The fit for purpose land administration approach-connecting people, processes and technology in Mozambique

Mozambique started a massive land registration program to register five million parcels and delimitate four thousand communities. The results of the first two years of this program illustrated that the conventional methods utilized for the land tenure registration were too expensive and time-consuming and faced several data quality problems. The purpose of this research was to conceptualize, develop and test a country-specific Fit For Purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) approach for Mozambique, denominated as FFPLA-MOZ, intertwining three pillars: people, processes, and technology, to solve the constraints faced in systematic registrations. Such a contextualized approach needed to be: (i) in line with legislation; (ii) appropriate to the circumstances and needs of the systematic registration; (iii) cost-effective; (iv) based on available technology; and (v) fit to establish a sound and sustainable land administration system. By connecting people, processes, and technology, the FFPLA-MOZ approach achieved several benefits, including cost and time reduction, increased community satisfaction, and improved quality of work and data. The FFPLA-MOZ approach also supported a more robust community engagement through a more participatory land registration, denominated community-based crowdsourcing. Initial observations indicated that strong leadership and commitment were of extreme importance to ensure change management, capacity development, and project delivery for the success of these initiatives. The research only focused on the registration of land under good faith and customary occupations, as well as community delimitations. The next stages should focus on other land management activities and integrate other cadastres

Addressing fuzzy boundaries in community delimitations for systematic cadaster in Mozambique

This article is part of a series of studies that have been conducted regarding the process of systematic registration of land rights in Mozambique, both for communities and individual occupants. The methodology adopted to support the systematic registration, combines the delimitation of community lands and the registration of individual parcels. According to the proposed methodology, the outline of community boundaries must be established before individual rights are captured, and that must be the result of a consultative and participatory process. It is known that various conflicts between neighboring communities and individual users result from boundary disputes. Furthermore, when considering the concepts of “continuum of rights” and “bundle of rights” (UN-HABITAT, 2008), provision should be made for overlapping and sharing of rights in the same parcel (Agustinus & Lemmen, 2011). If not taken care of, systematic land rights recordation can lead to an increase of conflict situations. Therefore, one of the main challenges requiring solutions through the methodology is that of boundaries: administrative, inter-communities and inter-parcels. These potentially conflicting situations occur more frequently in border areas, where there is no correspondence between the administrative division and community circumscription. While some discrepancies arise from the technical cartographic process or in relation to both reliability and precision of representation, with different sources, there are real uncertainties and overlaps, generally not covered by field staff and their data collection instruments. Field staff, also generally, does not allow for the possibility of the same area being adjudicated to two communities or individuals simultaneously. The solution proposed by the authors is to explicitly incorporate the knowledge of these discrepancies, particularly those rooted in history since the commencing of the colonial regime and, with that, the consultative process, into the programs of systematic registration of community and individual lands, by introducing a category of areas of potential overlap and or uncertainty as to rights and users

Exploring and assessing STDM and LADM for gender equitable land administration

International laws and frameworks such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its defined Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), together with the Voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security (VGGTs) are key global cornerstones in the protection of women’s land rights and enabler for women to get land rights. Land rights for women is an issue that is linked to broader issues across geographical regions and cultural and religious differences. The SDGs specifically target women’s land and property rights in ending poverty (target 1.4), achieving food security (target 2.3) and ensuring gender equality (target 5a). To achieve these goals and to act according to these global policies, namely, to have equal land rights for women and men, land ownership and land use records need to include both genders. Though, in many countries, such records are non-existent or not up to date or do not show the reality on the ground. As a result, women are often passed over by the government during tenure recordation processes. Further overlapping or secondary land rights have been lost through formal land registration systems (women are often these ‘secondary land right holders’, where men are mostly the primary right holder). Consequently, the livelihoods of those relying on the secondary land rights, which are often overlapping use rights to property rights, have been negatively affected. Issues such as: polygamy, monogamy, divorce, inheritance, primary and secondary rights, shares in property and use rights, legal systems (statutory, customary) are directly related to women’s land rights. More specifically, the required supportive data models, forms and databases that could support women’s land rights are either not designed or used in a way that is gender equitable. Aimed at overcoming these issues, supporting and enhancing the protection of the land rights of women and underrepresented, fit-for-purpose land administration promotes alternative approaches to improve land tenure security. The Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) and the related Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) functionalities can be used for documenting primary and secondary land rights of women. The STDM concept promotes the recordation of a range of land rights including de-facto tenure rights, as well as capturing a variety or multiplicity of tenures that often overlap. In this paper, the contemporary and available options for modelling women’s land rights and use rights in land recording systems will be unpacked, opportunities identified, along with limitations, and work to overcome these suggested. Concepts of land administration are neutral to politics, and can accommodate any number of classifications

Exploring and Assessing STDM and LADM for gender equitable land administration

International laws and frameworks such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its defined Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), together with the Voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security (VGGTs) are key global cornerstones in the protection of women’s land rights and enabler for women to get land rights. Land rights for women is an issue that is linked to broader issues across geographical regions and cultural and religious differences. The SDGs specifically target women’s land and property rights in ending poverty (target 1.4), achieving food security (target 2.3) and ensuring gender equality (target 5a). To achieve these goals and to act according to these global policies, namely, to have equal land rights for women and men, land ownership and land use records need to include both genders. Though, in many countries, such records are non-existent or not up to date or do not show the reality on the ground. As a result, women are often passed over by the government during tenure recordation processes.GIS Technologi

Exploring and assessing STDM and LADM for gender equitable land administration

International laws and frameworks such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its defined Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), together with the Voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security (VGGTs) are key global cornerstones in the protection of women’s land rights and enabler for women to get land rights. Land rights for women is an issue that is linked to broader issues across geographical regions and cultural and religious differences. The SDGs specifically target women’s land and property rights in ending poverty (target 1.4), achieving food security (target 2.3) and ensuring gender equality (target 5a). To achieve these goals and to act according to these global policies, namely, to have equal land rights for women and men, land ownership and land use records need to include both genders. Though, in many countries, such records are non-existent or not up to date or do not show the reality on the ground. As a result, women are often passed over by the government during tenure recordation processes. Further overlapping or secondary land rights have been lost through formal land registration systems (women are often these ‘secondary land right holders’, where men are mostly the primary right holder). Consequently, the livelihoods of those relying on the secondary land rights, which are often overlapping use rights to property rights, have been negatively affected. Issues such as: polygamy, monogamy, divorce, inheritance, primary and secondary rights, shares in property and use rights, legal systems (statutory, customary) are directly related to women’s land rights. More specifically, the required supportive data models, forms and databases that could support women’s land rights are either not designed or used in a way that is gender equitable. Aimed at overcoming these issues, supporting and enhancing the protection of the land rights of women and underrepresented, fit-for-purpose land administration promotes alternative approaches to improve land tenure security. The Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) and the related Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) functionalities can be used for documenting primary and secondary land rights of women. The STDM concept promotes the recordation of a range of land rights including de-facto tenure rights, as well as capturing a variety or multiplicity of tenures that often overlap. In this paper, the contemporary and available options for modelling women’s land rights and use rights in land recording systems will be unpacked, opportunities identified, along with limitations, and work to overcome these suggested. Concepts of land administration are neutral to politics, and can accommodate any number of classifications