Land Certification Administration Manual - Zambia
| TENURE AND GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE (TGCC) |
|---|
Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC)
The Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC) task order (TO) is a programme funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Strengthening Tenure and Resource Rights (STARR) Indefinite Quantity Contract (IQC). The aim of the task order is to identify and test models that strengthen resource tenure governance and property rights as they relate to successful global climate change mitigation and adaptation programming.
Climate change impacts and interventions in response to climate change could significantly affect resource tenure governance, the rights of communities and people, and their livelihoods. In turn, resource tenure and property rights issues may undermine successful implementation of climate change-related initiatives. Interventions that strengthen resource tenure and property rights governance can help reduce vulnerability and increase the resilience of people, places and livelihoods in the face of climate change impacts. They can also promote resource-use practices that achieve mitigation, adaptation, and development objectives.
The task order draws extensively from: the USAID Gender Equity and Female Empowerment and Evaluation policies; the USAID Climate Change and Development Strategy; and the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests.
TGCC work in Zambia focuses on piloting tenure interventions that strengthen land rights as an enabling condition for the promotion and adoption of climate-smart land use practices. This work is implemented within five chiefdoms of the Chipata District of Eastern Province by the Chipata District Land Alliance and Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO), with support from international land tenure consultants and coordination and monitoring and evaluation support from Shared Value Africa.
DISCLAIMER
This manual is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents of this manual are the sole responsibility of its authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States government.
Maintaining & Administering Customary Land Certificates - what is this manual about?
Through the activities of the TGCC project during 2014/16, the village authorities and inhabitants of a number of villages across 4 separate chiefdoms in Chipata district have had the opportunity to map the boundaries of their villages, to discuss and adopt local bylaws in respect to land and natural resource management, and to systematically identify and certify family and individual land holdings.
The certification process of individual and family holdings is (July 2016) concluded and the certificates are in the process of being delivered to the applicants, via the chiefs and village headpersons. This systematic certification process is being carried out with support from the TGCC project, using staff and contractors of the Chipata District Land Alliance (CDLA) and harnessing the capacities of the Village Land Committees (VLCs) that have been created.
The conclusion of the systematic certification will see the delivery of several thousand certificates of customary land holdings to eligible land holders within the target villages. The certificates comprise a georeferenced map of the land holding, as well as the identification details of the holder of the customary right, any joint holders and any ‘Persons of Interest’.
The data used to generate the certificates has been captured and is being held in both analogue and digital formats. This data comprises spatial data (maps) and textual data (personal and land details). Together, the spatial and textual data represent village-level registers of the land holdings that have been certified during the systematic process. The key objective of the process is, however, not to merely ‘take a photograph’ of the village land holdings as they are in 2015/16, but rather to introduce a sustainable system for the continuous registering and administering of customary rights to land. This requires that the village land registers are maintained and updated.
The registers in fact should always be a ‘mirror’ of the actual situation in regard to the certified customary land rights held in the village; because there will be changes over time, the registers will need to reflect these changes. The changes might be in respect to the rights holders, where people pass on their existing land rights to others, or affect the spatial pattern of land holdings, where existing boundaries are modified, or even new parcels of land allocated.
The key reasons for a comprehensive system for the maintenance of the village land registers therefore include:
- The possibility that current land holders in the villages have been unable to participate in the systematic certification process at this stage, but would like to be able to register and certify their land holdings in the future.
- The fact that there may be village land that is currently unallocated (and which will not be certified during the current process), but over which rights come to be customarily acquired by an individual or a family in the future. This includes the possibility of new entrants to a village, who are allocated land for cultivation by the headpersons or the chief, or through existing village members acquiring new rights to additional land parcels.
- The death of current holders/joint holders, such that the land rights to particular parcels of land pass via customary inheritance norms to other people, who may or may not be named on the certificate or in the village register.
- The existence of gifts and exchanges, or other village-level transactions concerning land, which see the customary land rights passing from one individual/family to another.
- The possibility that the customary land rights to a particular piece of land are revoked for some reason by the Chief and either returned to the village ‘stock of unallocated land’, are re-allocated to a different person/family, or are converted to state land under a formal leasehold.
All of these potential events will require some amendment of the registers. Keeping these registers up-to-date includes the allocation of new parcels, or the subdivision of existing parcels. Other tasks relate to changing the names of certificate holders or Persons of Interest, when necessary, the issuing of new or replacement certificates and the provision of extracts from the registers to interested parties. Some of the events will require amendments to be made to existing certificates, which will then need to be re-issued. Some may require the issuance of completely new certificates for land that has not yet been identified in the system.
