1. Afghanistan Independent Land Authority متعهد به رشد اجتماعی و اقتصادی Committed to Social & Economic Growth www.arazi.gov.af Land-NPP: A Tool to Implement the LGAF Recommendations in Afghanistan By: Jawad Peikar CEO of Afghanistan Independent Land Authority Government Islamic Republic of Afghanistan March 14, 2016

2. Background  LGAF has been conducted in Afghanistan: started in May/2014 and completed by December/2015;  The LGAF was implemented by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), third party, through a TA by the World Bank;  The LGAF listed related issues and proposed policy recommendations; &  Afghanistan Independent Land Authority (ARAZI) plans to use from the LGAF findings to design and propose the Land – National Priority Program for the coming five years (2017-2021).

3. LGAF focused on the nine areas  Land Rights Recognition;  Rights to forest and common lands;  Urban Land Use, Planning and Development;  Public Land Management;  Transfer of Large Tracts of Land to Investors;  Public Provision of Land Information;  Land Valuation and Taxation;  Dispute Resolution; &  Institutional Arrangements.

4. Key Issues Indentified  Little coverage of formal registration in a court lead system that is prone to corruption;  There is no rural land use plan and forest and other common land is often unregulated;  It is believed 70% of people in the cities including the Capital City living in informal settlements;  The Afghan legal framework does not define public land, does not provide provisions on how to register public land, public land can be easily interchanged for the state land;  There is ambiguity in the Afghan legal framework about the sale of state land;  Land Valuation is usually susceptible to corruption;  Afghanistan does not have one single registry so the information is scattered across various registries with different ministries and agencies;  Information sharing in respect to land valuation and land taxation between courts, ARAZI and MoF is not happening in consistent manner; &  The official courts system is so unpopular due to being lengthy and corrupt.

5. Key Policy Recommendations  ARAZI should be recognized as One Stop Shop for State, Public, Private, Community Lands registration, administrative titling to be introduced in Afghanistan;  National Comprehensive Cadastre Registration Programs to be resumed in the country;  New regulation should be approved to register informal houses within the cities;  Approval and support of the draft Restitution Policy on Land Grabbing;  Zoning Law should be developed both for the municipalities and nation wide;  New Regulation should be approved to demarcate boundaries of Mara Khasa (Community Lands) through communities participation;&  Land Policy 2007 will be reviewed and resettlement section will be added to it along with a long term “road map” for Land Administration.

6. Afghanistan LGAF leads to Land - NPP LGAF

7. NPPs: Prioritizes, Practical and Focused Approaches for National Development Strategy Categorization of NPPs: For effective implementation of NPPs, the22 NPPs are grouped together into 6 clusters: Importance: The national priority programs represents a commitment in Afghan National Development Strategy frame work. NPPs were the Afghan government focused and reform agenda for the Tokyo Conference in 2012.

8. Afghanistan Proposed Land – NPP (2017-2021) LA & LM Regulatory Reforms LA & LM Regulatory Reforms Urban Land & Economy Institutional Reform Rural Land & Agri/Rural Development Rural Land & Agri/Rural Development LGAF Land – NPP

9. Next step on LGAF and the L-NPP  The L-NPP will be reviewed and approved at the High Council of Land and Water/ Cabinet;  The L-NPP will be Proposed as the Afghanistan Government’s national priorities in Land Sector to International communities;  The L-NPP will bring the necessary resources to ARAZI to implement the LGAF policy recommendations;  The L-NPP will be guiding document for ARAZI when it comes to implementation of individual land projects in the country; &  ARAZI will lead implementation of the L-NPP and report to respective stakeholders from progresses on defined indicators.

10. متحد به رشد اجتماعی و اقتصادی Committed to Social & Economic Growth Thank You! Afghanistan Independent Land Authority