai, Rede Ba Rai and the Project Management Unit, all of which work on the Land and Housing Justice Action program. He recognised it is huge for HABURAS to look after all of them, therefore he proposed that Rede Ba Rai should have its own Constitution and internal regulations, independent and separate from HABURAS. Independent means that Rede Ba Rai can look for their own funding and be registered as an independent institution. The director is also dissatisfied with the Oversight Body (Ekipa Tau Matan) which according to him is not functioning well, causing the Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai to also not perform well.
Interviews with members of RBR about HABURAS
Five members of the Consortium including MBR, FTM, HAK, BELUN, and KSI are dissatisfied with the high structure of HABURAS, which they see as being slow to resolve problems at the Secretariat of RBR, which had previously been considered to be inactive and not making any progress over the past eighteen months. After the previous coordinator of the Secretariat was replaced by a new interim coordinator, the Secretariat appeared to regain trust from its members. However, according to four of the members of Consortium, the intervention from HABURAS Foundation in the restructure of the secretariat of RBR was considered too late, because the problem of mismanagement had been unresolved for more than eighteen months. The same dissatisfaction was also expressed by sixteen member organisations of RBR. However, around half of the members, about eight organisations were not aware of problems at the Secretariat.
Analysis from evaluator
It appears that the problem as explained above has been ignored with little attention paid to what has been happening at the Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai. The implementation of activities has been delayed for more than eighteen months. This is seen to be a serious problem because the Secretariat of RBR has managed to achieve 80% of total activities and the remaining 20% of activities were divided among HAK, MBR, FTM, KSI and BELUN. In interviews some of the members of RBR stated that “the previous coordinator of the Secretariat of RBR has a family relationship with the former director of Haburas”; if this is true, there is in fact a conflict of interest. After analysing the contract and activities plan which lists approximately 31 activities, the evaluator does not see any responsible activities for Haburas as an institution. There does not appear to be a mechanism for holding the Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai accountable. There is no mechanism and monitoring system, which has to written into the activities plan, which could take place through a regular meeting (weekly, monthly, quarterly) between the director of Haburas, the Coordinator of the Secretariat of RBR, and the Coordinator of the divisions of MBR and Grant Manager of PMU.
Recommendation
The evaluator would like to recommend to Haburas to hold a regular meeting, which could be weekly, every two weeks or monthly, just between these four people, which could be called the “EC management team meeting”. The EC representative could at times be invited to attend the meeting. This is a simple mechanism that could contribute towards preventing future problems. It should also be noted that the Oversight Body (Ekipa Tau Matan) is not part of the EC project and does not take part in the monitoring mechanism. If Haburas continues to rely on the Oversight Body, the same mistake could happen again.
The yearly internal evaluation could pick up the problem, but because the Secretariat of RBR is responsible for realisation of this activity, this activity did not happen last year, because the yearly internal evaluation only took place this year.
The evaluator also recommends to Haburas not to appoint someone or anyone that has any family relationship with the institution of Haburas. To prevent miss-management of finance in the future, the evaluator would like to propose to the EC to conduct financial auditing of this program.
Interviews with the Secretariat of Rede Ba Rai (RBR)
Rede Ba Rai in English word means Land Network, which is composed of sixteen organisations and some individuals.
Based on the interviews, the staff and current coordinator recognise that some of the activities and programs were not going well before, but after the change in the coordinator position and the replacement by the interim coordinator from September – November 2015, there are signs to show that the Secretariat is improving. According to staff, the hierarchy of HABURAS as an institution is unable to resolve problems that have been occurring internally at the Secretariat of RBR.
The current structure of RBR is also why the implementation of some activities and programs has been delayed; because recruitment of the PMU coordinator happened late, the activation of PMU did not start until April 2013. Rede Ba Rai also recognised that the capacity of RBR members of RBR is insufficient for conducting activities and programs that have been scheduled, and that the time for the inception process is not enough. Inception in this case means preparation for briefing on how to execute the activities and programs based on the timeline that has been scheduled. However, in the last three months from September to November 2015, according to staff, the RBR Secretariat RBR seems to be going well, particularly after they had five days for strategic planning meetings, which resumed planning some of the programs and activities and finalising their own constitutions and internal regulations for the network. They were able to decide on rules and responsibilities for the Oversight Body Ekipa Tau Matan, for supervising the work of the Secretariat. Although, the evaluator has not seen the report from strategic planning, it seems that confidence about the Oversight Body (Ekipa Tau Matan) has increased.
The Secretariat recognises that it does not get full support from members of RBR; for example when the members had planned to do monitoring of a case of land dispute in the municipalities, on the due date for travel, the members cancelled the trip without a fundamental reason. The Secretariat also feels disappointed with some institutions which are also a part of the RBR, for example when people come to HABURAS or HAK to complain about land dispute issues, they are told “The Secretariat of RBR are not in the office, perhaps you can come back tomorrow”. The interviews confirmed that the Secretariat has just reactivated regular meetings between members, however the Secretariat doesn’t feel comfortable at the meetings when they are asked by members about how many land dispute cases have been registered, and how many cases have received assistance from the Secretariat. Despite slowing down in the execution of activities, currently the Secretariat has called for sub-grant proposals which are open for members of RBR. The idea of calling for proposals from the members is to help execute all activities that have been planned by the Secretariat. Based on the interview with the current coordinator of the Secretariat, the Secretariat has received a few proposals so far from UNAER (Agriculture Union of Ermera), ITA BA PAS Foundation, FORUM TAU MATAN, LAIFET, HASATIL and is expecting more applications from the members.