April, 2016
Abbreviations
| CDLA | Chipata District Land Alliance |
|---|---|
| GIS | Geographic Information System |
| GPS | Geographic Positioning System |
| ODK | Open Data Kit |
| TGCC | Tenure & Global Climate Change project |
| UPN | Unique Parcel Number |
| VLC | Village Land Committee |
Glossary and definitions
| CDLA Community Facilitators | A CDLA member trained in the Customary Land Administration process that supports the VLCs, indunas and Chiefs in their administration and maintenance of the customary land registers and certificates and in the surveying of land parcels. |
|---|---|
| CDLA Data Team | A team of people, based at the CDLA Office in Chipata, who are responsible for receiving and organising requests that come from the villages, for organising work schedules, for monitoring and for updating the digital registers. |
| Chiefdom Land Register | A digital database held at the CDLA Office which contains all the textual and spatial data relating to certified land rights holders in the Chiefdom and is used for printing the Certificates. |
| ‘Child’ parcel | A parcel of certified land created by the subdivision of an existing parcel (see ‘Parent’ parcel) |
| Claimant | A person that claims that they have a customarily acquired right to use and occupy a particular piece of land. |
| Clan or Family Rights | Land which may be under the tenure and control of families or clans, rather than the Chiefs. |
| Concurrent Rights | Different rights over the same piece of land |
| Conflict Areas | Areas where the boundaries between two or more villages are not agreed upon, or where pieces of land are claimed as being part of more than one village. |
| Customary Land Certificate | A certificate issued by the Chief to a named person that documents a customarily acquired right to use a particular piece of land. |
| Dambos | Shallow wetlands characterised by grasses, rushes and sedges, contrasting with surrounding woodland which tend to retain wet lines of drainage through the dry season and are waterlogged in the wet season. |
| Demarcation | The process of identifying and marking the boundaries of a parcel of land on a hard copy map with a pencil, and assigning a Unique Parcel Number to that area. |
| DHIS2 | District Health Information Software (DHIS) is an open source software platform for reporting, analysis and dissemination of data, developed by the Health Information Systems Programme (HISP). https://www.dhis2.org/ |
| Digitisation | The process by which the boundary lines which have been drawn onto the marked-up Map Sheets are transferred into digital parcel boundary outlines within the GIS. |
| Disputed Boundaries | Boundaries between neighbouring parcels which are disputed between the owners. |
| Extract of the Chiefdom Land Register | A document produced from the Chiefdom Land Register which lists the landholder of a parcel and the other persons nominated by them (Persons of Interest) that have an interest in that land from the perspective of customary inheritance norms. |
| Geographic Information System | A computer programme which allows spatial data to be held, displayed and formatted, and for maps to be made. |
| Global Positioning System | A space-based satellite navigation system that provides location and time information anywhere on or near the earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. |
| GPS Equipment | An instrument used for receiving and capturing the signal being sent from the network of satellites that comprise the Global Positioning System. |
| GPS Waypoints | Points captured by GPS equipment represented by a coordinate in Longitude and a coordinate in Latitude. |
| Interested Party | A person that has a legitimate right to raise an objection to a claim made by someone to use and occupy a piece of land. |
| Joint Holder | A person recorded and named on a Certificate as jointly holding, with the main holder, the customary right to use and occupy a parcel of land. |
| Map Sheet | A map printed at A3 size and at a scale of 1:1,750, based on satellite imagery and showing village boundaries, areas of disputed land, and reserved or protected land. |
| Map Sheet Number | The unique number attributed to all the separate map Sheets covering the four chiefdoms of the TGCC focus area. |
| Marked-Up Map Sheet | The Map Sheets after they have been used in the demarcation process, showing the parcel boundaries and the Parcel Numbers as they have been marked by the community surveyors working in the field. |
| Open Data Kit Form | An electronic form that can be loaded into a smartphone or tablet and which assists in the collection of different kinds of data in the field. |
| ‘Parent’ parcel | A parcel of land which is subdivided (see ‘Child’ parcel) |
| Persons of Interest | A person, such as a spouse or children, who has a legitimate expectation that the customary right to the use of a parcel of land will pass to them on the death of the holder and/or his/her more direct descendants. |
| Receipt | Numbered receipt issued to a claimant at the point of demarcation and used to prove that a claim was made; is exchanged at the end of the process for a Certificate. |
| Village Land Register | A hard copy ledger which contains data on customary land allocations within a village and which is organised in a way that supports the VLC to undertake both systematic certification and the future allocation of land to village members. |
| Reserved Areas | Areas within a village that have been identified by the members of that village as being reserved for future allocation by the headperson or the Chief. |
| Spatial Data | Information about where the boundaries of a parcel of land are located in space. |
| State Land | Land that is legally under the tenure of the Zambian State, which may have been declared as State land, or become State land because of the nature of the use being made of the land, or because it has been converted from customary land through an application. |
| Textual Data | Various bits of information about who has interests in a parcel of land. |
| Tile Number | The number of a Map Sheet that is part of a set that makes up a Village Map Catalogue |
| Unique Parcel Number | A unique number, comprising of up to 16 digits, which is assigned to each and every parcel that is identified during the certification process. |
| Village Boundary | The agreed boundary of a village, established through custom and local norms and identified through a mapping process involving the agreement of members of the village and their neighbouring villages. |
| Village Land Committee | A group of people, selected by village members, which assists the headperson of the village to fulfil customary land management and land administration functions. |
| Village Map Catalogue | A collection of individual A3 format maps, at a scale of 1:1,750, which taken together provide a complete map for a particular village area. |
| Village Overview Map | A map of all the Map Sheets that cover the full area within the village boundary, with a list of their respective numbers. |
| Village Parcel Index | A list of all the parcel numbers displayed on a Village Parcel Map, with the details of the name of the claimant and all the named Persons of Interest. |
| Village Parcel Map | A map of a village that shows the demarcated boundaries of all the parcels of land to which someone has registered a claim to use and occupy, also showing the Parcel Number of each one. |
| Ward | An administrative area used by the Zambian State. |
How to use this manual
This manual is a Customary Land Administration User Manual and the primary objective is to describe all the steps, processes and tools for maintaining the registers of customary land holdings.
