The Effect of Land Registration and Certification in Land Tenure Security in Wolaita Zone (Damot Pulassa Woreda)

Abstract

Historically, the Ethiopian farmers had no security on their land and property as it is taken as one reason for the backwardness and poverty. Formal land registration and certification supported by good government policy enhances the sense of belongingness on the land holders, reduces land related disputes, provides the government with the system to collect tax from the land, helps to facilitate the credit services to the farmers to be highly productive and be engaged in additional developmental activities. However, land tenure insecurity is a major problem of land administration system of the study area. During the derge regime farmers land holding was taken by kebele administrative bodies for their individual interests and land was taken from the farmers for settlement program of the government without any compensation made for the investment made by the farmers on their landholdings..The other problem is that a woman has no right to get land from their families through inheritance, divorce or by gift. Women who want to involve in agricultural activities have no right to get land from the government authorities. The total HH number of the two kebeles is 1734 and from the total HH only 7% of HH selected as survey respondents. From Zamine wulisho and Hilena korke kebeles 56 and 64 key informant farmers were selected respectively by random sampling methods. Among 120 respondents, 24 respondents were female 20% of the total respondents and the rest 96 respondents were male . According to the survey result of the respondents land registration and certification brought obvious change on solving land related dispute and majority of the women has full land right and they have right to use and control their landholdings in equal right with men, they have right to use products obtained from the land.

1. Introduction

Land is the most fundamental and an important economic asset that carries religious and political connotations in the world and especially in the continent of Africa. A lot of countries have experienced land disputes in one way or the other which have impeded their progress and developments. Countries around the globe like Austria, Germany Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland are few of these countries. Land is a fundamental asset for economic development, food security and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa and has a crucial importance to the economies and societies of the region contributing a major share of GDP and employment, and constituting the main livelihood basis for a large portion of the population (Cotula, Toulmin et al. 2004).

In conventional literature it is said that "land remains an asset of the great importance to African economies, as a source of income, food, employment and export earnings. As well as its economic attributes, land continues to have great social value as a place of settlement, providing a location with which people live and to which they as well as symbolic and ritual associations, such as burial sites, sacred woodlands, and spiritual life"(Ogendo 2000).Hence, in most developing countries agricultural land is still the main source of lively hood ,investment and wealth for the large majority of society. However, Deininger argues that in most developing countries" the way the land is instituted and distributed and ownership conflicts are resolved has a far reaching consequence beyond the sphere of agricultural production" ( Deininger ,jin et at 2003).

Historically, the Ethiopian farmers had no security on their land and property as it is taken as one reason for the backwardness and poverty. Formal land registration and certification supported by good government policy enhances the sense of belongingness on the land holders, reduces land related disputes, provides the government with the system to collect tax from the land, helps to facilitate the credit services to the farmers to be highly productive and be engaged in additional developmental activities.

However, land tenure insecurity is a major problem of land administration system of the study area. During the derge regime farmers land holding was taken by kebele administrative bodies for their individual interests and land was taken from the farmers for settlement program of the government without any compensation made for the investment made by the farmers on their landholdings.The other problem is that a woman has no right to get land from their families through inheritance, divorce or by gift. Women who want to involve in agricultural activities have no right to get land from the government authorities. Land dispute problems took long time to resolve the issues and many farmers lost their land through unfair court decisions. Even during the period of EPDRE government especially before the introduction of land administration system to the study area, farmers are fearing that land taxation may increase after land registration and certification and they suspected that the government may take excess land from the farmers and may give for those farmers who have no land holdings. But the land administration and use proclamation launched in 1995 in the SNNPR and in 1997 in the study area may solve such fearing and gave confidence for farmers regarding belonging to their land holdings. In Ethiopia, rural land is considered by the farmers as a life time property of individuals but there are restrictions in ownership of rural land through which the land holder loses his right over the land. These restrictions are mainly aimed at maintaining the benefits and uses of public purpose as a whole. Even if the restrictions prevail, by the role of the government in those cases to take land by consent of the people; it is possible to have tenure security for a better production. Land registration and certification as has been carried out in our country, has a great role to secure the tenure system. When their lands are registered and certified the holders of the rural land invest their full time on their land holdings and bring much change of development on their livelihood.

2. METHODOLOGY

2.1 Description of the study area

Damot Fulasa woreda is found in the wolaita zone, SNNPR and it is located in Hadiya zone in the north, Damot Gale woreda in the south and east and Boloso sore woreda in western parts. Damot Fulasa Woreda is 25 km apart from the wolaita zonal city. Total number of the population of the area is 132016 from which 67328 is male and 64688 is female with average family size of 6. The total number of HH of the woreda is 18562 (16477 is male and 2089 is female) with 0.4 Ha 0f land holding size. The area have woyne dega agro ecological zone with erratic RF distribution and it is mainly dominated by clay and clay loam soil types with poor drainage system. The topography of the area is 9o% flat and only 10% of the area has gentle slope. An average annual RF of the area is 1200 mm and have average temp of 27 degree centigrade .The total area of the woreda is 16949 Ha of land and out of it 10766.5 Ha of land is cultivated land, 2896.3 Ha of land held by agro forestry 1640 Ha of land is grass land,!61.8 Ha of land is wetland , 256 Ha of land is forestland, 561 Ha is communal land, 667.4 Ha of land is others .The major crop grown in the area is maize, teff, sweat potato, Irish potato and Enset and the area has high potential for crop productivity. The livelihood of the people is mainly depend up on crop cultivation and animal rearing and those of people who have low annual income are mainly engaged on off farm activities like trading , working on others HH farm land on labor wage base and on other income generation activities. Since as the number of population increase from year to year then demand for agricultural land is increasing at alarming stage by decreasing the size of cultivable land. Because of this demand for agricultural land increase and hence which increase land dispute among people. Hence, the regional government has introduced land administration system in the woreda level to ensure land tenure security. Therefore, the 1st and 2nd level certification had played a great role in solving the problems of land dispute and land insecurity problem.

Fig 1 Map of Damot Pulasa woreda ,wolaita Zone ,SNNPR

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Source; Wolaita zone natural resource and environmental protection office

2.2. Ways of data collection and analysis

The study is based on both primary and secondary sources of information. Primary data was collected through surveying, interviewing key informant farmers, focus group discussions, and field observations. Secondary data is collected through questionnaires and checklist from the office documents at zonal and woreda level. To get the required data from the primary sources interviews, focused group discussions, and field observations were carried out. These methods were used to collect data such as, total household size ,land size ,security of land rights, the outlooks of the people toward land certification, investment on land undertaken by the households, extent of land dispute and effect of land certification on land improvement. Damot Fulasa woreda has 22 rural kebele and the study on effects of registration and certification focuses only on two kebeles. Two administrative kebeles /Zamine wulisho and Hilena qorke / are selected among from 22 kebeles found within the woreda These two kebeles are Zamine wulisho and Hilena korke and they were selected by random sampling methods. To gather primary data 120 farmers were selected from the two kebeles by random sampling method.The total HH number of the two kebeles is 1734 and from the total HH only 7% of HH selected as survey respondants. From Zamine wulisho and Hilena korke kebeles 56 and 64 key informant farmers were selected respectively by random sampling methods. Among 120 respondents, 24 respondents were female ( 20% of the total respondents) and the rest 96 respondents were male. Two data collecting development agents were engaged from two kebeles and primary data were collected through group discussions. Secondary data were collected from woreda agricultural office through structured questionnaires by the help of woreda land administration expert. Three woreda land administration and use experts were interviewed to get relevant information of the paper. Finally the Socio-economic data analysis was carried out by using SPSS 20.0 software to analyze the data collected from the field.

3. Result and discussion

3.1. Effect of land certification on land dispute

According to the survey result out of the total 120 respondents 49.10% HH were responded that land registration and certification has a great effect to resolve land dispute problems among the community,35.84% of respondents said that land certification has moderate or medium effect to solve land related disputes. 15% or 18 respondents said that land registration and certification has no or very low effect to resolve land dispute.

