Posted: Tuesday, April 10, 2012
By Frank Pichel,
Thomson Reuters, Tax & Accounting, Government
P. Bloh Sayeh, Center for National Documents and Records
Agency
Andrew Thriscutt, Thomson Reuters, Tax & Accounting,
Government
Ounzuba Kemeh-Gama, World Bank, Liberia
The West African nation of Liberia is working to establish a
secure foundation of law and order which will allow the country to
rebuild the economy after two decades of civil unrest. The fighting
in Liberia which spanned over two decades, destroyed much of the
nation's infrastructure and left an estimated 250,000 dead.
Approximately two million refugees scattered across the sub region
are now returning to the land they once occupied, in many cases
only to find the land occupied by another party - and a judicial
system and property records ill-equipped to address the resulting
disputes.
Land tenure security is a critical issue in this post-conflict
state and is widely recognized as a potential catalyst for further
civil disturbances if not dealt with proactively. In its 2008 final
report, the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission stated that
land disputes are a threat to national peace. If the issue is not
addressed, there is a strong likelihood of a return to
violence.
The years of conflict have left the Departments of Lands, Survey
and Cartography (DLSC) and the Center for National Documents and
Records Agency (CNDRA), the agencies responsible for verification,
administration and management of land information, in poor
condition. There is few trained and experienced staff, and both
agencies lack the tools and equipment needed to effectively
accomplish the tasks required of them.
The nation's land records remain largely in a state of disarray,
with records missing, difficult to search and at risk of further
deterioration. In recent years the CNDRA has made great strides in
providing a sense of order to these vital records. However, like
many institutions in Liberia, there is an acute lack of
institutional knowledge and experienced staff, and much of the
equipment required to fulfill the agencies mandate is either
outdated or absent. The importance of these historic records cannot
be overstated. It is critical that the existing records be
protected and maintained in a sustainable and transparent manner
-not only to protect the records, but to limit opportunities for
fraud, allow for better service to citizens, and to promote
investor confidence. In order to recognize the importance of having
a digital archive of a land registry, one needs to look no further
than Liberia's Anglophone neighbors: Ghana and Sierra Leone, both
of which suffered from suspicious fires at their national land
registries in the last six months.
Under the leadership of the Director of CNDRA, Ms. P. Bloh
Sayeh, and with assistance from the World Bank, the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Millennium
Challenge Corporation (MCC), CNDRA has begun to acquire the tools
and skills needed to once again become the steward of the nation's
records. The program to implement a digital land registry results
from partnership among CNDRA, the Land Commission, the MCC
Threshold Program and the World Bank. This paper focuses on program
implementation activities, over a six month period, with emphasis
on the initiative to digitize and index the deeds currently held by
CNDRA, while preparing for the creation of a digital land registry.
This paper presents an overview of the solution implemented to
rapidly digitize, index, and associate the records with spatial
information, as well as the challenges faced in doing so.
To read the full white paper, click here.