Problem overview:

     Integrating stakeholders: Land use planning is a national issue and although Vanuatu is considered a fairly small country, recording information on land use is not a simple task. It requires various types of information, in which may not fall under the responsibility of only one governmental department. Therefore, the more institutions are involved, governmental or not, the more information they can exchange.

     Training and educational initiatives: Training programmes have been initiated at the provincial and village levels to help village people along with provincial authorities to identify problems related to land use, finding alternatives for problem solving and land management.

     Meeting information requirements: The use of Geographical Information System (GIS) can help increase the capacity of data management because a huge amount of data can be compiled with the GIS programme and data can be easily retrieved. Hence, it will be a very efficient tool for land use management for all related sectors in Vanuatu.

Background in summary:

     The National Land Use Plan: was initiated by AusAid in late 1995. It aims at integrating a broad set of principles and guidelines for development of land resources with an effort to

• Build up skills and resources to strengthen land use planning and natural resources management capabilities; and
  
  
• Develop effective mechanisms to ensure that land use plans prepared at National, Provincial and community levels are consistent and are implemented.
  
  
• Strengthen Provincial planning capabilities where much of the implementation will take place.
  
  

     Data support and sharing with other government bodies: Supporting information comes from the Development Plan 4 (DP 4), the Vanuatu Natural Resources Inventory (VANRIS), the National Conservation Strategy, the National Tourism Management Plan. Also, supporting data, such as census data, are collected by line agencies and other groups. These agencies and groups are involved in the development of the national land use plan, and their endorsement is critical to successful implementation.

     Strategy is to create land use plans that integrate between local, provincial and national levels: At the national level, the project established the Vanuatu Land Use Planning Office (VLUPO) to carry out tasks and train staff and co-ordinate planning activities in the Provinces. At Provincial level, the project assists in developing Provincial Development Plans. At the community level, the project assists villagers in the process of developing land use plans utilises a Community Area Resource Management Activity (CARMA).

     Training to enable self-problem solving: The National Land Use Planning team provides a 7-day training course that includes a variety of PRA type tools. During the course the participants develop ideas on the most important problems in the various villages in their province and gradually select specific village areas for the site of a CARMA activity. Once the problems are identified, the agents work with the villagers in finding solutions at the three levels.

     Involved parties are satisfied with the outcome: The participating government agencies agree that the process is successful and will become more so as more people are trained in the process and the villagers themselves begin to understand how they can actively participate in the future.

Peer Review Committee Good practice rating: (1 for the best, 5 for the lowest score)
Sustainability		Efficiency
3	Improvement in either the environment of economic condition with no harm to the other.	-	Cost efficient.
3	Sustainable over time (not one-off)	Process
Adaptability		2	Participation of the community
3	Location adaptability (can the project be done in other places?)	2	Participation of resource owners/users
2	Socio-cultural adaptability.	2	Partnerships between various actors (Governments, NGO, Academia, Private)
2	Level of development adaptability.	2	Degree of coordination and cooperation between government departments.
3	Style of government adaptability.	2	Ability to attract political interest/support
2	Degree of decentralization adaptability.	-	Procedures for feedback and review.
Comments on this example:   Sustainability of the project:      Training and educational initiatives: The 7-day training programme organized by the National Land Use Planning Office, in which villagers are trained on how they could actively participate in land management, seems to be more of a one-off situation because the programme has yet been institutionalized. Adaptability of the project to other situations:      Meeting information requirements: GIS databases are fairly common in the Pacific island countries. But access to them is not. The key to the Vanuatu project is common usage of the GIS by many different government agencies and application of the results as a form of communication for local and national planning schemes. Other governments, as in the Solomon Islands, have restricted access and usage of their GIS. As a result of government policy, the GIS is not used very often or very well. Any computer system that is not used and updated rapidly goes out of date. Process of decision making and implementation:      The approach that the National Land Use Planning Office has selected to deal with land use problems is a bottom-up approach, in which, villagers who are closely related to the problems, identify what they think are the existing problems, along with their solutions to solve the problems, and this information will be passed on to the provincial office, then to the National Planning office in order for the National Planning Office to take some official action to manage the problems. This approach is very practical but how long will the process take, since, the information has to be passed up from village level to national level and then down again from national level back to village level.      Integrating stakeholders: The most obvious success of this programme is the participation of many government agencies in the GIS project and the use of the GIS to harmonize planning and policy making. However, the project is still too young to show many tangible results. Included in these are the formation of several community reserves and construction of a health center as a joint community, province, national government project. Cost efficiency: