5. ESCUTANDO SUAS VOZES
5.2 Contexto de iniciação sexual e reprodutiva
The local land office in Ankazomiriotra is a so-called paper office. It works on the paper images of the orthophotos, draws parcel delineations on them, and provides sketches to the CRIF to be digitised and included in the PLOF. The baseline maps of these PLOFs have been prepared by the deconcentrated office of the state land service in Antsirabe/Betafo or previous external technical operators. They are supposed to conduct an inventory of the existing topographical maps, cadastral plans, and titles, digitise and vectorise the information, and insert georeferenced details. These provide information layers that are superimposed onto orthophotos to constitute a full PLOF. When the CRIF digitises information, it allocates an identification number to each parcel and links it with information on the tenure right holder.
The local land office and the CRIF have faced some challenges in using the tool. First, the orthophotos were purchased under the MCA project and reflect the situation in 2006.
These photos have not been renewed, implying that inconsistencies might occur between the situation on the photo and on the ground. This potentially concerns the peri-urban areas where land use change is rapid. Second, the office has also lost some paper versions of the orthophotos, or some images have heavy cloud-cover, rendering the visualisation of spatial information complex. Third, the weakest link in the use of the PLOF is the lack of coordination with the deconcentrated office of the state land service.
The first update between the databases was made only in June/July 2017. In the meantime, the CRIF had one version of the PLOF and the state land service another. The databases were not coordinated with latest details on the allocated titles and certificates.
In terms of land administration, this is a recipe for disaster as the databases are incompatible with each other. The local PLOF also becomes vulnerable to the loss of information if it is not safeguarded elsewhere.
The PLOF is therefore fragile due to the operational difficulties and weak institutional linkages. The fragility of the PLOF calls into question its ability to act as the key technological solution through which land is administered – a role given to it by both proponents and opponents at the national level. This fragility also questions the legal and administrative security of the certificates, which can quickly become void if they do not reflect the situation on the ground. There is a risk that titles, cadastre areas and
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certificates overlap. Without a back-up copy, the destruction of the PLOF (on desktop computer and CDs) could also mean the loss of all digital information. Only a copy of the certificate would remain with the land holder, and paper notes in the parcel register (if up-to-date and intact). This means that the administration is vulnerable, and its fragility could be easily misused, for instance, for corruption. These sources of tenure insecurity demonstrate the importance of following convened procedures when tenure security has become a legal and administrative matter, as in the case of the Malagasy land policy.
6.3. Conclusion
In this chapter, I have demonstrated how the dominant policy narrative was operationalised and rendered technical by the creation of a new municipal statutory land administration that combines decentralised ideals, previous national experiences and existing local social processes (see Li 2007). In practice, policy implementation became a question of opening local land offices in municipalities, issuing certificates on demand to farmers and managing information management systems (PLOFs). For the proponents, the number of offices opened, certificates allocated, and hectares covered were quantitative indicators of success. These were physical demonstrations of the presence of the dominant policy narrative on the ground in the face of opposition from the state land service. To further maintain their position, the proponents foresee the local land offices as nodes for local development around which a set of new activities of land administration and management can be created.
I find that the technical practices set in place enforce the legal and administrative conceptions of tenure security within the dominant policy narrative. A certificate issued by a municipal authority through local recognition processes and backed up by an information management system and book-keeping procedures is considered secure.
The example of Ankazomiriotra underlines, however, that these processes need to be governed and managed to guarantee legal and administrative security on a sustainable basis. Otherwise, they risk creating new sources of tenure insecurity stemming, for instance, from the lack of safeguarding and updating information, power abuses and lost
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public trust in the system. This would then mean that the policy reduces rather than procures security, especially if does not effectively address the authority, political, social and cultural sources of and conditions for tenure security.
During policy implementation, a set of new practices emerged, responding to wider objectives of land tenure as a basis for development. They shift attention away from the core practices of the dominant policy narrative by paying less attention to certification as a solution for recognition and registering legitimate tenure rights. These are novel or recycled ideas and solutions proposed both by proponents and opponents to counter implementation challenges and consolidate their positions. They contribute to what Li (2007) calls managing failures and reassembling where compromises are planned, and existing discourses are used for new ends and meanings of key terms are transposed from one context to another. Under the influence of these emerging activities, I argue that the policy is becoming a laboratory of practices without a coherent plan for securing tenure.
The analysis of the institutional policy implementation shows that it has faults typical of decentralisation. First, the municipalities were drawn into the process by donors without a democratic demand for a new land administration (Larson and Ribot 2004). Second, the creation of municipal land administrations has not been followed by a proper transfer of resources from the central level to the municipalities (Le Bris and Paulais 2007).
Instead, local land offices need to bear the consequences of the project-led implementation of the policy and the resistance of the state land service. The former has meant direct cuts in support and supervision after 2009 and the latter has been translated into a lack of collaboration and data-sharing from the outset. Third, the local land offices have not reduced administration, but added a new layer to it (Le Bris and Paulais 2007).
Indeed, local translations of the policy implementation have entailed keeping up with the authority of the chiefs of fokontanys and guaranteeing an administrative value for the petits papiers, and the resistance of the state land service to power transfers has maintained the institutional position of the titling system (Larson and Ribot 2004). The party who loses out in this scenario is the farmer, who needs to pay to move from one rung of the property ladder to the next. The next chapter explores policy implementation from the perspective of farmers.
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