tenure security

A Work in Progress: Upgrading Indonesia’s National Land Agency, 2004–2014

Author
Leon Schreiber and Jordan Schneider
Country of Reform
Abstract

When he won Indonesia’s October 2004 presidential election, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono found he had inherited a struggling land administration system that would block progress on some of his key policy initiatives. The National Land Agency (known by the abbreviation BPN, for Badan Pertanahan Nasional) managed records on landownership and transactions. But the organization was dogged by corruption, high costs, and delays. On average, it took 33 days, six visits to a local land office, and US$110 for landowners to register property transactions. In addition, the BPN held ownership records for only a third of the estimated 89 million land parcels on the thousands of islands in the sprawling archipelago. In keeping with his campaign pledge to spur rural development, Yudhoyono appointed a new leadership team to revamp the BPN and get the agency on track. The team partnered with the World Bank in a program to title unregistered land and then rolled out a new land database that digitally stored all new transactions, equipped vehicles to deliver mobile services in rural areas, and worked with other ministries to design a comprehensive OneMap for the country. Although the reforms improved efficiency and sharply increased the pace of property registration, 10 years after Yudhoyono’s election it remained clear that additional measures were still needed to reach the goal of a well-functioning, corruption-free, comprehensive, and sustainable land registry.

Leon Schreiber and Jordan Schneider drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia, in March and April 2015 as well as in October and November 2017. Case published December 2017. 

Securing Land Rights: Making Land Titling Work in Rwanda, 2012-2017

Author
Leon Schreiber
Focus Area(s)
Country of Reform
Abstract

In June 2012, Rwanda’s national land registry completed a nearly four-year project that mapped every one of the country’s 10.4 million parcels and prepared title documents for 8 million landholders. It was an unprecedented accomplishment in a country in which lack of land titling had weighed on the economy and led to escalating conflict over access to land. The mapping program promised to reduce tensions by establishing an orderly system for registering and transferring landownership. However, the system could work only if Rwandans registered every transaction, and in 2012, a survey found that only about one of every eight landowners had even bothered to pick up their official titles. The registry urgently had to both make it easier to register transactions and build public awareness about the importance of keeping the land database up-to-date. A registry team launched a nationwide campaign to raise awareness about the importance of titling and of reporting all land transactions. Managers simplified procedures and registration forms. And to provide greater access in rural areas, where titling was nearly unknown, the registry decentralized services and introduced a new software platform to speed transactions. By mid 2017, more than 7 million people had collected their titles, and registrations of sales, purchases, and other kinds of transfers had begun to improve. Still, the number of transactions reported in 2016 fell short of the registry’s target, indicating that further work lay ahead.

Leon Schreiber drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Kigali, Musanze, and Huye, Rwanda, in June and July 2017. Fortunee Bayisenge, Lecturer and Dean of the Faculty of Development Studies at the Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences, collaborated on the research. The British Academy-Department for International Development AntiCorruption Evidence (ACE) Program funded the development of this case study. Case published September 2017.

Registering Rural Rights: Village Land Titling in Tanzania, 2008-2017

Author
Leon Schreiber
Focus Area(s)
Country of Reform
Abstract

In the early 2000s, Tanzania struggled to protect the land rights of the 75% of its citizens who lived in rural areas. Rapid population growth and rising investment in commercial agriculture had increased land scarcity and created the potential for violent conflict in parts of the country. In accordance with the provisions of a new law, the national lands ministry launched a pilot project in 2004 to title 158 villages and more than 1,000 individual parcels. Building on lessons from the project, the government passed a new land-use planning act, created a new implementation program, and drew up a strategic plan to title rural land throughout the country. Starting in 2008, the lands ministry worked with community leaders to grant villages and their residents title documents that protected them from land grabbing. Villages also decided how they would use communal land and how they would set up committees to resolve boundary disputes. Officials constructed registry buildings in villages and districts to house title documents before surveying individual land parcels and handing over titles to village residents. By 2017, more than 11,000 of Tanzania’s approximately 12,500 villages had mapped their outer limits, and about 13% of villages had also adopted land-use plans. Of the approximately 6 million households located within rural villages, about 400,000 also had obtained individual title documents.