Interviews with members about the Secretariat of RBR
According to an interview with one of the national organisations which has been active since the initial establishment of the network Rede Ba Rai, this organisation is disgruntled with the performance of the RBR Secretariat, which they see as not being transparent. The organisation is also disappointed with one of their staff members who is supposed to represent the organisation at the RBR, however the staff member has not provided any update on the work of the network back to the organisation.
Moreover, another national NGO based in Dili and also a member of RBR stated that it does not get any support from the Secretariat, even while this organisation worked hard in advocating for an eviction case in the sub-village of Aitarak-Laran. However, in contrast to this, the Chief of the sub-village Aitarak-Laran stated that “the advocacy for the eviction case of Aitarak-Laran has not only involved one single organisation, however has been a combined force from the community of Aitarak-Laran itself, involving some veteran members who are living in the area, together with some NGOs likes LAIFET, HABURAS, HASATIL, and RBR, who have all joined in one advocacy committee to defend the rights of the community of Aitarak-Laran. Despite the case, there is a concern around a continued risk of eviction, because the community has already accepted compensation from the government from $1500-$3500 per household. The Village Chief said, “If one day the government asks my community to leave the place, we have to go but we don’t know where to go”. Currently the number of families who live in that area has increased to fifty.
Analysis from evaluator
The Secretariat of RBR has described the delay in the implementation of program as being not only the fault of the Secretariat, but also came about because of the late appointment of PMU staff, and delays in conducting the inception process for all Consortium members on how to adjust their program and activities.
With regard to the “yearly internal evaluation”, the only internal evaluation report the evaluator has received is four pages from internal evaluator Meabh Cryan; the content of the report doesn’t refer to any reasons of delay in implementation of activities.
The reluctance of the other NGOs to attend to clients that come to complain about their land issues, is a signal of jealousy between the members as well as a disregard to advocate on land issues. It appears to be the case that every member of the Consortium works alone and competes against each other and not as a team to gain the same objective.
It is good to know that the Secretariat of RBR has called for proposals from its members. The case of Aitarak-Laran is like time bomb which will become a problem when come to eviction. Where will these families go? Who will be responsible for the settlement? What can RBR do for the solution?
Recommendation
The “yearly internal evaluation” needs to be reactivated because it could pick up any problems or obstacles that are faced by the Consortium and the members of RBR every twelve months not every twenty four months. This activity has to be organised and responsible for by HABURAS or PMU not the Secretariat. Experience has shown us that the first years didn’t have an internal evaluation due to failure in the Secretariat; if RBR has a good person as the coordinator, the same mistakes do not have to be repeated. Regular meetings between the consortium members should take place every month, and the agenda for the regular meetings should be clear, which includes updating the progress of activities and declaring any problems that might need assistance from other members. The PMU needs to be tougher at this meeting and might need an auto-criticism mechanism to evaluate the programs.
The evaluator would like to propose to the Secretariat of RBR that before granting a proposal, the Secretariat needs to make sure that they are clear on how they are going to execute the program - do they have enough time and human resources for implementation? What is Plan B if Plan A fails? These questions come up as a reflection on the failures of the Consortium in the implementation of activities. To overcome those difficulties, the secretariat of RBR needs to map the resources of each of its members, and to identify the human resources that are available in civil society, for example there needs to be a list of each person that has skills in a certain area, such as good facilitation, evaluation and mediation skills, good analysis, report writing and mentoring skills. The list could be shared among all members.
In the case of Aitarak-laran, the Secretariat now has plenty of time to take the initiative with the members of RBR, and needs to re-plan the strategy on how to find the solution for the community in the area, where now the number of households is increasing. The RBR needs to organise a meeting with government to find the solution for those residents.
Interviews with MATADALAN BA RAI (MBR)
MBR is involved in the current structure of the division, with Antonio Delimas as coordinator and Carlos Salsinha as deputy. The MBR is one division of HABURAS Foundation, and this division has been established in 2010 long before HABURAS obtained support funding from the European Commission. This section only focused on land issues, advocating and mediating on cases of land disputes. According to the current coordinator, they published a book which was based on research, called “Komunidade Nian Lian Kona Ba Rai” which in English means “Community Voices of the Land. They produced a training manual with the title “Complexity of land and property and the actual political land in Timor-Leste”. The MBR also produced 200 pamphlets for campaigning on land issues and provided training to Non State Actors in the municipalities of Covalima and Oecusse about the rights of land and housing for its citizens based on Articles 54 and 58 of the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (RDTL). Although MBR had joining the Consortium, during the first year of the contract with EC, MBR recognised that the execution was too slow at the beginning. The structure of MBR meant that after Roberto da Cruz the former coordinator of MBR left, it affected programs and activities of the division. The MBR not only lost Roberto but also two other staff members of MBR resigned and went to work for international organisations. Despite the change in the MBR structure however, under the new coordinator Antonio Delimas they believe that the MBR will catch-up. The present team consider themselves proactive in advocacy, for instance strong involvement of the MBR in mediating land disputes in Covalima municipality such as at the Airport and Suai Supply Base. The MBR is also considered to have strong links with Land Defence Group (LDG) in Covalima, and has successfully accompanied evictees of the mega-project called Zona Economic Exclusive and Social Market (ZEEMS) in the municipality of Oecusse. The evictees lost their land and houses which were taken by ZEEMS for the enlargement of roads, roundabouts, central electricity, hotels and more mega-projects of the ZEEMS.
