Access to land and security of tenure present key challenges in Myanmar, where two-thirds of the populations rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. With a growing market economy, pressure on land increases, and up to 35% of the rural population is landless.

But most land records are old and often do not reflect the reality on the ground. Very little is computerised and land boundaries have not been updated in years.

In 2013, the Settlement and Land Records Department (SLRD) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation issued Land Use Certificates on farmlands, underlining the urgent need to ensure that the base records are up to date. Doing this in a country with some seven million farmland holdings requires a system that is low cost, convenient, fast and acceptable to the farmers.

To provide the means to strengthen the land system, LIFT funds the Land Administration and Management Project  (LAMP), implemented by SLRD with technical assistance from UN Habitat. Signed in June 2014, LAMP is to strengthen land administration and management by testing new processes and technologies at rural and urban pilot sites in Thayarwaddy and Myingyan.

On Monday this week (09th March 2015), a ceremony officially opened the LAMP Training Room at the SLRD’s Central Land Records Development Training Centre (CLRDTC) at Taikkyi Township, Yangon.  This marked the start of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Survey Training.

LAMP plans to deliver nine different types of training before October this year. Field teams in land and property rights are to be formed, working to update the land records.  Computer based land information systems are being designed and tested, and capacity building to support SLRD, village tract administration, community organisations and NGOs will take place.

SLRD plays a key role in keeping land records of ownership, land type, land parcels, land tax assessment, and agricultural data. With the new knowledge and experience from the programme, SLRD can lead stakeholders in forming a long term development plan for land administration across the country.

In the pilot towns, LAMP will

  • validate land use certificates
  • provide access to information and education on land processes and documents
  • produce more accurate and up to date maps
  • streamline process and service for registering changes in land transactions
  • provide a  transparent process for adjudicating land disputes

By developing familiarity and confidence in the new processes and technologies at the SLRD, changes to the maps can be continually, with long term results. The project will benefit not only SLRD, but it has implications for the entire country.