Leon Schreiber drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Dar es Salaam and Arusha, Tanzania, in April 2017. The British Academy-Department for International Development Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) Program funded the development of this case study. Case published June 2017.

A 2017 workshop, Driving Change, Securing Tenure, profiled recent initiatives to strengthen tenure security and reform land registration systems in seven countries: South AfricaCanadaJamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Australia and Tanzania.

Watch the video of Seraphia Robert Mgembe - Program Coordinator, MKURABITA

Cementing the Right of Ownership: Land Registration in Kyrgyzstan, 1999–2009

Author
Maya Gainer
Country of Reform
Abstract

In 1999, eight years after emerging from decades of Soviet domination, Kyrgyzstan began an ambitious effort to officially recognize property ownership throughout the country and lay the groundwork for a vibrant real estate market. During five and a half decades of rule by the Soviet Union, citizens were not allowed to own land, and after Kyrgyzstani independence in 1991, the country began a nationwide program of privatization in a bid to stimulate economic development. The question was how to register and document property rights so that people could transact efficiently in a new land market. To meet the challenge, a new land agency, known as Gosregister, had to hire and train staff in completely new responsibilities, establish performance management and funding structures, improve efficiency by introducing new technologies, and ensure that staff did not engage in corruption. Despite political upheaval—including the overthrow of two governments in the space of five years—Gosregister steadily built its capacity and evolved into an effective land registry. By 2012, the agency had registered 92% of the country’s privately held parcels, and in 2017, the World Bank’s Doing Business rankings recognized its services as among the best in the world.

Maya Gainer drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Bishkek and Kant, Kyrgyzstan, during November and December 2016. The British Academy-Department for International Development Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) Program funded the development of this case study. Case published February 2017

Putting Rural Communities on the Map: Land Registration in Mozambique, 2007–2016

Author
Leon Schreiber
Country of Reform
Abstract

In April 2006, six international donor agencies established a program to help Mozambique’s government register community land rights and improve tenure security for rural residents. Under Mozambique’s constitution, the state owned all land. A 1997 law, adopted after a 15-year civil war, sought to recognize rural communities’ customary tenure rights while encouraging commercial investment through the issuance of 50-year leaseholds. But many communities failed to register their holdings with the central government, leaving their rights vulnerable to powerful state and corporate interests. To address the problem, the donor group established the Community Land Initiative (iniciativa para Terras Comunitárias, or iTC), a program to register community parcels in the government cadastre and empower communities to negotiate with potential investors. The iTC coordinated with national and local governments as well as nongovernmental organizations to map the borders of community lands. The program informed community members about their land rights and how to use and protect them. It also established natural resource committees, which enabled communities to receive shares of the natural resource taxes paid by commercial investors working on communal lands. The iTC further created producer associations to support budding commercial farmers, resolved boundary disputes, and worked with provincial cadastral offices to issue certificates that specified property boundaries. By mid 2016, the program had registered 655 communities in the government cadastre—nearly four times the estimated 171 community registrations carried out before the iTC was established. The registrations covered 6.9 million hectares and 10% of the country’s rural population.

Leon Schreiber drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Maputo and Xai-Xai, Mozambique, in November 2016. The British Academy-Department for International Development Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) Program funded the development of this case study. Case published February 2017.  

A 2017 workshop, Driving Change, Securing Tenure, profiled recent initiatives to strengthen tenure security and reform land registration systems in seven countries: South AfricaCanadaJamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Australia and Tanzania.

Watch the video of Emidio de Oliveira - Director, iniciativa para Terras Comunitárias. 

From the Ground Up: Developing Jamaica’s National Land Agency, 2000-2016

Author
Maya Gainer
Country of Reform
Abstract

In 2001, registering or transferring land in Jamaica was an uphill battle. Four separate departments handled different aspects of land administration, leading to weak coordination and delay. Even straightforward transactions dragged on for weeks, simply getting information was a struggle, and fraud was commonplace. In April of that year, Jamaica established the National Land Agency, charged with merging the four departments, speeding up services, and improving their quality. As the new agency’s CEO, Elizabeth Stair led a team of managers that had to oversee the consolidation, design systems to prevent fraud, improve performance, and implement new procedures and technologies to increase speed and transparency. During its first decade and a half of operation, the National Land Agency significantly reduced processing times and won acclaim for its customer service and innovative use of technology. Despite these successes, there was still room to improve land tenure security. Stiff documentation requirements, high costs, and limited awareness of the process meant that registration and related services remained out of reach for many Jamaicans.

