Submissions Accepted for Presentation at the World Bank Land Conference 2024

Faced with strong demographic growth in Kinshasa and the challenges of food supply in this city, peri-urban agricultural concessions have become a pretext for the acquisition of vast areas of peri-urban agricultural land to then be oriented towards urbanization. . Maintaining these concessions through agricultural activities requires appropriate measures, in particular the adaptation of property taxes.

Rural land administration systems are critical for sustainable development, yet they often face challenges such as limited accessibility, inefficient and lengthy processes, non-affordable service, and a lack of transparency in the rural setup. Rural communities often face barriers in accessing land administration services due to geographical remoteness, inadequate infrastructure, and a dearth of service centers. Moreover, cumbersome, and time-consuming service provision contributes to a lack of formalized registration of land transactions.

To avert these shortcomings, mobile service delivery has emerged as a transformative force in various sectors in general and land in particular and its potential in revolutionizing rural land administration services is undeniable. This abstract underscore an in-depth exploration of the critical role of mobile service delivery in revolutionizing land administration services, emphasizing its potential to enhance efficiency and citizen engagement. As technology continues to reshape land governance, integrating mobile services into land administration processes emerges as strategic imperative.

Land fragmentation, manifested by small parcels, having an awkward shape, scattered at a considerable distance, etc., is a serious problem demanding policy action. Different policy tools that could be used to manage the problem, other than land consolidation, are not getting attention. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to comparatively analysis the different land policy instruments to tackle land fragmentation. A systematic literature review approach is mainly applied as a secondary source of data. It is found that there are many policy instruments to manage land fragmentation including voluntary land exchanges, land consolidation, land transactions, expropriation, cluster farming, cooperative farming, determining minimum parcel size, banning land re-distribution, revisiting inheritance rules, and cluster farming. Some of the policy tools may be used as preparatory initiatives for land consolidation, while others can be taken as standalone management tools. It is imperative to have comprehensive and full-fledged policies and laws for managing land fragmentation.

The Malagasy reform on going since 2005 belongs to a new generation of land reforms in Africa. Two major innovations have inter alia emerged: the creation of land offices at commune level (decentralisation of land management) and land certification. This overview communication based on collective research during more than 10 years considers the three following questions: (i) How is this reform innovative and what has it achieved in the 15 years since its inception? (ii) Does certification is really massive and inclusive or the preserve of the elites, and what are the effects at the household level?

and (iii) Have land tenure governance and institutions in Madagascar really changed?