The Mama Graon Vanuatu Land Program

The Mama Graon Vanuatu Land Program, led by Program Director Chris Lunnay, made tremendous advances in strengthening customary governance in 2011. Actively working through program partners has been one of the key modalities towards effective progress.

More than 1.5 billion people live in Asian cities and by 2030 at current urban growth rates, an additional 1.2 billion people will be living in cities in the region. The region is facing growing problems of access to safe drinking water, rapid population growth, reduced access to land for growing food, and climate change related problems of natural disasters and rising sea levels.

On the 17th June LEI successfully completed the ‘design phase’ of the Systematic Land Regularisation and Improvement of Rural Land Allocation processes project. This component of the MCA-Lesotho Land Administration Reform Project (LARP) focused on the regularization of urban and peri-urban areas of Maseru, Lesotho’s capital city. On completion of activities the project team regularized over 4000 urban parcels (i.e. final adjudication and cadastral survey of each parcel) and over 5,300 rural land allocation parcels in Maseru and Berea Districts.

After initial preparatory work involving intensive consultation the key Program steering committee has been formed and has established clear functions that will assist with seeing the Program progress. In line with Land Equity International’s commitment to the principles of aid effectiveness our approach to the Program is to maximise local partnerships and encourage national appointments to our adviser team. We strongly believe the Program should be nationally driven and led and as such we are very pleased to announce the recent appointment of Mr Russell Nari to the position of Deputy Program Director/Customary Land Adviser. Mr Nari, a ni-Vanuatu, was previously the Director General of Justice and a previous Director General of Lands. He brings a strong level of national ownership and invaluable cultural and technical understanding to program implementation.

LEI Contributes to FAO Development of Guidelines on Gender-Equitable Governance of Land Tenure. In May, Dr Kate Dalrymple participated in the FAO Workshop on Gender-Equitable Governance of Land Tenure at FAO Headquarters, Rome. This was part of a series of workshops that are contributing to the development of complimentary and practical Technical Guidelines for the broader Voluntary guidelines on responsible governance of tenure of land and other natural resources (VG), due out later in 2011. This successful workshop brought together a variety of technicians and professionals from around the globe working in different fields of land governance. Represented by Government agencies, NGOs, private sector, FAO and affiliated organisations, the group compiled through practical experience, innovative gender equitable solutions for tackling the issues of land governance.

LEI are leading Land Governance & Land Program Research in Africa & Europe. LEI are undertaking a comparative review of various land reform activities in Sub-Saharan Africa for FAO and the World Bank. The review considers alternative technologies and evaluates the impact of land reform programs including the impact of land regularization and land use planning. We are specifically looking at land issues involved in informal settlements and initiatives to reverse urban informality.

LEI are involved with land sector activities in Lesotho managing 2 large projects under the MCA-Lesotho Compact, Private Sector Development Land Component (Land Administration Reform Project, LARP).

The importance of land, its role in custom and the land issues facing the people of Vanuatu were highlighted during a National Land Summit held in 2006. To work towards addressing the issues raised at the Land Summit the Government of Vanuatu requested support from the Australian and New Zealand Governments. LEI have been involved in a number of interim support initiatives through both AusAID and NZAID. Following a bidding process for implementation of the Mama Graon – Vanuatu Land Program , LEI signed a contract with AusAID in December 2010.

According to the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2011 it takes an average of 81 days to register a property in Malawi. This places Malawi 81 out of 183 jurisdictions for this Doing Business indicator. While this represents an improvement on the 2010 results, the Government of Malawi (GoM) recognizes that continuing modernization of land registration process will act as an incentive to business investment and growth. It will allow those in the real estate market to make decisions and carry through their land transaction intentions promptly and with confidence under the law. Under the auspices of the Business Environment Technical Assistance Programme (BESTAP) the GoM through the Ministry of Industry and Trade is using an ODA grant funds to modernize the current paper based land registration system.

After 9 years and two phases of the Philippines-Australia Land Administration and Management Project LEI have sadly closed the project office on 30 June 2010. Much has been achieved on this project with some of the most notable accomplishments including: