15.10.2010 USAID Land Market Development Program Ended

 

Thirteen-year Land Market Development Program, the longest USAID project in Georgia ended in September, 2010.

Since 2001 the project has been implemented by the Association for Protection of Landowners’ Rights, which has been the first Georgian organization directly awarded the grant by the USAID.

 

Overall objectives of Land Market Development Project, which had commenced in 1997, was to facilitate implementation of agricultural land reform in the country, improve legal/regulatory environment related to land administration and management, complete initial registration of farming land parcels transferred to Georgian population free-of-charge countrywide, create databases for cadastral information in the country, raise public awareness on land and real property issues, establish modern and efficient property registration system, and conduct large-scale privatization of agricultural land remaining in state ownership.

 

During the years of project lifetime, up to 2.5 million farming land parcels were registered and titled to Georgian citizens free-of-charge and respective ownership certificates issued; number of draft laws, legislative acts and detailed procedures for land privatization were developed and adopted through the project support; capacities of tens of NAPR registration offices, local government commissions responsible for managing land privatization processes and privatization teams of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development was strengthened by providing hundreds of seminars and workshops; wide-scale public education campaign was conducted throughout the years and thousands of landowners were provided assistance and consultancy on land-related issues; farming land privatization plans were prepared for more than 500 sakrebulos; over 200,000 ha of state-owned agricultural land was privatized; 680 large land lots totaling the area of 135,000 ha were identified and respective maps prepared for sale to local and foreign investors through 100 Agricultural Enterprises Program.

 

During last two years the project was also focused on registration of the properties of IDPs emerged as a result of August 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict. As a result 15,660 property units abandoned within administrative boarders of South Ossetia have been registered into the database for lost properties; over 4,000 houses and residential and farming land parcels transferred by the Government of Georgia to displaced people were surveyed and registered for beneficiary households.

 

The project played the crucial  role in land reform implementation in Georgia, in the establishment of private ownership to land and strengthening property rights, in wide-scale privatization of agricultural land, development of regulatory environment for land administration and management and raising public awareness on land related issues, as well as in the establishment of modern and effective property registration system.