Interviews with Land Defence Group (LDG) in the Municipality of Covalima
Seven people participated in these interviews; one person was a representative of the Camenasa Village Chief, two of sub-village chiefs, two of the youth council, and two people were representatives of the community. From the seven interviewees which were all part of the Land Defence Group, two of the participants attended training on land issues 6-7 times; three participants were involved in training 4-5 times and two others attended training on land issues 3-4 times. One of the participants confirmed that MBR has provided training at the village level, for example in the village of Oques. Regarding the material used for the training, seven of them agreed that the material was technical and needs to be made much simpler and given more local examples so that they can understand better. They stated that half of the training manual which was around six pages just explained about the general concept of international conventions. Despite the complexity of the material, three of them explained that they did try to re-read the material just to have better understanding, however, the other four participants when asked were unable to remember the context of the material.
The Land Defence Group asked if MBR could socialise the details about the draft of the Land Act, because they still do not have an understanding of the draft law. One of the members of the Land Defence Group his under pressure from his community to defend his village Oques from a new freeway project which will take an extra 100 meters of land; he therefore believes that understanding the draft Land Act will help his community negotiate with the government.
One of the seven people interviewed is Tito Abilio, who is responsible as Acting Village Chief in Suco Camenasa. Tito is very actively involved in the advocacy process and is confident in explaining the land cases of Novo Suai, Suai Supply Base and Airport in Camenasa. The seven interview participants stated that they heard about Rede Ba Rai but they don’t know exactly what they are doing in Covalima, but only knows HABURAS through MBR work. The participants agreed that the Committee Organiser (Beni) is very proactive in accompanying the advocacy process with other Land Defence Group members, however, they would like to see more clear and systematic planning activities from him. The members of the Land Defence Group agreed that they have a very good relationship with the former director of DNTPSC of Suai Sr. Afonso, however they expressed that the new director of DNTPSC does not really cooperate because he is not from Suai-Covalima.
Analysis from evaluator
The comments from the partners of MBR in Covalima specifically about the training material indicate that they all found it very hard to understand the content of the material. However, it can be asked whether these target groups actually have an interest in this training. They have an interest in the draft laws of the Land Act, because they have all been victims of the mega-project. For example Sr. Tito Abilio from Camenasa, is very enthusiastic to know how many people are working on the Airport project, and also wants to know why no one from his village of Camenasa is working on the project. Despite the training material, the partners also questioned the Committee Organiser’s (Maun Beni’s) activity plan, as they would like to see a work plan that is clear and systematic.
Recommendation
The training that would appear to be the most beneficial at the moment is with regard to effective and efficient advocacy, not just an understanding of the right to equal land and housing.
With regard to the proposition from partners about the CO, the evaluator recommends to Haburas, MBR and the Secretariat of RBR that they should design an activity plan for the CO of COVALIMA, and the plan must correlate to the program, at least for a twelve month period.
Interviews with HAK Association
HAK Association is one of the veteran NGOs which was established back in Indonesian times. As an expert on human rights issues, HABURAS invited them to join the Consortium and together designed the proposal for Land and Housing Justice Action. According to the interview with the Director of HAK Manuel Monteiro, thus far HAK is confident about the programs and activities that have been scheduled to be implemented. Moreover, Manuel emphasised that HAK has produced two training materials including ‘Saida Mak Direitus Humanos’ and ‘Saida Mak Advokasia’, and in addition to that he also mentioned that they have feedback on commentary form from participants after attended training. Based on the report form for March – July 2015, training has been implemented six times about the right for equal land and housing, and six times about monitoring and advocacy of the right to equal land and housing. He also recognised they have a good relationship between HAK and FTM and sometimes with KSI as well. Furthermore, he is very proud of HAK that has 25 members in its Strategic Target Group which is called Grupo Alvu Stratejic (GAS), which is considered very strong in advocating on human rights issues.
Interviews with Grupo Alvu Stratejic (GAS) in Baucau
The interviews in the municipality of Baucau involved five people which included three community representatives, one lawyer from a local NGO in Baucau called Fundasaun Edukasaun Comunidade Matebian (FECM), and one director of DNTPSC Baucau, Sr. Sancho Guterres. The GAS partner in Baucau stated that they have attended training around 4-6 times - they felt that the material on human rights was too simple, and they recommended that extra detail be added as well as more examples from a culture perspective. In contrast to the human rights material, the partners considered the advocacy material to be complex and used too many high technical terms, and the content of the material does not provide any local examples. However, they did enjoy facilitation by a particular trainer who is according to them is always energetic and entertaining which made the participants not get bored. At the interview the evaluator found that that Village Chief of Tirlolo and the lawyer from FECM had enough capacity to interpret the training materials, and can explain very well Articles 54 and 58 of the RDTL Constitution which grants land and property rights to every citizen.
