Land Register

Rwanda does not have a land register (dt. Kataster/Grundbuch) but there are plans about creating one and pilot projects are underway. I got the chance to visit field work for such a pilot study and found a prime example of what is known as a Participatory GIS: out in the field parcel boundaries are determined and demarcated on aerial images (QuickBird) in collaboration with the owners of the land.


After that, the people meet in the shadow of a tree and administrative information (running number, name of owner, children, etc) is entered in a big book (a preliminary land register) and (rarely) into a special "dispute register" if there are disputes between land owners. These disputes, if they happen at all, concern almost exclusively the location of the boundary in the field or the ownership of a parcel, but never the mapping. It is amazing how well people recognise their fields on the QuickBird images. I tried it myself: it's surprisingly hard to orient in this open savannah-like land with a few singular trees and lots of banana groves.


How accurate is the result? Why not using GPS? That would be magic to the local people, whereas the aerial images they can understand. It's really a low-tech participatory GIS.

And what's the cadastre going to be used for? To raise taxes from those that don't have anything to spare anyway? Or just as a planning tool? I did not get answers to these questions; our host was responsible for the technical side. But he confirmed that the local land owners are not afraid of the project and collaboration is perfect. The cadastral pilot project is carried out under the auspices of the Ministry of Lands, Environment, Forestry, Water and Mines (MINITERE) and funded by the British DFID.