Table 1 . Survey results for effects of land certification on land dispute./SSPS survey output/

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3.2. Land registration and certification process

3.2.1 First level land registration and certification process

The first level land certification was began in 1997 E.c in study area where as in regional level it was began in 1996 and it gives major solution to land administration related problem such as land dispute, land transfer, tenure security, compensation for expropriation ,women land right, land rent and so on. But 1st level land certification has several problems such as inaccurate land measurement, poor data recording and organization, measurement of land based on land holding base rather than parcel base, farmer who have many land holding get one certificate, lack of standard measurement and sometimes land size data is registered by guessing, sometimes measurement is done by rope and other traditional instruments were used, It lacks coding system, lack of geographic location and map representation, it follows sporadic approach of measurement, poor documentation and filling system.

The other problem of 1st level land certification is that land measurement was carried out by development agents and rural land administration and use committee and they have no any incentive for the accomplishment of the work because of this low attention was given to the land certification process .The other problem was that the farmers were not clearly aware during the initial period of process and land measurement was accomplished by mass mobilization which in turn creates accuracy problem in data especially amount of land size. The other problem is that the farmer’s pear of land taxation because of that majority of the farmers allow to record only one land holding and they should hide the rest holdings because first land registration and certification process creates opportunities for such problems since it follows sporadic measurement approach. 1st level land registration and certification process was conducted in 22 rural kebeles of study woreda and at this period 1st stage land certification was 100% accomplished and all farmers, institutions and communal land owners had got land certification and which creates belongingness to ownership of land and creates confidence to farmers in order to improve their lands, which consequently bring land management system .Generally 18562 HH found in the woreda have registered their land in 1st land registration process and all of them have got certification for their landholdings.

Table 2 Accomplishment of 1st level land registration and certification process of Damot fulasa woreda

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Source;Woreda agricultural office(2019)

Second stage land registration and certification process

Second level land certification was began in 2003 in the SNNPR as well as in the study area too and it is Scientific method of land measurement since it measures the land holdings by taking the coordinate system of land by the help of Gps, Gis soft ware, computer soft ware and skilled man power. It follow systematic approach of land measurement and it measures the land on parcel bases rather than on land holding bases. This approach measures the land on parcel base regularly without jumping a unit of land. Each unit of parcel land is graduated by X,Y coordinate points and map is prepared for each parcel of land. Finally owner of the land get land certificate with map that provides security of tenure. In the 2nd level land certification process the kebele land administration and use committee first solve the problem of land dispute before being the process undertaken .The recorded that are organized both on soft copy and hard copy. Because of this and other reasons, 2nd level land certification is more better than 1st level land certification. Even though 2nd level land certification is more better than 1st level land certification, it has also a certain limitations such as Gps accuracy error, satellite error, difficulty of taking data by Gps during bad weather condition, difficulty of taking data under forest area and on steep slope area. Other problems of 2nd level certification is lack of skilled man power in the market to run the program, low payment for contractual worker, lack of incentives, vehicles and budgets to run the program ,lack of awareness of government bodies and low attention was given to 2nd level land certification process .The other problem of the 2nd land certification program is it need large amount of budget to complete the certification process .Damot Fulasa woreda has 22 rural administrative kebeles and by now 2nd level land registration was carried out in 22 kebeles, from which 6 rural kebeles farmers were got 2nd level certificate with map that help to secure their land. By now about 21348 land holders have been registered their landholding in 2nd level land registration process.

Table 3 . Accomplishment of 2nd level land registration and certification process of the woreda

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Source; Woreda agricultural office (2019)

From the table what I understood that the numbers of farmers who have registered their land holdings in the 2nd land level certification were increased, this is because many adult or youth who are involved in agricultural activities have transferred lands from their families through heirs and donation and hence may rise the numbers of land holders since youth have high interest to land either from their families of from the government.

3.3. The approach of farmers toward land registration and certification process

According to the survey result out of the total 120 respondents 70 respondents (58.4% )HH were responded that the farmers of the study area have high attitude(increased attitude) toward land registration and certification, 37 respondents(30.8% of respondents) have low or medium attitude toward land registration and certification process. A very few number of respondents 13 in number(10.8 % ) have no any clear idea about land registration and certification process and they have no attitude toward land certification process and hence certification process itself has not been increased their attitude toward land administration system.

