Using Geospatial Technologies to Monitor Land Use, Improve Delivery of

Land Services, and Improve Land Governance (Malawi Experience)

By

Ivy Luhanga, Devie Chilonga, Mike Chigowo

Outline

• Introduction• Some Initiatives Implemented• Estates Land Use Assessment Project• Methodology in the Pilot Project• Highlight of the Findings• Challenges• Field Verifications• Land Use• Conclusion

Introduction• Land remains an important natural resource in Malawi

since the economy is primarily agricultural based. • Land sector is being faced with some challenges, e.g:

Increased demand for land due to population pressure . Limited institutional capacity and public awareness on

land policy and laws.• To address some challenges in land sector, modern land

management systems are inevitable.• Land records are still manual necessitating digitization.

Some Initiatives Implemented Globe Titles and Deeds Registration System (GTDRS)• Computerised registry land records to improve efficiency

and effectiveness in processing of land transaction.Land Profiling Study• A study aimed at producing geographic information defining

which areas are suitable for priority crops.Land Information Management System (LIMS)• A pilot project aimed at modernising land information

capture, processing, storage, retrieval, and dissemination.Land Governance Assessment Framework(LGAF)• A study undertaken to determine progress and

performance on land policy implementation and reforms.

Estates Land Use Assessment Project• Some land records are manual and the GTDRS does not

have a component that can process geographic data.• It is difficult to know location and level of use of estates

since some of them may be underutilized. • A new approach in covenant monitoring of agricultural

leases using geospatial technologies was piloted in Kasungu district.

• The project aimed at providing information on use and the degree of farming in leased agriculture estates.

• This will assist to guide decision on how to put idle land into productive use by investors and the landless.

Methodology in the Pilot Project• Estate boundaries were digitized from the 50,000 scale maps

and linked with the Land Title records using deed/sketch plans to geographically locate the land title.

• Data was analysed in customised GIS software which was developed with ArcView 3.2.

• The software enabled the creation and recording of polygons representing the geographic boundaries of the estates.

• Field verification was conducted to validate and update land information in potentially re-allocated estates.

Highlight of the Findings • Almost half of estates in Kasungu (3,734) were captured ,of

which 9% were non-agricultural and the rest agricultural. • Of agricultural records, 45% were deed and the remaining

55% were accepted offers. • The lease terms of 90% of the land titles have expired.• Most of the lease terms are 21 years. • The earliest digitized lease goes back to 1939.

Challenges• Overall quality of the information was shown to be good with

quality of the deeds being higher than the accepted offers. • For 11% of estates, start date and lease term are unknown

hence difficult to determine expiring dates of the leases. • For 6% of estates, plans are not available hence difficult to

locate the estates. • For 20% of leases, estate area of the created polygon have a

difference of more than 5% with the declared area. • In 26% of the estates, more than 10% of their area overlap

with another estate.• An unknown estate name and invalid plan number

Field Verifications• 198 estates were

verified .• For 46% of the verified

estates, the registered lessees are deceased.

• For 52% of the verified estates, the registered lessee is still (partly) using the estate.

• For 2% of the verified estates, the registered lessees are still alive but not using their estates.

Land Use

• Farmers indicated much higher percentages of agricultural land use than satellite image data.

Conclusion

• This pilot project has shown the need to move to digital storage of the lease documents and maps to ensure improved access to land information

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