The Land Governance Assessment Framework

Increased global demand for land posits the need for well-designed country-level land policies to protect long-held rights, facilitate land access and address any constraints that land policy may pose for broader growth. While the implementation of land reforms can be a lengthy process, the need to swiftly identify key land policy challenges and devise responses that allow the monitoring of progress, in a way that minimizes conflicts and supports broader development goals, is clear. The Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) makes a substantive contribution to the land sector by providing a quick and innovative tool to monitor land governance at the country level. The LGAF offers a comprehensive diagnostic tool that covers five main areas for policy intervention: Legal and institutional framework; Land use planning, management and taxation; Management of public land; Public provision of land information; and Dispute resolution and conflict management. The LGAF assesses these areas through a set of detailed indicators that are rated on a scale of pre-coded statements (from lack of good governance to good practice). While land governance can be highly technical in nature and tends to be addressed in a partial and sporadic manner, the LGAF posits a tool for a comprehensive assessment, taking into account the broad range of issues that land governance encompasses, while enabling those unfamiliar with land to grasp its full complexity. The LGAF will make it possible for policymakers to make sense of the technical levels of the land sector, benchmark governance, identify areas that require further attention and monitor progress. It is intended to assist countries in prioritizing reforms in the land sector by providing a holistic diagnostic review that can inform policy dialogue in a clear and targeted manner. In addition to presenting the LGAF tool, this book includes detailed case studies on its implementation in five selected countries: Peru, the Kyrgyz Republic, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Tanzania.

Over the last decade, land governance has become a major priority for the development community.1 A particular focus has been on sub-Saharan Africa due to the recognized paradox of high levels of land availability and low productivity in the region (see Deininger et al. 2012). While poor land governance systems have long been identified as a key reason for this disjuncture, the relatively recent large-scale impetus to improve land governance emerged from the inclusion of land management in 2009 as one of the four pillars under the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Develop-ment Program (CAADP). Subsequently, in the wake of the G-8’s launch of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutri-tion in 2012, many international initiatives have emerged to promote better land governance. These include the African Union’s Land Policy Initiative (AULPI) and the World Bank’s Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF). At the national level in Africa, land registration and land titling are the most common approaches to reform (Sikor and Müller 2009), with governments selecting among a broad spectrum of modalities to pilot. These include rural land use plans in some francophone countries (e.g., Benin, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire), systematic land tenure regularization (Ethio-pia, Madagascar, Rwanda), and communal land demarcation and registration (e.g., Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania) (see Byamugisha 2013).

The impact of land tenure systems in developing countries on agricultural investment and productivity continues to be the subject of intense scrutiny. This paper looks at land policy reforms with emphasis on lessons from Africa south of the Sahara (SSA). Food security crises in developing countries in the past decades have revived the debate about whether land tenure systems constrain farmer innovation and investment in agriculture. Changes in tenure systems can potentially have major implications for agricultural transformation. This chapter summarizes the arguments about how best to provide land tenure security in SSA and reviews recent experience and evidence arising from innovative interventions, with implications for other developing regions as well. It is hoped that the experiences and topics analyzed here may also help Venezuela in the process of normalizing land tenure systems in that country.

Despite being heavily endowed with land and other natural resources, Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest poverty rate in the world. A key to leveraging its land and natural resources to eradicate poverty is improving land governance, the subject of this book, centered on a ten point program to scale up land policy reforms and investments.

This paper attempts to define and assess the various institutional and mechanical elements which constitute a land management system and which have a significant impact on the functioning of land markets. The assumption of this report is that the accumulation over time of different institutions and instruments, which have relfected different priorities and policies, has inhibited the efficient and equitalbe operation of land markets and that reforms of institutions and policies are now urgently needed. (Adapté du résumé des auteurs).

Through its presentation of a holistic view of land management for sustainable development, this text outlines basic principles of land administration applicable to all countries and their divergent needs.