In addition to quality interpretation by its members, the GAS partner also recognised Rozito as being very proactive in facilitating mediation and advocacy land disputes in the municipalities of Baucau and Viqueque. As one of the long term staff members with HAK, according to the GAS Rozito is at the moment focused on advocacy of community land in Kaisidu village, where the land will be taken by government for cement mining. Furthermore, Rozito together with another GAS member is actively involved in mediation of land disputes in the villages of Tirlolo, Buruma and Wailili. According to the Village Chief Tirlolo, between 2013 – 2015 between 40 and 50 land dispute cases have occurred, however not all have been documented.
The GAS partner recommended that future training should be implemented in the villages and sub-villages. They also stated that they will submit a proposal to Rede Ba Rai Secretariat which will includes programs and activities for twelve months. If the proposal is agreed to by RBR, they will conduct an evaluation every three months. In their final recommendation they proposed to hold in future training about the civil code (kodiku prosesu civil) and socialising the draft laws of the land.
Interviews with DNTPSC of Baucau Municipality
In the interview that involved the director of DNTPSC, the director Sancho Guterres recognised that has attended one training organised by HAK, however because this is new position for him (four months), he actually does not know much about the relationship between HAK and DNTPSC in the past.
Analysis of evaluator
Based on the interviews in Baucau, the evaluator can understand why some partners of HAK understand the training material and some do not. This is because some partners have an interest in knowing, because they have responsibilities – for example the Village Chief of Tirlolo needs to know because his community could ask him about the training; the same could apply to the young lawyer - even though she is new in that NGO because she is lawyer she has to use her intelligence to absorb the material and share it with other staff in her office.
With regard to HAK staff in Baucau and Viqueque, or Beni and Ajanu as CO for Haburas in Covalima and Oecusse, this is not something unusual, because usually focal points, committee organisers, district officers, or liaison officers are close to their communities and the community tends to say good things about them. In a short time it is not easy to identify their weaknesses. However, it is the case that Rozito complained that when it comes to the rainy session, it is difficult for him to mobilise activities in two municipalities with only a motorbike, at the same time.
Recommendation
This recommendation is not only for HAK but for all members of the consortium and members of RBR, that need to map their partners capability. For example, HAK needs to have a database of their GAS members, listed individually, and of how many times that individual has attended any kind of training from HAK or other organisations. Such a database system will help any organisation to see how strong their partners are.
The evaluator would also like to propose to HAK to encourage their partners to write down any activities or any cases of land disputes in their area.
The evaluator would also like to recommend to HAK to employee one more staff member, or Rozito can still perform the tasks but HAK has to provide him with a four-wheel drive.
Interviews with partners of HAK in Municipality of Viqueque
In the interview with HAK partners in Suco Ossurua, Postu Ossu and the municipality of Viqueque, the interviews involved one Village Chief, one Sub-Village Chief and one ordinary person who was also part of the 25 members of GAS. In the interviews the Village Chief of Ossurua could explain very well about what is human rights, but for the advocacy material all three participants felt that it was very technical and hard to understand. Therefore they recommended to hold training at the village and sub-village level, and stated that the community of Ossurua needs to know about the draft of land laws, because there are people in the village from Indonesian times who are concerned that they may one day be forced to leave, as there are others claiming that they are the landlord, which has also pushed these people to renovate their houses as well. The fundamental question from the community as stated by the Village Chief is will the community who has lived in this village for more than forty years have a right to a claim on the land?
Analysis of evaluator
The case above shows that the partners are not really invested in the trainings; they only want HAK to socialise the draft laws of the Land Act. And because the community has lived in that place for nearly forty years (even though culturally it does not belong to them), including the Village Chief, they do need socialisation of the draft Land Act as soon as possible, to clarify their rights to land.
Recommendation
For HAK to immediately begin socialisation of the draft Land Acts.
Interviews with partners of HAK and FTM in the Municipality of Viqueque
The interview involved five people which was composed of one Sub-Village Chief, two youth representatives, one local NGO, one Coordinator of the Victims Association and the Director DNTPSC of Viqueque Sr. Mateus Ramos Pereira. Both HAK and FTM claim that these five participants are their members. According to HAK they are part of GAS, and the same was also expressed by FTM. Out of the five interviewees, two of them are local NGOs. Representatives of the victims association stated that they have attended training more than 5-7 times, and the Sub-Village Chief plus two others acknowledge that they have attended more than 3-4 times. All of them remember having attended three days training in Viqueque which was organised by HAK and FTM in June 2014. Interestingly from these interviews, one of the participants still had his notebook with him, and when the evaluator asked if they remembered what kind of material they have received from the training back then, this participant was able to easily answer the question because he had everything written down in his notebook. He could explain very well the difference between material presented by HAK and FTM, and stated that he felt that the material from the two organisations did not correlate with each other, therefore sometimes confusing the participants of training, and he stated that the training manual from HAK ‘Saida Mak Direitus Humanos’ was very simple, but that the other material from FTM which is a manual on training of trainers (ToT) he felt was very technical and to become a good facilitator it is necessary to have more practice to use the material. During the interviews the partners all agreed that generally speaking in trainings participants found it a struggle to stay focused. Two of those partners stated that they had attended a comparative study that was organised by HAK back in 2014. They felt that the program was good and that more of these were needed in future. Besides that, four of those partners told the evaluator they attended the socialisation program conducted by FTM in the villages of Uaniuma, Maluru, Vessoru, Uma Kiik, Uma Wain Kraik and Babulu. Moreover, one of the partners recommended to have more training of trainers (TOT). Furthermore, five of them proposed to organise a Strategic Planning (SP) together with HAK and FTM and develop a proposal, the aim of which would be to access the EC grant through the Secretariat of RBR.
Analysis of evaluator
The interviews showed that the training material of FTM and HAK which includes training on equal land and housing rights, how to become a good facilitator, human rights and how to do advocacy, confused the participants if presented at once in one training activity. The polarity of knowledge also became an issue for participants to be able to absorb the material.
Recommendation
Refer to the same recommendation as proposed to partners of HAK in Baucau, which is to organise a human resources database for the partners.
Regarding correlation of material, the evaluator would like to refer to a suggestion from BELUN that all members of the Consortium need to sit down together and re-evaluate their training materials.
The evaluator would like to endorse the idea from partners in Viqueque to develop a proposal together between HAK, FTM and partners to submit to the Secretariat of RBR.
Interviews with BELUN
An interview was conducted with Izalde Correia Pinto, as Program Coordinator for Land and Housing Justice Action from BELUN. According to Izalde, the activities that were scheduled for implementation this year (2015), is one training in each of the municipalities of Baucau, Manatuto and Bobonaro, and the training was about ‘mediation of land disputes’. The training targeted village chiefs and village councils; for example in Baucau, the training was participated in by 19 participants from the villages of Tirlolo, Bahu, and Buruma and it was held from 26-28 of October 2015. In Manatuto the training was participated in by 17 participants from the villages of Sahul, Kaiteas, Ai-lili, Ma’abat, and Kribas, and it was held in March 2015. In Bobonaro, the training was participated in by 22 participants from the villages of Holsa, Rahinea, Ritabou, Raihu and Lahimeu. Training material was called “Modul Mediasaun” and was about 18 pages long.
Interviews with partners of BELUN
An interview was conducted via telephone call with the Village Chief of Buruma, Sr. Antonio Belo. “The training was good and the training material was perfect, because it explained the options of how to resolve any problem, and those options included negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and tribunal”. Sr. Antonio acknowledged that this is not the first time for him to attend training about land disputes and mediation; he acknowledged having received this kind of training in the past from other institutions such as GIZ, PDHJ, and DNTPSC. As Village Chief, the community always came to him asking to resolve land disputes. Since he became the Village Chief of Buruma in 2012, he has facilitated a mediation process for more than fifty case of land disputes; around thirty cases were resolved through a mediation process, while the rest went to court. When the evaluator ask if he had ever written any of the cases down, he explained that some of the cases are huge and very complicated and therefore he had only documented some of them.
Analysis of evaluator
Based on the interview the evaluator can conclude that Sr. Antonio Belo has the capacity to facilitate mediation because he is the Village Chief. Culturally the community only believes in and trusts the Village Chief or the elders (katuas lia-nain) to facilitate mediation. Sr. Antonio understands very well the training material, but wishes to focus on one technique and that is mediation. This is interesting because there are other options including negotiation, arbitration and tribunal, however he is interested only in the mediation process because according to him that is the most successful process that he has used to solve any problems in his villages.
Recommendation
The evaluator believes that this is a good start for BELUN because it targets the local authority as their beneficiaries. The evaluator would like to recommend to BELUN to facilitate training based on specific targets such as facilitated mediation and resolution of cases. The evaluator also would like to propose to BELUN to organise a database which would only focus on registration of land disputants. BELUN also needs to expand the location of training to other municipalities.
Interviews with DNTPSC of the Municipality of Viqueque
In terms of its relationship with state actors, in this case its relationship with Dirasaun National Terras Propriadade Sistema Cadastral (DNTPSC), five of the interviewees questioned why the DNTPSC has started the measuring system (Sistema Cadastral) of people’s lands and housing while the Land Act has not become law yet. Moreover, if the DNTPSC keeps doing this, the community will think that certain people have the right to certain land and housing even though in some cases the land and housing is still subject to a dispute. To answer the above questions, the director of DNTPSC Sr. Mateus Ramos, says “the measuring system is based on a government plan which is a national program, and this has already begun in other municipalities, so accepted or not it has to keep going”. According to the director, they have a good relationship with civil society in Viqueque; he also mentioned that he had attended and was a speaker at a workshop organised by civil society, and he also presented a topic about UNTAET Regulation 03/2001. At the workshop he also listened to some other speakers from civil society who explained about how to become a good facilitator for the resolution of land dispute, which he thought was good material for a training. In the interview, he stated that DNTPSC will continue to collaborate with civil society however, DNTPSC will not socialise the draft Land Act because it is still considered to be a draft proposal. Before end of the interview, Sr. Mateus Ramos complained that DNTPSC Viqueque doesn’t have any transportation for facilitating their works; he asked that civil society refer this to the national level.
