RECONSTRUCTION OF ACEH LAND ADMINISTRATION: THE MULTI-DONOR RESPONSE AND PROGRESS SO FAR

1. RECONSTRUCTION OF ACEH LAND ADMINISTRATION: THE MULTI-DONOR RESPONSE AND PROGRESS SO FAR Keith Clifford Bell World Bank, Sustainable Development Department East Asia Pacific Region Workshop: Aceh Indonesia POST-TSUNAMI and Post-Conflict: Building a Better land administration system

2. On July 14, 2005, UN Special Envoy for Tsunami, Mr. Clinton presented his first report on Aceh to the UN Economic and Social Council, (ECOSOC) in New York City, and advised: “Those of you familiar with the work of Mr. (Hernando) de Soto around the world and similar projects know that the world’s poor people have roughly 5 trillion dollars in assets that are totally unusable for economic growth because they don’t have title to them so they can’t get credit using what they own as collateral. This is going to be done through the World Bank grant in Aceh. It is very forward thinking on both the part of the World Bank and Indonesia but I hope that the other countries affected will do that and in its pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, I hope that you, Mr. President and ECOSOC, can have an influence in urging this sort of project to be done in other countries outside the tsunami affected areas.”

3. Outline • RALAS Overview • Design Considerations • Key Milestones • Progress to date • Challenges and lessons learned • Concluding remarks

4. RALAS - Overview Development Objectives: • to recover and protect ownership land rights of the people in the affected and surrounding areas; and • to rebuild land administration system. Components • Component A: Reconstruction of Property Rights and Issuance of Land Titles (US$22.10 million). • Component B: Reconstruction of BPN Institutions in Aceh (US$2.20 million . • Component C: Project Management (US$1.50 million). .

5. What is RALAS designed to deliver? • Reconstruction of property rights and issuance of land title certificates. • Reconstruction/development of BPN (land) institutions in Aceh and rebuilding land administration system in the province.

6. What does RALAS not do? • Re-location and re-settlement • Spatial planning • Land consolidation

7. Specific Design Considerations • Decentralized project management • High level of civil society engagement and oversight • High level of community engagement through CDA • Protection of the rights of widows, orphans and disadvantaged • Recognition that titling would generally follow housing and community reconstruction • Use of non-organic provincial staff • Limited local private sector. Security concerns precluded use of private sector from other provinces

8. Outline damage Assessment

9. Challenges • Financial and Budgetary • Legal • Social • Cultural/religious • Technical • Political • Capacity • Conflict/post-conflict • Security • Civil Society Engagement • Coordination of civil society efforts • Expectations • Monitoring

10. Some Key Milestones (1) 2004 • Dec 26 tsunami 2005 • Jan GOI requested WB support for land administration reconstruction in Aceh and North Sumatra (Nias) • Jan BPN Decree prohibiting land transfers in Aceh • Feb Bank mission – to assess damage and design project • Mar Devastating earthquakes • April Damage assessment confirmed. Design confirmed. Donor found. TTL deployed to Indonesia full-time • Jun MDF Grant US$ 28.5 million approved • Jun EU provision of US$500k in satellite imagery and technical support • Jul CDA Manual prepared. Issued as BPN decree • Jul UN Special Envoy, Bill Clinton – presentation on Aceh (including RALAS) to UN ECOSOC, NY • Jul + Training of civil society facilitators • Jul new Head BPN appointed

11. Some Key Milestones (2) 2005 (continued) • Aug Peace Agreement signed Helsinki • Aug First fulltime monitor/advisor deployed to Aceh • Sep UNDP approved funding for training facilitators, outreach materials and some equipment • Sep RALAS project manager deployed to Banda Aceh • Oct Issuance of MOF instruction to waive all fees and charges for titling. RALAS became effective, field teams deployed to Aceh 2006 • Mar First titles issued • Aug Fulltime monitoring team deployed • Dec Final Visit by UN Special Envoy, Bill Clinton 2007 • Sep Presidential Perpu on Aceh signed • Oct Performance audit - BPKP 2008 • Jun Revised CDA Manual • Dec Grant extended until mid-2009

12. Results to date • Trained approximately700 facilitators (for community land mapping and community driven adjudication process). • Trained more than480 BPN personnel on systematic registration and community driven adjudication. • Training of Shariah Court officials • Community land mapping completed: about: 120,000 land parcels. • Cumulative progress, as of January 2009: Total number of title certificates distributed: 114,737 titles. Total number of land parcels adjudicated: 223,105 parcels Total number of land parcels surveyed: 211,829 parcels • BPN building renovated/constructed: So far, 8 BPN office buildings rehabilitated (7 completed and put to use while one partially completed). • About 50,000 land records damaged by tsunami were recovered (by end 2006; courtesy JICA) and data-bases established.

13. Other Outputs Key Policy outputs have included: • Dissemination of guidelines on inheritance in accordance with Syariah law • PERPU: Treatment of mortgages of properties already destroyed by tsunami (presidential decree, issued in Sep 2007) and protection of pre-tsunami property rights • Waiver of taxes, fees and charges for land titles issued in the tsunami affected areas (MOF regulation of Oct 2005) • Surveying regulations widely disseminated • CDA (RALAS) Manual –prepared and revised

14. Some Independent Reviews of RALAS Perceived strengths • Broader contributions in preventing land grabbing and speculation, joint titling (gender concerns) and overall signal sent on land policy issues through information campaigns. • Training provided (by the Bank) to NGOs helped to jump-start community land mapping and adjudication of land ownership rights as a village/community based exercise. • More than 120,000 houses constructed using community land mapping techniques. • Facilitated resolution of land disputes at the local level. Perceived Weaknesses • Slower than expected pace of land titling program. • Adequacy of engagement with NGOs/CSOs.

15. Key Reviews • Regular WB Supervision mission reports (6 monthly reviews) • Various reviews undertaken by external agencies, but generally all based anecdotal evidence and lacking in detailed data collection directly from field • MDF funded Project Implementation and Beneficiary Assessment (PIBA) completed in Jan 2009 • MDF Mid-Term Review of all MDF-funded projects • Review of Study on Gender Impacts of Land Titling in Aceh, will commence March 2009, funded by World Bank Gender Action Plan (GAP)

16. Concluding Remarks • Emergency nature of the project has passed. Focus on reconstruction. • Contributions to longer-term stability to the Aceh land administration system • Impact of new Law on Governing Aceh and provincial priorities • Longer term - Land Market developments: “I can think of nothing that will generate more income over the long run for average families in this region than actually having title to the land they own. Then, they will be able to borrow money and build a much more diversified, much more modern economy.” UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery, former US President Mr. Bill Clinton, Aceh, 23 May 2005

17. Terima Kasih Terima Kasih