LGAF: The Land Governance Wrap Up

After an extended process of conceptualising, developing, and pilot testing, the Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) in collaboration with the World Bank, is now being rolled out in Benin, Rwanda and Mozambique. A final Economic Sector Work report on LGAF will also be published in the near future by the World Bank.

The latest presentation on the development of the diagnostic tool, LGAF, was made by World Bank senior economist, Harris Selod from the LGAF team, at the Annual Bank Conference on Land Policy and Administration, Washington DC, April 26-27, 2010. LGAF has been developed as a comprehensive land sector-wide framework for assessing various systems, practices, legal arrangements and services. It is a most valuable tool and starting point for the early stages of reform, as recently experienced by a team who implemented LGAF in Benin 2009. Like all reform interventions, the LGAF process requires a high level of government and political buy-in to ensure the analysis and consultations go beyond rhetoric and are genuinely considered by technical and policy stakeholders who directly inform the reform process.

The following five key areas were considered to encompass all the elements of a good land governance assessment framework:

• A legal, institutional, and policy framework that recognises existing rights, enforces them at low cost, and allows users to exercise them in line with their aspirations and in a way that promotes the benefit of society as a whole.
• Arrangements for land use planning and taxation conducive to avoiding negative externalities and supporting effective decentralisation.
• Clear identification of state land and its management in a way that provides public goods cost effectively; use of expropriation as a last resort only to establish public infrastructure with quick payment of fair compensation and effective mechanisms for appeal; and mechanisms for divestiture of state lands that are transparent and maximise public revenue.
• Public provision of land information in a way that is broadly accessible, comprehensive, reliable, current and cost effective in the long run.
• Accessible mechanisms to authoritatively resolve disputes and manage conflicts with clearly defined mandates, and low cost of operation.

The framework sets out 21 indicators across these five themes and includes 80 dimensions or sub-indicators, used for assessing a country or jurisdiction’s land sector governance and policy situation. Having a blueprint assessment framework suggests cross-country comparisons can be made. This is one of the intents; however comparisons should be done with critical analysis to ensure the south-south exchange of experience is appropriately contextualised. Experts undertake in-depth investigations on background information surrounding the main thematic areas. This is essential preparatory data collection which is then used to support panel consultations. The implementation manual is carefully designed for instructing the data preparation and subsequent eight panels of experts used to discuss rankings, and quantitative and qualitative assessments of a subset from the 80 dimensions. Each expert panel addresses a particular thematic area. Limited field studies and sampling may be required to gather empirical evidence if a large discrepancy in rankings or inadequate data exists following the panel sessions.

To maximise operational effectiveness of LGAF and implementation into policy and development dialogues it is desirable that general agreement is made with the government from inception. This should aim to establish improved access to data, receive official comments, and ensure involvement in a joint workshop at the conclusion of the study to disseminate results. These actions are also complimentary to making the FAO voluntary guidelines and African Union Land Policy Initiative operational.

Further roll out of LGAF is being considered by development partners. Since LEI’s involvement in the critical stages of conceptualising, developing and testing LGAF, we have learned lessons and expanded our knowledge across the regions on issues of good governance in land administration and management. These are now able being applied across our projects and with our continuing role in research and development in the land sector.

More details on the indicators and discussions on LGAF operation can be found in the recent publication, The Land Governance Framework: Methodology and Early Lessons From Country Pilots (page 188) in the Joint Discussion Paper, Innovations in Land Rights Recognition, Administration and Governance by K. Deininger, C. Augustinus, S. Enemark and P. Munro-Faure, World Bank Agriculture and Rural Development. LEI will also notify interested parties when the final ESW report on LGAF is available.