Local Area Development Plan (LADP)
The Local Area Development Plan (LADP), is a USD 15 Million benefit sharing program designed to enhance regional economic and social development in the project area Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.
LADP is designed for two main reasons:
i) to contribute to the social economic development of the surrounding communities in the 3 countries, who are directly and indirectly impacted by and beneficiaries of the project.
(ii) because of changes in the adoption of the project development schemes during the project preparation phase, many households were consulted in the project area and need to see direct benefits from the project.
The plan is focusing on community-based projects that will directly improve the livelihoods of people in a sustainable manner.
The LADP project area is located in Ngara District in Tanzania, Kirehe and Ngoma Districts in Rwanda and in communes of Giteranyi (Muyinga Province) and Busoni (Kirundo Province) in Burundi.
The area is characterized by degraded land due to unsustainable agriculture and livestock practices associated with high sedimentation of rivers. This represents a threat to the sustainability of the planned power infrastructure and need to be addressed in a long term by fully involving the local communities. The demographic pressures on natural resources pose a much more serious challenge to governments due to persistent and growing poverty in the area. This has affected disproportionately more vulnerable populations, especially female-headed households and women’s groups and a growing number of underemployed and unemployed youth. The LADP will not address all the development issues in the project area but will provide opportunities to communities and more especially vulnerable groups, women and young persons to improve their livelihoods. The LADP will establish a network with local communities in the project area for future investment to improve their livelihoods and for the sustainability of the power project.
The proposed LADP was developed following several consultations. During the project preparation phases in 2011 and 2012, several village consultations and national workshops were held in the three countries. In 2013, LADP first draft was produced and shared with the World Bank and the Independent Panel of Expert (IPoE) Social expert and they provided comments and orientation to review the proposal. Because of the importance to focus first on the resettlement activities including compensation and Livelihood Restoration Programme (LRP), the proposal was reviewed recently in participatory manner and focused on community livelihood activities. From August 2016, a participatory planning process was engaged in the three countries to identify livelihood priorities: i) regional stakeholders agreed to establish a core LADP planning team composed of 5 persons per country, ii) regional consultative meetings were organized to discuss LADP planning approach and priorities, iii) Country planning teams undertook participatory planning processes in their respective districts/communes to identify LADP priority areas, iv) District stakeholders validated LADP priority projects (v) NELSAP/PIU reviewed and consolidated the prioritized activities and budgets.