The User Manual is designed to be used by the CDLA staff involved in supporting the Chiefdoms, and by the Chiefdom personnel themselves.
The manual applies to the piloting of the process within the selected villages of the four chiefdoms of Chipata District which are taking part in the TGCC project. It is intended to be a ‘Working Document’ and will be used as a basis for developing a final User Manual at the end of the pilot period (November, 2017).
The final document will reflect the lessons that are learned over the next few months. The users of this document are therefore encouraged to make additions, corrections, suggestions and improvements wherever they see the need.
The manual is laid out in a series of modules. These are shown in the table of contents on this page. On a computer, the reader can navigate to any particular module by clicking on the title, which is linked to the relevant page.
The hard copy version is contained in a ring binder, with a division for each module. This will also allow for the contents of any module to be updated as we learn lessons from the pilot.
| Contents | |
|---|---|
| Module | Page |
| I |
Principles of Customary Land Administration
| 1 |
| II | The land registers | 2 |
| III | Responsibilities & Tools | 3 |
| IV | Overview of the Process | 6 |
| V | Certifying new claims and new allocations | 7 |
| VI | Certifying subdivisions of existing parcels | 10 |
| VII | Certifying late claims | 14 |
| VIII | Registering changes to landholder or PoI details | 16 |
| IX | Revoking or cancelling certificates | 19 |
| Annexes | 21 |
| Maps used in the process | 22 |
Module I
Principles of Customary Land Administration
The key principles adopted for maintaining the registers include the following:
- That the certification of new parcels within areas that have already been systematically covered by the TGCC project remains on an ‘on demand’ basis. This means that there is no obligation to document landholdings through certification in the future; it should remain voluntary, as with the initial systematic processes.
- That customary land registers and certification should harmonise with, rather than replace, the existing customary procedures for land allocation, dispute resolution and the local legitimisation of land use and access. This means that the maintenance procedures should not require people to undertake any activities or tasks which are not already an integral part of existing practises. This refers in particular to being able to deal with land use and access issues at village level, through the headpersons, rather than at Chiefdom level.
- That there should be no discrimination in the certification of land holdings, on the basis of gender, origin, ethnicity, socio-economic or other status. The principle here should be that the Chiefs recognise and certify that which is accepted as legitimate at village level.
- That there should be no maximum limits imposed upon the number of parcels of land, or total land area, that a family or individual may request for certification.
- That any cost-recovery system based on user fees should be generally in line with current traditional payments for land administration services.
- That the certificates only require updating when the last named holder has deceased and the right to the land is passed on to the legitimate customary heirs.
- That there should be transparency in land allocations, and safeguards against abuse by customary trustees.
- That where there are any discrepancies between the information held in a village land register and that held in the digital database, the information in the village land register takes precedence.
Module II
The land registers
The land registers are in different formats.
At village level:
- There are village land registers, compiled by the VLCs, with the assistance of the CDLA Community Facilitators (CFs) and the CDLA Community Surveyors (CSs). They comprise a large ruled ledger, with a common format, completed in pen.
- These are accompanied by village parcel maps, showing the boundaries of all land parcels in the village for which certificates have been issued.
At the CDLA office:
- There are 4 separate digital databases, one for each of the chiefdoms.
- These hold all of the claims to rights that have been made during the certification process. There are three sub-sets of data:
- the claims which were actually certified and for which certificates were issued.
- the claims that are still disputed and for which no certificate has yet been issued.
- the land areas which were demarcated but not then claimed by the holders, and for which no certificate has yet been issued.
- There is also a spatial database that holds all of the spatial data that has been collected during the TGCC activities. This includes:
- the boundaries of all the land parcels identified during the systematic certification process
- the village boundaries
- the location and extent of shared resources in the village (dambos, forests, cemeteries, water sources, etc.)
- the location and extent of areas that are still contested between neighbouring villages
Which of the registers need to be maintained?
Both.
The hard copy registers at village level are the most important components of the system from the perspective of village level land governance. This manual therefore contains activities to support the maintaining and upkeep of the registers at village level.
The Chiefs also need to be able to exercise their authority in a responsible manner, and therefore (s)he will need to have access to the same data and information that is available to the headpersons and the VLCs. The way to provide this data to the Chiefs is through the maintaining and upkeep of the digital database and the digital map.
Module III
Responsibilities & Tools