Table 4 Farmers approach toward land certification process/source; survey data by ssps/

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Survey findings reflect that 70 respondents(58.4%) reveals farmers of the study area has attitude toward land registration and certification process and awareness creation given regarding land administration system brought attitudinal change among the farmers,37 respondents (30.8%) have low attitude and 13 respondents(10.8%) have no attitude toward land certification process and they reveals that because of this gap still now some of the farmers of the study low knowledge how during renting and transferring their land holdings to others and on other land related issues According to the respondents of the study areas, the 1st level land registration and certification process was began in 1997 Ec in the study area. During this period farmers have low attitude toward land registration and certification because they fear that land taxation will be increased when the actual land size of the land holding is well known. Some of the farmers were fearing that the government may took excess land from farmer and will provide it to other farmers who have small land holding size or who have no landholding. Because of this some farmers hide a certain number of land holdings that are found in different villages with in kebele or found in other kebele, some of the farmers were unwilling to show their boundary of the farm, some of the farmers were also not voluntary to give the relevant information of the land. Because of this farmers attitudinal problems, many challenges were observed during 1st land registration and certification period. But the government of the woreda have thought the farmers about the aims of land registration and certification program and finally the farmers of the study area brought the attitudinal change and gave due attention to land certification process.

The 2nd level land registration and certification process is another land administration activities under taken in the study area since in 2003 Ec. During this period again certain challenges were occurred in the 2nd level land registration and certification process because the farmers had still fear that the government may increase land taxation and they believed that excess land may be taken by government .The challenge was very sever in 2nd level land certification than 1st level because many farmers have been hide their land holding in the 1st level land registration period and they fear that all land holding must be registered and that may increase land taxation. Again the government had thought the farmers deeply and tried to bring attitudinal change before being under taken 2nd land certification process.

3.4. Women’s land rights and their involvement in land certification

According to the survey results 10 respondents or 8.3% of the sample households responded that women has full right on their landholding and control over the resource on their landholdings, 32 respondents or 26.7% were responded that the women medium or partial land right and dominancy my male household was made and even women has partial right to control over the resources found in their landholdings, 55 respondents or 45.7% responded that the women has no right to control over the land and resources found on it and they believed that only the female headed household can have full right on their landholdings, and 23 respondents or 19.2% responded that women has no land rights unless and otherwise she is female headed household.

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Figure 1 .Status of women's land rights/source; survey data by ssps stastical analysis/

Survey findings indicated that 61 respondents or 50.8% responded that women has full land and they believed that women has right to control their landholdings in equal right with men, they have right to use produce obtained from land , they have right to transfer and rent their land by making agreement with husbands, female headed HH has full rights what does she want on their land holdings,35 respondents or 29.2% respondents has provided partial recognition for women's land right and they believed that women has low decision making power regarding any land related issues when the women were in marriage and they have agreed that only female headed HH have right to control over their landholdings, and 14 respondents or 11.7% responded that women who are in marriage has low land right and control over the resource found on land is very limited.10 respondents or 8.3% responded that women has no right over the land/for women in marriage/ and all land related issues were answered by men. From the respondents message what I understood was that Some farmers of the study area has never gave recognition for women's land right except female headed household and hence training should be given to the community to break this barrier in order to women's land owner.

3.5. Effect Certification on communal land management

According to the survey results 15 respondents or 12.5% of the sample households responded that certification has high effect to control and manage communal lands and communal land has get protection after certification, 28 respondents or 23.3% were responded certification process brought medium effects on control and management of communal, 51 respondents or 42,5% responded that the certification process brought very low effect in changing the attitude of farmers toward illegal taking of communal land and it brought little change in the behavior of community to manage and control communal land from any environment degradation. , and 26 respondents or 21.7% responded that certification process has no effect on communal land management and they argued that many communal lands were changed in to agricultural land and settlements due to poor control of communal lands by the government bodies and by the society too

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Figure 2.Effect Certification on communal land management

Source; survey data SPSS stastical analysis.

