Land and Poverty Conference 2017 Responsible Land Governance – Towards an evidence-based approach March 20-24, 2017 Washington DC Implementation challenges of land administration in rural areas of Haiti : From the elaboration of a pre-cadaster methodology to the land tenure reform Michele Oriol, Bruno Jacquet, Anastasia Touati CIAT- Inter American Development Bank- World Bank

Introduction : an outdated land administration system An old question without answer An old issue with inappropriate answers: agrarian reform of 1994 With January 12, 2010 earthquake land tenure issues come back Land is a basic asset for haiti’s population and growth Yet : less than 5% of the country covered by a non-updated cadaster. Last complete cadaster dated from colonial times. The Haitian Government decided to put in place a holistic land reform

What history teaches us Current land administration inherited from colonial times private property structure Large plantations of 100 hectares during colonial times 1804 independance : plots become State land or owned by freed men and freed slaves The State distributes divided plots through « national grant » to military and civil officers Creation of a large class of landowners

Minifundia, family and State Lands Peasant property is legally and historically founded Main feature of the 19th century : the egalitarian sharing of property and land framentation Haitian land characterized by private small holdings and family land or indivision Remaining land is State land administered by the General Tax Direction (DGI) Creation of a large class of landowners

An obsolete and inefficient institutional framework Structure inspired by France where private professions have public service delegation : notaries and surveyors Private property rights established through notary deeds (urban) or survey minutes (rural). Only few plots are formalized, and mainly in towns. DGI, responsible for land right registration : suffers from lack of personnel, technical and managerial capacity. No centralized registry, nor electronic information system Weak juridical and technical background of notaries and surveyors. Archives kept in bad conditions High share of informal transactions due to costs Difficulties encountered by ONACA to fulfil its mandate 5

The land reform as a long term solution Deal with the land tenure reform as a whole Change the legal framework Modernize land administration tools Elaboration of a pre-cadaster methodology (PFB) Involves various stakeholders led by CIAT DGI, ONACA, judicial services Notaries and surveyors Significant achievements so far include Preparation of four laws (Notaries, land surveying, cadaster methodology, land registration) Update of adminstrative boundaries for 8 municipalities with geo referencing Installation of GNSS network of permanment CORS stations 6

The master piece : The Plan Foncier de Base A pre-cadaster Consisting of permanent geo-referenced data base Linking parcels, owners/occupants and land rights Registering transactions over time A precise methodology developed and implemented by the Haitian government Municipalities demarcation Pubic information campaigns Plots demarcation, collection of information (titles, etc.) Parcels mapping and creation of the land register Surveyors minutes issued Collection, organization and digitization of existing land records Intensive technical training for public and private tehcnicians to implement the PFB 7

Progress on the field: 2 months to survey 3000 ha, but: 6 months to evaluate rights, social arrangements and validate with the community - And 2 more months to have final lists of owners and cadastral map

First results and lessons learned The challenge of high land fragmentation Overall underestimation of parcels to be surveyed : 8000 estimated at appraisal, 22 000 finally surveyed in Camp Perrin 84 000 parcels to be surveyed by 2018 over 55,343 hectares (Chantal, sainte Suzanne, Grande Riviere du Nord, Bahon) Main results in Camp Perrin 38% of the municipal area is State private property 3948 titles collected Average plot area : 0.43 hectares 35% of properties : familiy lands Title delivery process began in July 2016 Cost of 175 USD per parcel 9

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Remaining challenges to scale-up modern land tenure administration services Training of land administration professionnals and field staff Difficulty to find titles and documentation Difficult conditions throughout the country (montaineous terrain, lack of roads and electrictiy, natural disasters) Land Tenure information system should be developed and put in place soon Conflictual situations: less than 1%, but lots of plots with informal/oral tenure arrangements PFB does not include land appraisal yet Sustainability depends on handling by public institutions 11

Conclusions Addressing the key structural elements of land tenure governance through a comprehensive legal, institutional and operational reform requires a strong political and institutional buy in and leadership. Choice was made to build on and improve the existing system through a pragmatic, concrete, systematic and iterative approach, in dialogue with the main stakeholders involved in the system, including the local communities. An important challenge is to find means to upgrade and update the PFB and provide resources to municipalities, in a context of mass poverty. 12