Lessons Learned

  • Advantages of functional consolidation. Merging four divisions into a single semi-autonomous agency allowed the government to streamline service delivery, standardize procedures, and reduce processing times.
  • Overcoming resistance and curbing graft. A strong, unified management team and a consistent message helped answer internal opposition and external critics of the transition. Staff retraining, individualized targets for performance tied to financial incentives, and new procedures and technologies helped establish a new operational culture.
  • Additional barriers remain. Despite the agency’s successes, Jamaica’s overall experience also demonstrates the range of additional barriers to land registration, including stiff documentation requirements, high costs in the form of fees and taxes, and limited awareness of the requirements, that can prevent many property owners from formalizing their claims.

 

Maya Gainer drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Kingston, Jamaica, in June 2016. The Omidyar Network funded the development of this case study. Case published January 2017.

A 2017 workshop, Driving Change, Securing Tenure, profiled recent initiatives to strengthen tenure security and reform land registration systems in seven countries: South AfricaCanadaJamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Australia and Tanzania.

Watch the video of Elizabeth Stair - CEO and Commissioner of Lands, Jamaican National Land Agency.

Land Rights in the Township: Building Incremental Tenure in Cape Town, South Africa, 2009–2016

Author
Leon Schreiber
Country of Reform
Abstract

In 2009, South Africa’s second-most populous metropolitan area, Cape Town, adopted a new strategy to usher the rule of law into shantytowns that had sprung up on its outskirts, on municipal land. Without legal property rights, most of the residents of those communities were vulnerable to eviction and had access to neither municipal services nor home addresses they could use to obtain cell phone contracts or other basic goods. Lacking both the space to relocate households and the money to build enough new houses, the city partnered with a program called Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading to pilot an in situ settlement upgrade that allowed people to remain in their homes. Through an incremental tenure approach, the city issued occupancy certificates that recognized residents’ rights to remain on the land, that protected against arbitrary eviction, and that laid the groundwork for eventual access to the services enjoyed by city residents living in legal housing. The pilot project focused on Monwabisi Park, a community of about 25,000 on the southeastern edge of Cape Town. Beginning with a full enumeration of land, structures, and occupants, the project helped construct a community register, issue occupancy certificates, and extend electric power throughout the area. By November 2016, the first phase of the project had been completed, and hundreds of residents visited the community registration office every month to update their details. Using their occupancy certificates, residents could obtain cell phones, register their children in schools, receive medication from the health department, and open furniture store accounts. However, the second phase of the project—rezoning and physically upgrading the settlement—stalled in late 2016, as Cape Town officials wrestled with the basic question of how to install water and sewerage infrastructure in situ without moving any households. Even with that pause, though, Monwabisi Park offered important lessons for other cities and countries about how to provide poorer, more-transient citizens greater stability and financial access.

Lessons Learned

  • In a complex urban environment, community-led surveying and enumeration cannot be rushed. Time is required to build trust with and among different groups in the community and ensure accuracy.
  • Projects whose greatest impact will only materialize in the future need broad support to survive political turnover. Emphasis on the long-term benefits of settlement upgrading can help reduce resistance from an incoming administration concerned about supporting an outgoing mayor’s pet project.
  • Visible administration—having the project team physically working in the settlement on a regular basis—was key to maintaining an organized tenure administration system.
  • Securing upfront agreement with city engineers on infrastructure installations plans is vital. Failure to approve a design plan after the program has launched frustrates residents and undermines the progress already made.
  • Taking steps to help new holders of occupancy certificates understand their rights and the consequences of off-registry transfers should be a component of every incremental tenure program.

Leon Schreiber drafted this case study with Professor Michael Barry of the University of Calgary based on interviews conducted in Cape Town and Johannesburg, in July and August 2016. Case published February 2017.

A 2017 workshop, Driving Change, Securing Tenure, profiled recent initiatives to strengthen tenure security and reform land registration systems in seven countries: South AfricaCanadaJamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Australia and Tanzania.

Watch the video of Kathryn Ewing - Director, Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading