Integrating Land Governance into the Post-2015 Agenda:

Harnessing Synergies for Implementation and Monitoring Impact

Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, Washington DC, March 24-27, 2014

Introduction

In a developing country it is rather sparse from land use regulations to the municipal and rural land use with accessible implications of housing, farming lands and public assets. Land use policy in those countries has yet to be passable compliance to enforce land use zoning for sustainable land administration. This research attempted to examine the key aspects of land governance to develop a policy model for local land administration. It primarily obliges two capacities: the assessment of land use variability in rural agriculture, housing settlement, and surface water availability; and the identification of development strategies for dominant land use delineation.

The central argument is that developing countries should have given more responsiveness in land governance through sustainable land use that is a key for housing, agriculture, livelihoods, transits, local food security and poverty alleviation. This argument relates two fundamental questions: (a) what are the current trends in land use? and (b) what are the policy implications for sustainable land management that is necessary towards an integrated land governance?

This research assembles: an understanding of the leading issues and comparative perspectives in land governance; sectoral policy analysis, regional land use zoning appraisal and micro-level land use instances in a developing country; and conclusions.

Materials and methods

This paper reviews statistics, journal articles, publicly available government policy documents and case study areas.

Results

Land governance essentially imparts to identify land zoning impact monitoring to develop a policy model for sustainable land management, prioritizing: first, the dominant land use variables such as agriculture, housing and settlement, vegetation, and water-bodies; and secondly, in relation with two complex factors, community and ecology, and policy and institution. Land zoning characterization is necessary to the land governance policy issues, such as conventional land use, poverty reduction, local dispute resolution, physical planning and public assets management initiatives.

An example of micro-level land management in Daganbhuiyan, Feni district (Bangladesh), 2007. (A) spatiotemporal changes in dominant land use variables: settlement (including homestead vegetation), agriculture, and surface water availability; (B) scatterplots showing the relationship between settlements (with homestead vegetation), agriculture land , and population density (Source: Ahmed, 2007b).

The agricultural occupants have had increasingly a diminishing proportion of total population and women involved in farming and domestic labour. While the purpose of land zoning policy is to regulate and improve land use practices with accessible choice of farming lands and livelihoods at the local level. Empirical evidence shows that higher the population density the lower the landholding distribution and eventually a decreasing trend in households labour force that is highly correlated with agriculture occupancies especially in the rural areas.

In order to appraise location-specific land use zoning suitability and monitoring regional land management, an integrated land governance would comprise at least four purposeful necessities: 1. land use delineations, 2. soil and water quality assessment, 3. social and environmental impact assessment, and 4. Legal, institutional and policy compliance. The policy statement refers regulations and acts designated for land use provisions. Nonetheless, functional land zoning ought to be assemble a policy framework on the basis of multijurisdictional land and its integrated use suitability in a region. Consequently, in interpretation, land zoning or land governance is the functional effectiveness of land topography (LUD, land use delineation by local land use variables i.e., LS+U+W+Ag+F+ .... +X), soil and water quality (QS+W), social and environmental impact assessment (IS+E), and legal, institutional and policy compliance (CLIP). Hence a policy model for an Integrated Land Governance can be presented as (Ahmed, 2007b: 55): Z = LS+U+W+Ag+F+ .... +X + QS+W + IS+E + CLIP .

Conclusions

In order to imply a probable zoning policy for a defensible land use, this paper outlines that land management needs an informed policy model capable of monitoring and appraising the impacts of land use towards the integrated land governance. The public policy in decision-support-system has to be accessible to precede the progressive examinations of both quantitative and qualitative information for determining land use zoning indicators on the socioeconomic, ecological and community perspectives pertinent to the local level land habits. Land use delineation and multi-criteria evaluation with spatial data analysis aid to characterize the complex variables associated to land management.

This research warns six leading options comprising 17 functional areas for land governance. First option, strategy for physical environment development for livelihood, considering policy instruments (Hawlet & Ramesh, 1985), agro ecological zone (Brammer, 2002), and land zoning indicators associated with biophysical boundary, context-specific and space-base land use (Bellefontaine et al, 2010).

