Land Administration Trends and Challenges in East Africa – Guest Writer: Christopher Burke, WMC Africa

Dramatic population growth rates and rising demand for increasingly limited resources have pushed land governance and administration to the fore across Africa.  The East African Community (EAC) comprises of the Republics of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania. The sustained growth of the region; exponential developments in technology associated with land governance and administration; the entry of new actors; and the broader social, political and economic dynamics of the region present a mix of challenges and opportunity.

The Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project, together with our partners at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Land Portal, will organise the 3rd Mekong Regional Land Forum (MRLF2021) in the coming weeks, entitled “Land tenure in Mekong forest landscapes: advancing the recognition of customary rights and responsible investment practices”.  This forum will bring together reform-minded actors within and beyond the region to engage in in-depth, interactive debate on issues that cut to the core of the most pressing challenges facing tenure security in forest areas and the impacts of  agribusiness investment.

Land transaction systems are often reviewed as part of land administration reform. And what we know is that land administration reform is difficult. There is a long history of paper-records and the digitisation of these – and associated processes – and it is not always straightforward, with both technical and social challenges. Yet reform is important, particularly to ensure land transaction systems effectively protect land rights and ‘unlock capital’ to support the livelihoods of men and women. Well developed, digital land administration information and transaction systems (Land IT Systems) further provide a solid spatial information base for governments to provide critical services and generate revenue through land valuation, taxation, and value-added services.

Over the past few months we’ve worked with a local digital design team and are pleased to invite you to revisit our website. It boasts a fresh new look, improved site navigation and for us, greater usability to share our news and project updates. We hope you enjoy browsing … www.landequity.com.au.

Interest in joining the Summer School on Mekong Land Relations increased almost three-fold this year. We wish all the participants an informative and motivating week-long session from 14th-19th July 2019 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. To think that only 2 years ago, 130 people were applying for the 24 places on offer, and now more than 320 have applied. We at LEI are very proud of our enthusiastic and dedicated partners at RCSD, the University of Chiang Mai’s Regional Centre for Social Science and Sustainable Development, for persisting and encouraging young academics to engage in the difficult discussion space of land issues in the Mekong, in particular land and forest tenure security.

The Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held their second Regional Land Forum in Bangkok on 28-30 May 2018.

Here at LEI and Gret’s Mekong Region Land Governance project we are moving towards the end of Phase 1 in June. We expect a relatively seamless shift into the second phase, which is anticipated to start in July this year, for another four years.

The year has gone quickly for the LEI team working on the One Map Technical Assistance project in Indonesia. The primary objective of this technical assistance was to assist with the project preparation of the One Map Project – a project to support the implementation and acceleration of Indonesia’s One Map Policy. Working alongside the two implementing agencies – the National Land Agency (BPN) and the Geospatial Information Agency (BIG) – as well as the World Bank, the LEI team prepared a series of background and project preparation reports detailing the project design of the One Map Project. These are now ready for review and appraisal by the Government of Indonesia and the World Bank, and the project wrapped up at the beginning of February.

At the age of 60, Ibrahim Ng’wala a husband of six wives with 17 children has lived his entire life in the village known as Nyange. This village is located nearby the famous Kilombero Sugar Company Limited in Kilombero district, Morogoro Region.

Tanzania’s Land Tenure Support Programme (LTSP) has again demonstrated that there is strong national and sectoral leadership and commitment to improved land service delivery and transparency in Tanzania. In any land project there is always a need for strong communication and coordination within and between government and non-government stakeholders. The LTSP has recently established a Multi Stakeholder Group (MSG) to best facilitate and improve inter-agency cooperation, in support of land tenure reform as envisioned under the Strategic Plan for Implementation of Land Laws (SPILL) 2013.