name: RAKOTONIAINA Toky Mamy

Antananarivo Polytechnic High School

department: IGAT

mention: SFAT

LAND ANTHROPOLOGY DUTY

READING REPORT

This report is based on the reading of an end-of-study dissertation entitled "Contribution

to the sustainability of the National Land Fund through the integration of e-foncier in
Madagascar."

PRESENTATION OF THE MEMOIR

The final dissertation in question was supported in preparation for the diploma of the
National School of Administration of Madagascar (ENAM):

Cycle: Higher education in Administration.

Specialization: Public administration.

Theme: Contribution to the sustainability of the National Land Fund through the
integration of e-foncier in Madagascar.

The theme was presented by RAMANANTSOA Andriamahafaly Rado, TSINJO

promotion, 2020.

Three major milestones marked the land system in Madagascar:

a) - The monarchical period

During the reign of Andrianampoinimerina, land was contained in oral rules reinforced
by the code of 305 articles. During the reign of Ranavalona III, the land system was formalized
with the law of 09 March 1896 which gave birth to the Conservation of the Land Property of
Madagascar.

b) - The colonial period

The Colonial Administration established a land system inspired by the one established
by the British colony in Australia (Act Torrenns). The customary forms of occupation were
gathered in spaces delimited by the administration itself, the "indigenous reserves" which were
paradoxically titled in the name of the French state.

c) - After independence

The Malagasy State has retained the land system established by the colonial
administration.

The land reform initiated the recognition of systems for validating legitimate land rights
and the establishment of institutions and outreach mechanisms to formalize rights. The result
was the implementation of two systems: off-site management and decentralized land
management.

The brief proposes the computerization of the land system to solve the failures of current
land management. The problem posed by the theme of the brief states: "Is the integration of e-
foncier an unavoidable challenge to be met in order to sustain the National Land Fund?"

THE PROBLEM OF LAND, ANALYSIS AND COMMENTS

The land system was quickly overtaken by events: the Service is practically paralyzed,
overwhelmed by the multitude of services to be rendered to users. As a result, the gap between
land rights holders and the traditional occupation of unregistered and landlocked parcels
widened further.

The New 2015 Land Policy Letter identifies three predominant causes of the current
land system failure:

- The land registration process is long and more expensive;

- Land services are materially and humanly destitute and therefore saturated;
- The centralization of the land and family system led to the failure of the
system.
The Basic Policy has set itself as a goal of favourable land management:
- domestic and foreign private investment,
- agricultural production;
- management, protection and renewal of natural resources,
 - to the development of decentralised local authorities through the provision
of territorial management and taxation tools,
- strengthening social cohesion at the local and communal level.
Thus, the main objective of the Basics Policy is to meet the demand
land security, in a short period of time and at costs adjusted to the economic context,
by the formalization of unwritten land rights and by safeguarding and regularizing
unwritten land rights.
In terms of specific objectives, the Foncière Policy is based on a renewed legislative
framework, a process of decentralisation of land management, modernization of tools and
the training of new skills.
The Fundamental Policy is characterized by four strategic areas:
- The restoration, modernization and computerization of land and
topographical conservations;
- Improving and decentralizing land management;
- The renovation of land and state regulations;
- A national land trades training program.

To continue, it refers to two sources: Chronicle, The Tribe in the Age of Globalization,
Land Issues: Africa and Madagascar, Gérard Chouquer and Côte d'Ivoire: A Country in
Reconstruction, Article, February 11, 2019, Bioforce.

Elizabeth Gianola shows that the choice of a legal system has not only economic
consequences but that it engages a real social choice. Land thus expresses a social whole, and
to believe that a process of individualization will suffice to solve the problem is notoriously
insufficient.

The question of the registration procedure is thus raised, and the results of this policy
are criticized. If land rights are to be formalised, this can only be done at the local level, not
through state procedure.

Should the question of land in Madagascar be asked, as the Land Policy Letter officially
states: "Madagascar is in land transition"? There would be a transition because the Big Island
would be placed between a (former) traditional land management and a (future)
individualization and commodification of the land. The book coordinated by Frédéric Sandron
provides, in fact, another answer: the transition would be rather the transition from a land policy
directed from above, with the objective of the land registration of the property but not having
the means of its ambitions, to a decentralized land policy, the idea being that land management
will become more efficient if it falls under the responsibility of the local authorities. It is based
on new principles since private property can be recognized, even when there is no land title. In
their framing article, André Teyssier, Zo Ravelomanantsoa and Henri Raharison explain this
conceptual rupture that enshrines "the impasse of domaniality". The new National Land
Programme comes after a large number of attempts at land security, all of which failed because
they were still aimed at registration and because, because of a certain slowness, a parallel circuit
of "small papers" issued by the municipal authorities had developed.

In Côte d'Ivoire, land ownership belongs to the community (family, lineage, village) and cannot
be ceded but it is possible to transfer part of its land temporarily to right to use. In western Côte
d'Ivoire, the land generally belongs to men, with women having access only on the condition
that the family has no heir.