Second is identification of land use impediments at local and regional levels by defining land use zoning parameters. Third strategic option is institutional approach of land governance

indicating local government and governance structure, agriculture and rural development plans, and land use optimality with respect to cost-effectiveness (Deininger & Feder, 2009; Deininger et al, 2012). Fourth option is legal strategies of the zoning regulations, inter alia, criteria for institutional settings, symmetry of land use pattern and its future operations, and region-specific integrated policy alternatives. Fifth option is land zoning impact appraisal and policy model incorporating the evidence from pilot exercise with micro-level land use inventory at the revenue jurisdictions, including: land use policy compliance, population distribution pattern, occupational households’ dispersion, and land use and land cover change dynamics.

The sixth and last strategy is land zoning information management (Ahmed, 2007a & 2007b) for integrated land governance policy implementation planning and impact monitoring by promoting institutional linkage for spatial data governance, deployment of remote sensing and geographic information system, and continuing land governance monitoring and impact consultation.

In the long run, this policy framework can be useful to sustainable land management to uphold the land use rights and the beneficiaries with the essential elements of societal and economic values of a region.

References Ahmed, Shamsuddin (2007a). “Land Zoning Information Management” (Chapter 9), in Inception

Report: Study of Detailed Coastal Land Zoning Including Two Pilot District, Ministry of Land, The Peoples Republic of Bangladesh. November 27, 2007. Pages 151 -170.

Ahmed, Shamsuddin. (2007b). “Land Zoning Impact and Policy for Sustainable Land Management” (MPA Dissertation in Governance & Public Policy). Civil Service College, University of Dhaka, December 2007.

Bellefontaine, Teresa, Jean Haley & Bernard Cantin (2010). “Exploring the Role of the Canadian Government in Integrated Land Management (Research Paper)”. Sustainable Development,

Policy Research Initiative, September 2010, Government of Canada.

Brammer, Hugh (2002). Land Use and Land Use Planning in Bangladesh. Dhaka: The University Press Limited

Deininger, Klaus, Selod Harris & Anthony Burns (2012). The Land Governance Assessment Framework: Identifying and Monitoring Good Practice in the Land Sector. Washington DC, USA: The World Bank.

Deininger, Klaus. & G. Feder (2009). “Land Registration, Governance, and Development: Evidence and Implications for Policy”. World Bank Res Obs (2009) 24 (2): 233-266, June 11, 2009.

Howlett, M. & Ramesh, M. 1995. Studying Public Policy: policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems. London: Oxford University Press

Shamsuddin Ahmed

York Centre for Public Policy and Law, York University, Canada

shamsuddin.ahmed08@yahoo.ca; suahmed@yorku.ca

Key aspects of land governance: A policy framework for developing countries

Acknowledgements This work is an independent research and does represent the abstract that was submitted in November 2013. The author likes to thank The World Bank – 2014 Land and Poverty Conference

organizers. Special thanks to- Dr. Fahimul Quadir, Faculty of Graduate Studies, York University (Canada), and the organizations the author is associated. Detailed references can be seen in final paper.

A Land facet that bears the convolution of resource use treaty for housing and settlement, livelihood, food security, safe water, and commercial utilities beside the persistent capacities and the catastrophes (Photo: Shamsuddin Ahmed, 2002).

A simplified model of an Integrated Land Zoning Information System for monitoring land governance

(Source: Ahmed, 2007a).

Integrated Land Governance: An Illustration of schematic flow of Information for Sustainable Land Management (adapted). Source: Ahmed, Shamsuddin (2007b)

An instance of land use change dynamics reveal the complexity of sustainable land use mostly at the local level land management. In a decade,

1996 – 2006, agriculture and surface water resources had decayed or lost over 15 percent of area because of an increasing pressure of new housing,

settlements and commercial utilities (Source: Ahmed, 2007b)

Hectares Percent Hectare Percent Hectares Percent

Water Bodies 1,744.2 12.5 670.2 4.8 -1,074.0 -7.7

Agriculture Land 8,497.8 60.7 7,379.8 52.7 -1,118.0 -8.0

Settlement + Veg. 3,766.8 26.9 5,958.7 42.5 2,192.0 15.6

Land Use / Cover1996 2006 Area Change