Interviews with Forum Tau Matan (FTM)
According to the Program Manager of Forum Tau Matan Zelia Fernandes, FTM has produced a training manual that includes two modules that are training of trainers and the right to equal land and housing. She also stated that FTM always documents pre-test and post-test before and after training. The pre-test and post-test is a questionnaire form for the training participants to answer questions about the training material. Forum Tau Matan recognises that it has a good relationship with HAK. FTM also agreed that the RBR Secretariat RBR has not been working well for the past eighteen months, however in the last three months many activities have been executed since the RBR Secretariat RBR now has a new interim coordinator. Based on her perspective about the Consortium, she stated that the regular meeting which was supposed to have been organised by PMU every three months sometimes doesn’t really work, because the Consortium members seem not really open to talk about their difficulties in the execution of their own programs.
Interviews with FTM Partners in the Municipality of Maun-Fahe
Interviews in the municipality of Maun-Fahe involved eight people, five of whom are from Centro Foinsae Boa Ventura (CEFOBOM), one person from the local NGO Luta Ba Futuru (LBF), one person from the community of Betano and the last interview with the director of DNTPSC of Maun-Fahe, Sr. Mariano Cortereal Tilman. In the first interview with five participants from the local organisation CEFOBOM, of the five, two of them confirmed that they had attended training 3-4 times, and three others stated that they had only attended training 1-2 times. Of the five only one was able to explain very well about the right to equal land and housing; the remaining four considered the language of the material to be very technical. Five of them recommended that more simple words should be used in the training material, and suggested that the facilitator use more games to keep the attention of participants, especially after lunch time. Based on the interviews, the five participants do not really know of any cases of land disputes in the municipality of Maun-Fahe, including Betano.
Interviews with DNTPSC in the Municipality of Maun-Fahe
During the interview, the director of DNTPSC, Sr. Mariano Cortereal Tilman stated that he just started in this position about four months ago, and so far he had not seen any local NGOs based in Maun-Fahe accompany the community of Betano. He also stated that the community of Betano really needs the presence of civil society to advocate for their problems, which are due to the government taking their land for the oil refinery mega project in Betano. The director stated that the mega-project will affect the community in Betano, because the Village Chief has declared 236 hectares of the land as belonging to the state. From 236 hectares according to Sr. Mariano, 230 hectares will be used for a refinery plant and 6 hectares will be used for new settlements in Novo Betano, which in this case the community of Betano are actually still confused as to who will settle in Novo Betano. According to data owned by DNTPSC, the mega-project of Betano will affect 20 households, and so far 236 hectares of land will get reimburse at $3 per meter square from the government. In a short time DNTPSC will publish information regarding the land that will be used for the mega-project refinery in Betano, and will then see if there are any complaints from the community of Betano.
Interview with local organisation LBF
Luta Ba Futuru (LBF) is a local NGO based in the municipality of Maun-Fahe. This organisation was established in 2009, focusing on the provision of clean water and sanitation to the community of Maun-Fahe. According to the interview with Armando da Silva, Coordinator of LBF, he has participated in training organised by FTM about 5-6 times. Armando could explain very well the concept of the right to equal land and housing. He can describe how to become a good facilitator, and he also still remembers what he learned from the training, for example he stated “first to become a good facilitator you have to become a good leader so you can lead the process; secondly, to become a good facilitator you have to act like a referee which means that you have to control time very well, thirdly, you have to be neutral and impartial”. When the evaluator asked if he knows if any socialisation has been implemented by FTM in Maun-Fahe, Armando stated that he personally accompanied the activities in Sucos Taitudac, Holarua and Betano in 2014, and for 2015 some of his staff accompanied activities in Sucos Fatukahe, Dotik, and Uma Berloic. He also stated that LBF will be considering about whether to monitor land issues in Betano.
Interviews with the community of Betano
During the interview with Sr. Virgilio Salsinha, who works at the Centro Saude of Same, he stated that as a member of the community of Betano he has also been affected by the refinery plant mega-project. Sr. Virgilio stated that the government has already measured his land, of which about 900 square meters will be affected by the project. However, he has been unhappy to learn that the government will only pay $3 per square meter. He also stressed that he has been very disappointed about the declaration by the village chiefs of Betano, and he rejected the idea that the land belongs to the government; he stated that even though they don’t have land title, every single community who lives in Betano is recognised that their ancestors used to live in the area. Sr. Virgilio also stated that they have never received any assistance from civil society in the municipality of Maun-Fahe to accompany their case. They questioned with regard to Novo Betano, who will settle in that place? Will it be the community of Betano who has been affected by the project, or will the new Betano village be only for company workers who will work for the project. He also recommended to NGO Luta Hamutuk to monitor and accompany their problems.
Analysis of Evaluator
Based on the interviews in Maun-Fahe, the evaluator would like to stress that this program of Land and Housing Justice Action is to guarantee that all the community have access to equal land and housing; what is the point of all the hard work in providing training to the partners, if in the end the community of Betano will become victims of injustice. What is the point of all the socialising activities that have been done in the villages when in the end twenty families in Betano don’t have anywhere to go.
Recommendation
FTM and RBR need to re-plan their strategy of how to accompany the community in Betano. Local organisation like LBF can be considered as partners to conduct monitoring in the field. The evaluator would like to recommend to RBR to facilitate partners like Land Defence Group from Covalima to go to Betano and discuss with the community that is going to be affected by the refinery mega-project. It will be a valuable lesson for the people of Betano if partners from Covalima can share their experience about Suai-Supply-Base, Airport, and Novo Suai.
