Land governance interventions are increasingly community-centred, recognising that secure land rights depend not only on technical solutions but also on legitimacy, trust, and local ownership. Yet the knowledge generated during implementation often remains scattered or disconnected from policy and decision-making spaces.

Participatory knowledge management helps close this gap. By deliberately capturing and reflecting on learning during implementation, programmes can ensure that community experiences, adaptations, and lessons about what works—or does not—inform future programming and scaling efforts.

Within the LAND-at-scale (LAS) program, funded by the Government of the Netherlands, knowledge management is therefore positioned as an integral part of implementation rather than an activity at the end of a project. Without deliberate reflection, valuable insights can easily be lost, limiting the contribution of project experience to improved programming and policy dialogue.

Learning from implementation

Several LAS country projects have adopted community-focused approaches and made efforts to include community perspectives in their learning processes. This blog highlights one initiative that placed community voices at the centre of learning in a particularly participatory way: the Terra Firma reflection process in Mozambique.

Knowledge management in practice

Within LAS, KIT Institute acts as the Knowledge Management Focal Point, supporting partners through demand-driven learning processes. Rather than collecting information only at the end of projects, KIT works with partners during implementation to create structured spaces for reflection and analysis.

Across LAS countries, this involves accompanying implementing partners during land tenure interventions while helping surface the knowledge generated along the way: lessons learned, adaptations and emerging insights. Much of this knowledge rarely appears in standard reporting, yet it is essential for improving practice and informing future decisions.

This approach treats learning as an integral part of achieving impact at scale.

Why participation matters for learning

Experience across the LAS programme shows that without deliberate spaces for reflection, land governance interventions risk becoming fragmented or less responsive to social and institutional realities. Opportunities for meaningful policy dialogue may also be missed.

These risks increase when community perspectives are absent from learning processes. Communities are central actors in land governance, yet their knowledge and lived experience are often treated as anecdotal rather than as evidence. Recognising communities as knowledge holders strengthens both learning and legitimacy.

The Terra Firma experience: learning with communities

In Mozambique, Terra Firma, with facilitation support from KIT, initiated a participatory reflection process to analyse more than five years of experience implementing the CaVaTeCo (Community Land Value Chain) approach. From the outset, the process recognised communities not only as beneficiaries of project activities but also as central actors in land governance.

The reflection journey culminated in a multi-day writeshop that brought together community representatives, local authorities, government actors, and project staff. Rather than focusing on reporting outputs, participants reflected collectively on how the approach worked in practice, what challenges emerged, and what lessons could inform future efforts.

This created a space where community knowledge could be discussed alongside technical and institutional perspectives, generating insights that might otherwise remain invisible to implementers.

Why the writeshop mattered

The writeshop formed the final step in a broader participatory process that began with gathering community perspectives through targeted consultations. These inputs helped shape both the agenda and the analytical focus of the discussions.

During the writeshop, community voices were brought into dialogue with those of local authorities and implementers. This collective reflection helped unpack not only what was done, but also why certain approaches worked—or where they faced challenges.

The result was a knowledge product that goes beyond conventional project documentation, bringing together community experience, technical learning, and institutional insights.

Learning beyond documentation

Rather than documenting activities alone, the Terra Firma knowledge management process focused on learning from implementation. Participants explored how the CaVaTeCo approach functioned in practice, what enabled or constrained progress, how roles and relationships evolved, and what this means for future implementation.

A defining feature was recognising community members as knowledge holders. Their experiences informed discussions on issues such as tenure security, the legitimacy of land documentation, gender and social inclusion, institutional bottlenecks, and the sustainability of community structures.

The main output—a consolidated knowledge product—synthesises achievements, challenges, lessons learned, and recommendations related to the CaVaTeCo approach. It captures not only outcomes, but also the social dynamics behind them, including perspectives on trust, conflict resolution, and the meaning of land security.

For Terra Firma, the process strengthened internal learning and clarified strategic priorities. For LAS, it demonstrates how participatory knowledge management can generate grounded knowledge that supports better decision-making at both project and programme levels.

From local experience to shared practice

The Terra Firma experience illustrates how knowledge management can strengthen land governance by linking implementation experience with local governance realities. The involvement of district and municipal authorities ensured that insights were grounded in administrative responsibilities, capacity constraints, and institutional dynamics.

While the process was not designed to directly influence national policy, it supports improved programming and coordination at local level. The learning also travels beyond Mozambique, offering insights for other LAS partners and contributing to peer learning across the programme.

Investing in learning that reflects local realities

Participatory knowledge management takes time, trust, and facilitation—particularly in complex land governance contexts. The Terra Firma experience shows that when communities and local authorities are meaningfully involved in reflection and analysis, learning becomes more legitimate, nuanced, and useful.

By focusing on learning and adaptation rather than reporting alone, knowledge management within the Land-at-Scale programme helps ensure that lessons from implementation inform future programming and scaling efforts.