Majority of the respondents were agreed that there are a number of communal lands owned by the community members of the locality. According to SNNPR land administration and use proclamation No 110/99, communal lands are administered and managed by the community. According to the proclamation, the communal land that are utilized and managed by surrounding community have to be registered and the certificate of the communal land was put at kebele administrative office. The main problems of the communal lands of the study area is lack of community bylaws how to administer, utilize and manage the land and land resources and hence poor utilization of resources leads resource degradations since there is no sanction that protect illegal user of the common resources. The other major problem of the communal land is illegal pushing of boarder of communal land or illegal taking of communal land for agricultural land and settlement expansion by illegal persons because of this the size of the communal lands are diminishing year after year and hence the management of communal land negligible, consequently land degradation is severe due to poor controlling mechanisms of gov't bodies and society of the study area.

The other problem of the communal land is boarder conflict between neighboring communities. After the certification process boarder conflict was reduced but poor utilization of communal land resources are still continued in the study area due to lack of internal bylaws in order to control illegal use of communal land resources.

3.6 The effect of land registration and certification on land tenure security

According to the survey results 50 respondents or 41.7% of the sample households responded that certification has high effects on tenure security, 39 respondents or 32.5% were responded that certification process brought medium effect on tenure security, 22 respondents or 18.3% responded that the certification process has low effect on tenure security, 9 respondents or 7.5% responded that certification process has no effect on tenure security.

Table 5. Survey data on effect of certification on tenure security/

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Source; Survey data

Figure 3.Response of respondents on tenure security

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Source; Survey data by ssps stastical analysis

Survey findings reflected that only 50 respondents or 41.7% responded that certification has high effect for tenure security and argued that before the introduction of certification the belongingness of land holdings toward farmers were very low and even fertile land was taken by the derge; kebele committee and solving land dispute problem takes many years and some most of the time farmers became landless since there was no law to govern the land dispute and other land related problems ,39 respondents or 32.5% respondents have believed that certification has medium effects to bring tenure security and 22 respondents or 18.3% responded that certification has low effect to bring tenure security and argued that still now tenure security was not achieved fully as recognized in law and many problems like low awareness of the farmers, continues land disputes, bureaucratic process gov't bodies and corruption made by authorities may lags the full existence land tenure security of the study area and hence certification has low effect on tenure security. Lastly, 9 respondents or 7.5% responded that certification has no effect on tenure security and finally they were not voluntary to justify the reasons. Generally, from respondents’ suggestion I have understood that certification has effects to bring tenure security even if a certain shortcomings may be answered in future by government and other concerned authorities.

Generally, many of the respondents agreed that in Ethiopia especially in southern region, before 1983 EC there was lack of tenure security and majority of the farmers were suffered from illegal taking of farmers land holding during derg regime by the kebele administrative committee for villagization program and for individual purpose, this situation expropriates farmers from his land holding and consequently affect the livelihood of farmers. During this period land dispute is a serious issues and farmers were waste much of their time in accusation of the land dispute in courts which severely affects land improvement as well as crop productivity of the farmer. During the derge regime lands were sold by the name of land rent and even there was no real laws proclaimed that permit land rent but many farmers sold their land holdings to rich persons by the name of land rent and many farmers became land less. Lands were rented for more than 20 up to 30 years and there was no any law that compelled land rented farmer in order to return back the land to land holders after completion of rent period. These are the major problems of land tenure security in the study area during derge regime.

But after the fall of derge regime by EPDRF in 1983 E.C major changes have been observed regarding land security. Land administration System was introduced in to the study area at beginning of EPDR government and it laid bases for the commencement of 1st and 2nd level land registration and certification process in the woreda in 1997 and 2003 Ec respectively. The commencement of 1st and 2nd level land certification program ensures land tenure security for the farmers of the study area. Farmers who have registered his land holdings and who got land certificate has guaranty for his land holdings and he has legal right to pay tax, right to transfer his land holding to relatives and to other persons, right to lease, use right, protect others from the use, the right to produce on his land holding, right to invest, all these rights are given to farmers by the laws proclaimed through federal and regional government. All these rights were given to the farmers creates belongingness to own the land holdings and which gives confidence for farmers in order to invest much time, money and labor in their land holdings, which consequently improve land and crop productivity since land tenure security favored by rural land administration and use proclamation of federal and regional government

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