Posted
11 Dec 2025
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Nepal
Posted11 Dec 2025
An interview with Brian Garcia, LEI associate and current Team Leader for our team providing technical assistance in Nepal.
Brian Garcia is an LEI Associate and currently works as the Team Leader for our team providing technical assistance to support the digitalization and decentralisation of Nepal’s land administration sector, as well as the establishment of an integrated land and property valuation and taxation system. Brian has more than 20 years’ experience in the land sector working for government, NGOs and the private sector on donor-funded projects. In addition to his work on the Nepal Project, Brian also held various positions across all three phases of our Mekong Region Land Governance Project.
Under the Nepal Project, LEI has partnered with Kadaster International and RajDevi Engineering Consultants to provide technical assistance under the Korea World Bank Partnership Facilitiy’s Digitalization of Nepal’s Land Administration Sector.
When asked what led him into the land sector, Brian laughs – it’s a question he gets often. His academic background is clinical laboratory science, and he began his career as a university instructor. But, when his university closed, he reached a crossroads.
Not wanting to return to the confines of laboratory work or resume life as a student, he accepted a role in an NGO supporting rural development workers. There, he became deeply involved in community-based forestry, fisheries, and mangrove management, which opened the door to tenure issues.
From there, he moved into government, eventually helping design and implement a project in the Philippines for the World Bank, working alongside LEI. That experience cemented his path.
“I’ve worked in NGOs, government, and for many years now in the private sector. Having seen all sides helps – you understand how each actor thinks, what they prioritise, and how to bring them into a reform coalition.”
Nepal’s goals are bold: a fully digital, citizen-centric, decentralised land administration system with an integrated valuation and taxation system. When asked what milestones matter most, in Nepal or elsewhere, Brian highlights three:
Nepal has moved from a unitary to a federal system, but many legacy laws and institutions remain unchanged. District survey and land revenue offices still operate even though the Constitution assigns their functions to provinces and local governments.
“They need to resolve this contradiction between aspiration and reality,” Brian explains. “Without clarity, decentralisation can’t move forward.”
Nepal has made progress, but systems operate in silos – with different data structures and no interoperability. National data sets that are accessible by different levels of government and government departments would vastly improve the Government’s ability to effectively and efficiently perform their land administration mandates.
Before integration is possible, Nepal needs a national land administration domain model, data harmonisation, and a platform that integrates national systems and connects local levels.
Sustainability of reform depends on fiscal outcomes. Brian notes that digitalisation must translate into improved revenue streams for both national and local government.
“Digital reforms become meaningful when they support valuation and taxation reform. That’s where long-term sustainability comes from.”
“Nepal should work towards making its valuation system market aligned, adopting international valuation standards and good practices for valuation and taxation, and expanding its tax base in the process.”
Brian Garcia (right) visiting a Government of Nepal Survey Department earlier in 2025.
Land reform requires cooperation among different levels of government, civil society organisations and the private sector – a consistent challenge in all countries where Brian has worked.
Even in Nepal, where both cadastral and registration agencies sit under one ministry, the departments “rarely talk to each other.”
Brian has two key strategies that he likes to adopt early in the project:
Rather than wait months to consult, Brian and the team immediately engaged federal departments, provinces, and municipalities.
“Gather their perspective, their understanding about land administration issues and how they factor within the whole system. What do they see as their mandates?”
Consultation and validation workshops deliberately included civil society organisations, surveyors’ and valuers’ associations, the banking sector, private firms, and community representatives.
“By the time we were holding a National Stakeholders Workshop, most of the people in the room had already been a part of the journey,” Brian says. “That fosters ownership – essential for reform to take root.”
A meeting with the Government of Nepal Department of Land Management and Archive in January 2025.
Brian is clear: the biggest challenge in terms of ensuring sustainability of land reforms is providing clear motivation for local actors to carry on after the implementation of our project is over.
“From my experience in various projects, sustainability is always coming from where the revenue is. Where can the government source the revenue to support the pursuit of reform and continue with the reform?”
Local governments in particular are very close to citizens and need to understand how digitalisation and valuation reforms will increase their revenues and improve services. Without that link, reform becomes just “a cost centre” rather than an investment.
“This was a little challenging in Nepal when we started because the focus of the Government and the project was decentralisation, and it’s difficult to realise the fiscal outcomes from this process alone.”
He also emphasises the human side of reform. Changing institutions often means changing roles, responsibilities, or power dynamics.
“If people feel threatened, reform stalls. It is important to remember that people inside the government are working on these reforms. No matter how many laws you change, no matter how many offices you merge or create, if these people don’t understand what their roles are and how they work within the dynamics of these reforms, then not much would change.”
Participants of participants of the National Stakeholders Workshop on the Digitalization of Nepal’s Land Administration Sector (DNLAS), held on Thursday, November 6, 2025, at the Hotel Yak and Yeti, Kathmandu.
Among the many recommendations produced through the project, Brian identifies three as the most urgent and achievable:
This is the fastest, highest-impact reform – achievable even without legal changes. It could immediately increase municipal revenues, improving services and strengthening the case for continued reform.
Bringing systems like NeLIS and LRIMS into alignment unlocks interoperability, improves services delivery, and provides the foundation for full decentralisation.
Municipalities must be able to use national data systems for valuation, taxation, and land use planning. Without local capacity, decentralisation remains symbolic rather than functional.
Despite the complexity, Brian remains optimistic. Reform, he stresses, is ultimately about perspective and people.
“Governments often say they want reform, but knowing what to change – and how – is difficult. Our role is to help them see reform as a positive: not replacing people but changing how the system works so it can serve citizens better.”
As the Nepal project nears completion, Brian’s reflections underscore a central truth: sustainable land reform requires technical clarity, political sensitivity, and genuine collaboration. When these align, meaningful change becomes possible.
Header image: Brian Garcia, Nepal Decentralization and Digitalization Team Leader, speaking at the National Stakeholders Workshop.
In spirit of reconciliation, Land Equity International acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea, and community. We pay respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
