LEI wins World Bank-funded One Map TA contract in Indonesia

LEI has secured the Technical Assistance and Capacity Development for the Program Preparation to Operationalize and Accelerate the One Map Policy (One Map TA project). This 12-month TA project commenced in February 2017. It aims to support One Map Policy (OMP) implementation and strengthen the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) through the early completion of OMP coverage across all of Indonesia.

In May 2016, LEI finalised contract negotiations for PMaP3 – funded by MCA-I. As is the case with PMaP2, this project is part of the Participatory Land Use Planning Activity (PLUP) under the Green Prosperity Project (see http://gp.mca-indonesia.go.id/en/). PLUP implementation focuses on investments in administrative boundary setting, updating and integrating land-use inventories and enhancing spatial plans and capacity building at the district and provincial levels.

On PMaP2 we are fortunate to have a great team in place, but it is not something we take for granted.

The delegation was headed by the Hon. Minister Daudi Migereko and Permanent Secretary Musoke Gabindadde who were accompanied by Nadege Orlova of IGN International of France – the company responsible for the World Bank-funded Design Supply and Implementation of a Land Information System project.

In December 2015, LEI finalised contract negotiations to the value of USD4.2m for the second project in a series of sub-activities under the MCA-I Participatory Land Use Planning Activity (PLUP). The PLUP is one of four activities making up the Green Prosperity Project (see http://gp.mca-indonesia.go.id/en/). The PLUP activity focuses on investments in administrative boundary setting, updating and integrating land use inventories and enhancing spatial plans at the district and provincial levels.

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.

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.

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.

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).

LEI is supporting the US company ARD in implementing a USAID-funded project aimed at addressing property rights and land tenure issues in Timor Leste. Land tenure has experienced a rather tenuous history in Timor-Leste. Formerly known as East Timor, the country was occupied as a colony of Portugal for some 450 years, experienced three years of Japanese occupation during WW2, some twenty five years of Indonesian occupation following its first attempts at independence late 1975, through to formal acceptance of independence in May 2002. During each of these occupations, some property rights were granted. However, since independence, no property rights have been issued and no former rights are recognised, as no land law under the new Government yet exist.