Consulting Services for the Establishment of a Harmonized Land Administration System
In the absence of required capacity and comprehensive system, visible land administration country efforts have sprouted in some of the regional states of Ethiopia. Over the past five years the country managed to take a long stride towards the establishment of a national land administration system. Land certificates were issued to 6.3 million households out of 13 million rural households in Amhara, Tigray, Oromiya and The Southern Nations. The comprehensive contribution and closer technical support of the Government of Sweden to Amhara region through SARDP (The Amhara Rural Development Program) has been the pioneer and later complimented by the USAID ELTAP (Ethiopian Land Tenure and Administration Program) that supported selected kebelles in four of the Regions.
In addition to the physical achievements of certification of holdings, interventions achieved results in areas of overall administration, conflict reduction, good governance, sustainable land management, female empowerment, expansion of rental market, etc. The benefits observed are of great value for the improvement of production and productivity in the country.
Despite progress in the sector, there are also a lot of institutional, technical and organizational capacity gaps that need to be addressed. The sector is still constrained by weak strategic technical leadership at the federal level. Basic challenges include limitations in the institutionalization, management and operation of land administration, lack of technical capacity at different levels, challenges pertaining to completeness, quality and updating of records, absence of comprehensive graphical record systems, etc.
The main objective of the studies is to (i) suggest arrangements for land record management (both spatial and textual) that can be implemented sustainably and in a cost-effective way in the Ethiopian context; (ii) develop an ICT strategy for the land sector as well as a software development strategy, including a fully costed, time-bound work plan for the implementation of these strategies in the different regions; (iii) assessment of human and other resource requirements necessary to implement improved records management, ICT systems and an appropriate monitoring system and investigation of the existing human and other resources in order to identify resource gaps and develop a strategy for closing them; and (iv) develop indicators and appropriate reporting systems to enable the monitoring of progress towards achieving improved records management, ICT systems and HR and other resource capacity in the land sector in Ethiopia.