Pacific Land Program – Case Studies

The White Paper on the Australian Government’s overseas aid program identified the need for a collaborative and demand driven Pacific land mobilisation program. The AusAID Pacific Land Program that is being developed has two objectives; (i) to survey and disseminate innovative land mobilisation practices in the Pacific and (ii) to resource innovations and improvements in land tenure arrangements.

To progress the first objective AusAID will be preparing a report that looks at innovative practices and problems in land tenure in the Pacific. To assist with the preparation of the report AusAID commissioned a series of case studies to be undertaken in the Pacific region.

Chris Grant, Chris Lunnay and Jim Fingleton were involved in the preparation of case studies, which were then peer reviewed. Chris Grant prepared a case study on “Accessing Land for Public Purposes in Samoa”; Chris Lunnay prepared a case study on “Training and Educating Land Professionals in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Laos”, and Jim Fingleton was involved in the preparation of several case studies; “Recognition of Customary Land-owning Groups in Vanuatu using Land Trusts”, “The Systems of Land Dispute Settlement in Papua New Guinea” and “Land Registration among the Tolai People: waiting 50 years for Titles”.

Provided by Chris Lunnay