Land Team to Present Case Studies from Africa at World Bank Conference

March 12, 2018

DAI’s Land Tenure and Property Rights team will present four papers at the 2018 World Bank Land and Poverty Conference, March 19-23 in Washington, D.C. The team will share lessons learned from programs in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Tanzania, as well as from the use of local-level land registers in countries such as Rwanda. DAI will also present posters on building land markets in developing economies and using a market system approach in land tenure programs.

The Land and Poverty Conference is one of the largest international land and governance events, with more than 1,300 attendees representing government, universities, civil society organizations, and the private sector. The theme of this year’s event is “Governance in an Interconnected World,” with sessions covering current research, innovations, and practices in the land administration sector around the world.

Pictured, from left, Mustapha Issa, Field Team Manager for the Tanzania Land Tenure Assistance (LTA) program; Andy Smith, Programme Manager for Ethiopia Land Investment for Transformation (LIFT); Tressan Sullivan, LTA Chief of Party; Workwoha Mekonen, LIFT Gender and Social Inclusion Expert; John Leckie, DAI Principal Consultant; Malaki Msigwa, LTA Deputy Chief of Party; Felicity Buckle, DAI Senior Consultant; and Richard Baldwin, DAI Global Practice Leader for Land Tenure.

“We look forward to presenting our work in Tanzania as an example of how digital technology, when applied in a participatory way, can enable rural people to strengthen their land rights,” said Tressan Sullivan, Chief of Party for the Tanzania Land Tenure Assistance project. “By using the Mobile Application for Secure Tenure tool, the project helped issue 20,000 land titles in 18 villages in a cost-effective manner that has prompted government and development actors to adopt this approach on a national scale.”

John Leckie, Principal Consultant for DAI’s Land Tenure team, will present a paper on the Land Investment for Transformation program in Ethiopia, for which DAI partnered with Nathan Associates. “We’re pleased to share promising results from our work applying market systems interventions in land rental markets,” he said. “This approach leverages the economic benefits that come from increased security of tenure and helps drive public buy-in for the rural land administration system.”

DAI’s Land Tenure practice supports the rights and security of land holders through high-level reforms as well as local capacity building and leads programs for the U.K. Department for International Development, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the European Union, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. In addition to projects presented at the conference, DAI also manages land tenure programs in Mongolia and Malawi.

Follow #LandRights and #LandConf2018 on Twitter for more about the event.