STDM helps to identify neighborhood priorities in Colombia

In October 2013, Habitat for Humanity International (HfHI) and GLTN joined efforts to implement the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) with the aim of applying the tool to support neighbourhood upgrading program in Ciudadela Sucre settlement, which is located in the Municipality of Soacha, Colombia. More than one year later, STDM has been customized to manage and analyze data from both household enumeration and settlement profiling exercises for eleven neighbourhoods in Ciudadela Sucre.

Enumerators from Ciudadela Sucre community try their hand in inputting household data in the STDM tool, with guidance from HfHC and Colnodo staff (standing)

A three-day hands-on training, from 26th-28th November 2014, was provided to eleven enumerators from the community on using a Spanish-translated version of the STDM tool. The enumerators were taken through household and neighborhood data management techniques, and were able to apply some these acquired skills to input some of the information that they had previously collected during the enumeration exercises.
The information has provided Habitat for Humanity Colombia (HfHC) with new insights into the socio-economic, livelihood and housing profiles of the community. In addition to documenting the property rights of the households in the settlement, HfHC has been able to use this information to identify priority neighbourhood upgrading programs as reported by the community members.
During the closing session of the training, the enumerators noted that the STDM will benefit their community in various areas including the documentation of house unit rights through the social tenure relationship as no form of paper documentation existed before and identification of community interventions. They also indicated that the STDM tool is easy to use as the modules are hierarchically organized and the forms have been logically arranged to match the structure of both the household and neighbourhood questionnaires. Discussions are underway for HfHC to scale up STDM in five neighbourhoods in Cali city as well as by Habitat for Humanity’s Regional Office to apply STDM in various land tenure regularization programs starting in Bolivia.