Rwanda land tenure regularisation case study

This is a study on the approach taken to land tenure reform by the Land Tenure Regularisation Programme

Abstract

This case study has been produced in response to a request to the Evidence on Demand Helpdesk. The objective of the request was to provide a detailed case study on the approach taken to land tenure reform by the DFID-funded Land Tenure Regularisation Programme (LTRSP) in Rwanda. The case study should provide the reader with an understanding of how land tenure reform can work under particular social, political and economic conditions, as well as the approach taken to ensure gender equality in land rights.

The LTRSP registered all the land in Rwanda (10.3 million parcels) for the first time. It involved a one-off, low-cost, community-based process of land tenure regularisation (LTR), costing UK£3.42 (US$5.47) and UK£4.05 (US$6.48) per parcel. As well as identifying key success factors (political commitment; a detailed LTRSP developed in an earlier phase of the programme; flexibility), the case study also identifies some of the threats to the sustainability of the LTR process – namely, the sustainability of the Land Administration System (LAS), as well as financial and judicial sustainability.

This case study provides an example of rural LTR. Rwanda has only one significant urban centre (Kigali), but the vast majority of land within the province labelled ‘Kigali City’ is rural.

This report has been produced by HTSPE Limited for Evidence on Demand with the assistance of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) contracted through the Climate, Environment, Infrastructure and Livelihoods Professional Evidence and Applied Knowledge Services (CEIL PEAKS) programme, jointly managed by HTSPE Limited and IMC Worldwide Limited.

Citation

Gillingham, P.; Buckle, F. Rwanda land tenure regularisation case study. Evidence on Demand, UK (2014) 40 pp. [DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12774/eod_hd.march2014.gillingham]

Rwanda land tenure regularisation case study

Published 1 January 2014