Interview with Kdadalak Sulimutu Institute (KSI)
Based on the interviews with Program Manager of KSI, Jenito Santana, KSI has produced a training manual about the right to defend the land. In the manual there are seven sub-topics which includes (1) the right of citizens to claim the land based on article 54 and 58 of the RDTL Constitution (2) limitations on ownership of the land (3) the right to indigenous land (4) the right to customary land (5) how to obtain title (6) legal structure of Timor-Leste laws and regulations (7) What is land reform?
The KSI recognises that it has just started research on land issues in Ermera, conducted last month in October 2015, and will now be moving to the next step which is data entry data and analysis. Jenito also referred to the radio program which was conducted as a one-off live transmission at community radio in Ermera, which involved several speakers including the Director of DNTPSC of Ermera, coordinator of UNAER, and one community representative from Maudio; the topic of discussion was land disputes and land reform in Ermera, and the moderator was a KSI staff member. When the evaluator asked about production of the film, the director stated that it is now in the process of editing and will be finalised soon. However, according to him, KSI didn’t anticipate a budget for publication of the film which was around $20 per minute. When the evaluator questioned why the execution of activities had been delayed, Jenito responded that he recognised his organisation had been delayed in implementation of the program because one of his staff who had been responsible for implementation had resigned (and a replacement had now been recruited). KSI recommended to PMU that based on the contract that had been signed off between KSI and PMU, that there needed to be submitted a quarterly report. KSI also questioned why PMU had released a payment of 10% after the activities had been implemented.
Interviews with UNAER in Ermera
These interviews involved 7 participants all from a group called Uniaun Agricultura Ermera (UNAER). The participants were composed of five people from Commite Baze (Based Committee) and another two were president and vice-president of the Union. According to the interviewees, two of the members had attended training 7-8 times, another two had attended 5-6 times, and three others had also attended 3-4 times. When the evaluator asked questions to the three participants that had attended training 3-4 times, the evaluator was surprised that they could explain very well about the concept of land reform and also the right of each citizen to land and housing, based on Articles 54 and 58 of the RDTL Constitution. Unfortunately, when the evaluator asked about the other five sub-topics that were included in the training manual, it appeared that all of them felt uncomfortable to answer the questions. Three of the participants admitted that they had accompanied training on land reform in sucos; Mau-Ubu, Hatolia Vila, Mausae, and Fatukero in September 2015. According to the President of the union, Sr. Amaro, UNAER have fully supported all activities and programs conducted by KSI, and as an example he told the evaluator that recently his member had been actively involved actively in a research program which was the responsibility of KSI. The research was conducted from 23-28 October 2015, and samples were taken from four sub-districts including Railaco, Ermera, Hatolia and Letefoho, and from four sub-districts they took three villages, and in each village they took only two sub-villages and then interviewed 25 people from each aldeia or sub-village. The evaluator also asked questions about how they conducted the interviews, and they answered “it’s easy because all of the questions already have been written in the questionnaire form, so we just read the questions”, they stated that besides direct interviews they also conducted focus group discussions. The evaluator kept asking what kind of questions they have to ask to community, and they said the questions were around, how big is the size of your land? Where did you get your land from? When did you get your land, in which regime? Do you have any one to testify? The land that you have, is it secure?
The interviews then moved on to different issues, with the president and vice president asking about the follow-up of the establishment of re-forestation centre in Suco Talo and Manusae, questioning KSI about the reforestation implementation plan. They said that the “trees covering the coffee plantation are getting old”, therefore it needs to be reforested with new plants. UNAER asked about how to re-establish the cooperative that has not functioned for some time. Sr. Amaro also stated that UNAER has not yet been registered as a legal entity, and because of that the local authorities in Ermera have always questioned UNAER’s legal status to defend land issues in Ermera. The Union also asked if the secretariat of RBR can support the implement of some of their activities. According to the president, UNAER is very disappointed with the KSI liaison officer who spends too much time in Dili rather than Ermera. UNAER also asked the Secretariat of RBR to please consult with them first regarding the implementation of activities, before going directly into the field.
Analysis of evaluator
KSI appears to have an attitude that they can resolve all problems; not being aware of their limitations will cause difficulties in the future. The evaluator is concerned in particular about their capacity to execute one of their listed activities that is “Research on land ownership and inheritance of women and men in Ermera” - the evaluator believes that KSI needs assistance from other partners to do data entry and analyse the data and evidence.
Recommendation
The evaluator would like to recommend to Kdadalak Sulimutu Institute to discuss with PMU to find a solution to completing their film. The organisation also needs to talk to Lao Hamutuk about recording of the radio program, as well talk to members of RBR to find out about any resources that can help them to complete the above-mentioned research. The organisation needs to discuss with UNAER any planned activities that have not yet been implemented.
Interview with Haburas partners in the Region of Oecusse
Interviews in the region of Oecusse were a little bit different to interviews in the other municipalities. In Oecusse, the evaluator met four members of local NGO Machine Neo Oecusse (MANEO) and thirteen victims that had been affected by the mega-project of Zona Economic Exclusive Social Market (ZEEMS). In this region the evaluator did not have a chance to discuss training or capacity building that they had received from Haburas. When the evaluator arrive on Saturday morning at the office of MANEO NGO, the meeting began immediately involving eleven people. The participants were composed of a spokesperson for the victims, five members of the victims, one regional coordinator of Haburas, and four staff from MANEO organisation. Sr. Agustino da Costa Magno as spokesperson for the victims stated that the mega project of roads, power station and hotels has affected the communities of Ambeno
.
