This manual is a Field Operations Manual and the primary objective is to describe all the steps, processes and tools for undertaking the certification of customary land holdings in the field. This manual is designed to be used by the various CDLA staff who will be working to support the Village Land Committees (VLCs), the Community Surveyors (CSs) and those people that are actually claiming land. Primary users are the CDLA Field Coordinator and the CDLA Community Facilitators (CFs).

The manual applies to the piloting of the process within the selected villages of the four chiefdoms of Chipata District which are taking part in the TGCC project. It is intended to be a ‘Working Document’ and will be used as a basis for developing a final Operations Manual after the certification has been completed.

This manual does not describe in any detail the various ‘office-based’ tasks that must also be undertaken to support these field activities. These are contained in a separate Systems User Manual on Systematic Certification. A final Certification Operations Manual will bring together the two manuals, the Field Checklists, the specifications of the tools used and the schema of the Certification Database into a single, comprehensive operational methodology for carrying out customary land certification.

The final document will reflect the lessons that are learned over the next few months. The users of this document are therefore encouraged to make additions, corrections, suggestions and improvements wherever they see the need.

The manual is laid out in a series of modules, which form the structure of the initial training course. These are shown in the table of contents on this page. On a computer, the reader can navigate to any particular module by clicking on the title, which is linked to the relevant page.

The hard copy version is contained in a ring binder, with a division for each module. This will also allow for the contents of any module to be updated as we learn lessons from the pilot.