Improving the Land Registration Process in Malawi

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 is undertaking a review, design and specification of a title and deeds registration system for the Ministry of Lands Housing and Urban Development (MLHUD). LEI’s Team leader, John Meadows has recently overseen the completion of Project Phase 1, reviewing a wide range of operations: current deeds and land registry; the existing legislative framework; and development of a specification for computerized deeds and land registry system. Phase 2 activities are well underway with LEI overseeing the digitization, scanning and data capture of over 80,000 deeds records and 70,000 land registry records. This will be followed by an assessment of training needs within MLHUD. A series of workshops and training are to be held in Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Blantyre in early 2011.

The project is scheduled to run through until March 2012 by which time it is anticipated that MLHUD will oversee a fully computerized deeds and land registry operation.