Firstly, the speakers stated that the project for the widening of the roads has affected the communities of Sakato, Nepani, Lifau, Lalisu, Cunha and Tono. In Suco Sakato, eleven families had to move out of their homes and give away four hectares of their land to ZEEMS for building of the new central electrical power plant. According to one of the victims Patricio Quebo, ZEEMS had promised them to pay them $3 dollar per meter square that they had lost but this had not happened to date.
At the same village, Sakato, Sr. Francisco Lopes Colo, used to have a house of 7x8 meter squared; ZEEMS asked him to pull down his house, which he did, however after the road had been widened, his original house was still three meters away from the edge of road. Sr. Francisco stated that ZEEMS had given him some materials that were not enough to rebuild a house of 7x8 meter squared. The same thing had also happened to Sr. Jose Koa, a journalist for the local newspaper STL, who had to stop working as a journalist because he had to rebuild his own house.
The interviews with Sr. Francisco Xavier, in the village of Umbei, Aldeia Sanane revealed that Sr. Francisco was dissatisfied with the ZEEMS project of road enlargement which had taken his house of 9x13 meters squared and 1100 meters square of land. A widow named Sra. Carolina Fui also experienced a similar situation, where ZEEMS had bulldozed half of house leaving the other half very unstable and exposed to wind and rain. Even after removing the side of the house, the existing house was still three meters away from the edge of the expanded road. Though they were compensated like the others, the amount of compensation was minimal compared to what they needed.
In the interview in Suco Tono, Sr. Joao Batista and Sra. Elisabeth Bobo expressed their dissatisfaction with the decision from ZEEMS which told them not to work on their rice field because if they spread the seeds, it would disturb the road project. However, over a year later the project has not yet started, and now 270 families who live in Suco Tono and who owns 42.1 hectares of rice fields cannot farm their rice.
Analysis of evaluator
Based on the interviews with the speakers and the victims, it appears that they have trust and believe in Haburas to advocate on their issues. They were very enthusiastic to meet with the evaluator and open up about the issues. They hope Haburas and RBR will follow-up their case to the national level.
Recommendation
Haburas needs to talk to other members of RBR about how to follow up the cases of those who have been affected by the ZEEMS project. The evaluator would like to recommend immediately find the solution for the 270 families that have been told that they cannot farm their land in Tono.
Conclusion and recommendations
The hard work that the members of the Consortium have each put in to achieving their goals must be congratulated. Some of the achievements are:
Although there is still much work to be done, each member has demonstrated their commitment as could be seen in the interviews with their partners in the municipalities. A few points from the evaluation report can be re-emphasised here:
The hard work that the members of the Consortium have each put in to achieving their goals must be congratulated. Some of the achievements are:
- HAK for their achievements in empowering their local partners. This empowerment could be seen when the Village Chief of Tirlolo and the female lawyer in Baucau explained very well about the right to equal land and housing according to Articles 54 and 58 of the RDTL Constitution.
- HAK partners in Viqueque who have a strong commitment to continue working on land issues even though they are only volunteers.
- The work of FTM in Viqueque and Maun-Fahe (Same) which socialised the right to equal land and housing through the village level, even though they are at times facing difficult questions from the community.
- Matadalan Ba Rai, for all the hard work and effort in improving the capacity of their partners Grupo Defende Rai (GDR), for example in Covalima for defending the victims in Camenasa and Oques that have been affected by mega-projects such as the Suai Supply Base, Airport and Auto Estrada, and in Oecusse for defending the rights of people in Sakato, Nepani, Lifau, Lalisu, Cunha and Tono, that have been affected by the mega-project of ZEEMS.
- KSI for their hard work that they have done with their partners UNAER in Ermera, particularly seen through the knowledge of interview participants on land reform.
- BELUN for their commitment to providing capacity development at the village level specifically training on mediation for land disputes.
Although there is still much work to be done, each member has demonstrated their commitment as could be seen in the interviews with their partners in the municipalities. A few points from the evaluation report can be re-emphasised here:
- Haburas as lead organisation on the project needs to show a good example in preventing conflict of interest inside the organisation;
- Haburas needs to lead the land network movement to find solutions for communities in Aitarak-Laran, Baucau, Betano, Covalima, Ermera and Oecusse.
- Haburas needs to think of themselves as a leader of sixteen organisations under the Land Network movement, not just a leader of the Consortium.
- The five organisations under the Consortium need to open to each other, as collaboration and solidarity are important – there is no competition.
- Consortium partners need to be committed to attending to suggestions from their own partners in the municipalities, such as GAS, GDR and UNAER.
- The partners of HAK, FTM, MBR, BELUN, and KSI in the municipalities need to take more responsibility for solving community problems instead of relying so heavily on their partners in Dili. Cases such as mining cement in Kaisidu, the refinery project in Betano, the mega-project in Suai, and ZEEMS in Oecusse need more proactive collaboration from partners in the municipalities; the Consortium members as part of the RBR network need to re-plan their advocacy strategies for these mega-projects.
- The consortium partners need to unify their training modules, in particular with regard to Activity 1.2, Training on Rights to Equal Land and Housing.