At the time of the economic miracle, to encourage the development of agriculture, President
Houphouet-Boigny granted the immigrant agricultural workers a part of the land on which they
worked and which they could exploit as they pleased. In the years that followed, many
indigenous people claimed the land granted to foreigners, claiming that they had made it
available but that there was no question of foreigners taking it. Under Houphouet-Boigny this
conflict remains stifled by the iron hand of the president who claims that the land belongs to
the one who cultivates it. But the economic crisis that followed his death in 1993 brought this
land issue back to life.
Today, land legislation is still non-existent and the implementation of delicate reforms is
essential when many lands do not have title to property.

Planting papayas. Photo: jbdodane taken on August 27, 2013 (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Land conflicts, particularly in the Cavally and Guémon regions in the west of the country, on
the Liberian border, have an identity and security dimension, with communities wanting to
highlight the land law ("land of our ancestors") and others the right to use ("land we have been
working for generations"). It was in these two regions (without taking Abidjan into account)
that the highest number of victims and acts of violence were recorded during the post-election
crisis of 2010-2011.

Since independence, the Greater West, already geographically out of the capital Abidjan, has
not benefited from the sharing of national economic wealth, while these are areas rich in cocoa
plantations, of which the country is the world's largest producer. Cavally and Guémon are
extremely fertile regions that have attracted strong migration for decades. The Ivorian
authorities have often manipulated these migratory flows for electoral purposes, without
implementing a policy of integration of these populations, thus resulting in a stigmatization of
these "migrants", a withdrawal of identity and a confusion between notions of origin and
nationality, at the heart of land conflicts. It should also be noted that cocoa cultivation spread
illegally during the war on "protected" forests, accounting for nearly 40% of production.

For decades, although indigenous peoples have become a minority in number, land disputes
have been resolved amicably through the customary system. But the economic crisis of 1990
broke the precarious balance of these regions and caused violence between indigenous
landowners, immigrants who worked their land and displaced people from other parts of Côte
d'Ivoire.

The post-election crisis of 2011 led to further massacres in the Cavally and Guémon regions.
The town of Duékoué, located in the Guémon region, has welcomed thousands of displaced
people from the south of the country fleeing abuses linked to the 2010-11 post-election crisis.
In March 2011, violent clashes between pro-Ouattara fighters and Laurent Gbagbo militiamen
left hundreds dead or missing.
These abuses were perpetrated for political or ethnic reasons; since the end of the last electoral
crisis, Duékoué has been declared a symbol city for national reconciliation.

But land problems are not the only causes of conflicts in the West. Cavally and Guémon are
strategic regions, not only because of the large cocoa production they generate but also because
of their access to the coast.

A 1998 land law converts customary land rights into legal title. To compensate for the
recurrence of conflicts, the government created a rural land agency in 2016 to improve land
registration. But in 2017 only 4% of rural land is registered. Indeed, during the procedure which
proves costly and complicated, the owners are not accompanied and do not benefit from any
concrete incentive to comply with the legal injunction.

The brief that is the subject of this reading report advances as a solution to the land
problems of computerization of the system. This would be a giant step towards the
establishment of e-administration in Madagascar. Would the country be able to do so given the
importance of the financial investment required for the land transition? Second, should we not
begin by freeing ourselves from the legacy of colonization in terms of land legislation that
would be unique to the country?

annex

Some excerpts from the brief.

Page 100

216. The State's initiative to finance the reform

The Malagasy State is an independent state and should not depend on anyone to carry
out its own projects, if it considers it useful for the citizens, here the modernization of land
conservation is essential to improve the quality of the public land service, therefore, the State
must act to finance this project, this funding is done by subsidy, the credits allocated to the land
service must correspond to the annual and multi-year programme that they deal with in the
general policy of the State.

The State must then monitor and evaluate the progress of the project, it must also renew
the necessary tools for reform, and to cover the operating costs...

217. Effective participation of monitoring and evaluation bodies for modernization,

restructuring and computerization of land conservation

... The Land Observatory is a body that has already begun to be exercised, but it is the
incentive guidelines that are not complete, although its role as its name suggests only observes
by reports communicated, but, this body must be accompanied by the COS (Orientation and
Monitoring Committee), a body of guidance and monitoring, a body established and created
with the Letter of Fundamental Policy , but has not yet been executed and launched. Indeed, the
FO communicates all the reports it receives to the COS, if the latter sees f ailles and gaps, it
makes a release of new guidelines to eradicate the gaps....

Page 103

... The restructuring, modernization and computerization of land conservation is not hasty, there
are short-term and long-term projects, but the main thing is to improve the quality of public
land services, to restore the image of the Administration to users, to facilitate the tasks of users
in the regularization of their land, and also to alleviate the unlimited work of land agents and
managers. , adopting new ways of working and making recommendations to improve land
services.

The initiative of the State to pursue a policy of reform makes it possible to develop the rural
economically by moving from a subsistence economy to a market economy, to enable the
poorest populations to improve their living conditions by securing their land...