Philippines-Australia Land Administration and Management Project –Phase II

The LAMP Phase 2 Project finished the year on a high note with the reaching of the year two target for issuance of land titles, and the continued increase in formal land transactions processed through the Leyte Province One Stop Shop (OSS). In addition, the mass data capture of all land titles in the province Register of Deeds (1/4 million titles) is underway and complements the parallel data capture of all approved survey plans which was commenced earlier.

In previous newsletters we have reported on the major expansion program the TA team is supporting here. It is only ten months before the end of TA inputs for Phase 2 and yet the project is increasing in size – we have just added five provinces, taking us to 14 provinces where systematic adjudication is supported. And of course the Department of Lands must also build capacity within five additional provincial land offices to support the flow of subsequent registrations that are expected after the public education program. But that is not all … we are currently in the middle of the World Bank, AusAID and GTZ assessment of the project, where we expect the go-ahead to be given to the expansion into the remaining three provinces, commencing in a few months!

The White Paper on the Australian Government’s overseas aid program identified the need for a collaborative and demand driven Pacific land mobilisation program. The AusAID Pacific Land Program that is being developed has two objectives; (i) to survey and disseminate innovative land mobilisation practices in the Pacific and (ii) to resource innovations and improvements in land tenure arrangements.

Chris Lunnay has been involved in supporting the Government of Papua New Guinea with the development of a Concept Design Document for their National Land Development Program (NLDP). Chris undertook an initial visit to Port Moresby in early July to assess the GoPNG requirements. There was a need to link the outputs from the concept design activities into the PNG annual budget cycle, which meant that all design activities needed to be completed by early September. A concept design team was put together at very short notice and mobilisation of the team commenced on 5 August. The international team consisted of Chris Lunnay (Team Leader/Land Administration), Kevin Rainsford (IT Policy/Valuation), Norena Kavanagh (Institutional and HRD), Pamela Harris (Community Education and Customer Service) and the nationals were Oswald Tolopa (Legislation and Disputes) and Dr Lawrence Kalinoe (Customary Land).

From Public Relations To Social Mobilization: Tweaking LAMP II IEC To Fit Philippine Social Realities

The Project is going through a very busy period (has it ever been otherwise?), with training for new staff in the existing 9 Project provinces (following major staff losses since the move of the Department of Lands from the Ministry of Finance to the National Land Management Authority in 2006) nearing completion, and training for new systematic adjudication teams starting in Bokeo, Oudomsay and Luang Namtha this week. Following training, systematic adjudication will commence in these provinces in the new year. The next two provinces (Attapeu and Xekong) will receive training later this year, and the final three provinces will come on board in February 2008.

In a country where there are 29 agencies involved in property valuation (and as many valuation systems used), the establishment of the Property Valuation Staff (PVS) is a landmark initiative towards a single and unified valuation system and authority. The PVS, which is currently housed at the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF), was established on 30 August 2007 by Secretary Margarito Teves of the Department of Finance (DOF) through Department Order 34-07.

LEI have been supporting the University of Canberra to provide training and work experience in Australia to a group of valuers from the Bureau of Local Governance and Finance, Philippines.

PROVIDING A SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND GENDER FRAMEWORK FOR LAMP2

We indicated in the December 2006 Newsletter that a key issue in our project was the establishment of the National Land Management Authority (NLMA).