A US$10.7M agreement was inked yesterday between the Government of Guyana and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and will go towards continuing efforts to demarcate and title Amerindian lands.Addressing the opening of the seventh annual National Toshaos Council (NTC) meeting, President Donald Ramotar said completion of the three-year project would see fulfillment of a promise made to the people in the manifesto of the Peoples’ Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C).

“When this is complete, we (would) have fulfilled our manifesto promise to the Amerindian people and the peoples of the interior,” the President proudly declared.
Funding for the project is provided under the Guyana Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) Fund, or GRIF, as the fund is called.
Commenting on success of the programme, the President said, “Despite all the efforts to get all the stakeholders aboard, some forces were writing to Norway to stop this project. That is the depth that some have descended to. They obviously want to feather their own nest, instead of promoting Amerindian development.”
The funds are expected to be used to provide absolute grants to 13 Amerindian communities, and demarcate 33 villages.
And Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh, commenting on the  agreement, said, “We believe very firmly that this is an extremely important initiative, because it places entirely within the control of the villages concerned, the lands that belong to them.
“This project represents a significant advance of this initiative. Our Government remains firmly committed to make sure we implement this partnership diligently, and demonstrate to the world our commitment, as a country, to the principles in the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).”
The Finance Minister acknowledged the role of Amerindians in protecting the environment, before the “language of climate change” was what it is today. He said, “I have no doubt that even though that might not have been the language that would have been used centuries ago, our Amerindian forefathers, without a doubt, understood the strong nexus between taking care of our rivers and our forests and the long term wellbeing of their villages and their children and their grandchildren still to come.”
To date, some 97 villages have received tilted lands, and another 77 received demarcated lands, bringing Amerindian ownership of land in Guyana to 14 per cent of the nation’s land mass.
The Amerindian Land Titling (ALT) Project seeks to enable Amerindians to secure their lands and natural resources with a view toward sustainable social and economic development. It is expected that titling of communities will strengthen land tenure security and expansion of the asset base of Amerindians, enabling improved long-term planning for their future development.
The objective of this project is to facilitate and fast track the Amerindian land titling process. Historically, a high cost has been a barrier to achieving this policy objective. The project seeks to: (a) have land titles issued and demarcated in a process completed for all Amerindian villages that submit requests, including those that request extensions; (b) strengthen existing mechanisms to deal with unresolved land issues; and (c) improve the communication and outreach efforts of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs.
The Government of Guyana (GoG) has set the policy objective of addressing, by 2015, all land titling issues for Amerindian villages where two-thirds of the adult population request this to be done based on the principles of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).
The land demarcation project is being executed by the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs and implemented by the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission, with the UNDP providing institutional support.