Land Governance Monitoring
Land Governance Monitoring in Ukraine is innovative instrument for a comprehensive analysis of land market development as well as for making policy decision in this field. It was developed by the Project “Capacity Development for Evidence-Based Land & Agricultural Policy Making”, carried out with support by the World Bank.
Land Governance Monitoring is a system for collecting, storing and publishing the data and indicators on the state of land governance. The monitoring is organized at the level of rayon and cities of regional subordination, Kyiv and Sevastopol. These indicators cover all core functional areas of land governance, namely the coverage by registration in the State Land Cadastre and Registry of Rights to Immovable Property, the number and characteristics of transactions with land, land tax, disputes, privatization and expropriation, and equality of rights of different categories of landowners and land users.
The system allows analysing the current state of land governance with more than 140 indicators. This set of indicators corresponds to the practice of other countries and the recommendations by the World Bank (LGAF, 2013). It also includes indicators describing the progress of land reform in Ukraine. Implementation of the Monitoring system is consistent with the principles recommended by FAO Voluntary Guideline for the Governance of Tenure.
Motivation for development of the “Land Governance Monitoring in Ukraine” is that there is no consolidated information in Ukraine on land governance, which would include information coming from local authorities to the various central authorities. Therefore, the central government lacks a comprehensive picture on the state of land governance in the country - both on local and region levels. As a result - there is no such information in the public domain either.
Integration of data on land governance from various authorities provides basis for analysis of current situation, trends and issues, as well as to forecast and model the development path for land markets. This information is necessary for evidence-based policy making in the field of land governance and agricultural development. At the same time, availability of such data is a necessary condition for better transparency in the land sector.
Pilot implementation of the Land Governance Monitoring system was conducted in April-December 2015. Analytical Yearbook “Land Governance Monitoring 2014-2015” was prepared based on the results of pilot implementation results, also the resulting database was compiled up in the format suitable for further analysis.
Pilot Implementation of the Land Governance Monitoring (2015)
The goal of pilot implementation of the Monitoring system in 2015 was to explore the feasibility of introduction of automated information system in Ukraine, which combines data on actual state of land governance at national and local levels.
The purpose of piloting the Monitoring of the It involved the audit of all existing sources of administrative data on land, assessment of consistency of data across the sources, its completeness and reporting schedule. A draft methodology for the monitoring was developed and coordination of data sharing among the agencies was tested.
Administrative data for pilot implementation was provided by six government authorities: State Statistics Service of Ukraine, State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre, State Court Administration of Ukraine, State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, State Water Resources Agency, The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine (SE “National Information Systems”).
Development of the monitoring indicators, data sharing, and interpretation of results was provided by the cross-agency Working Group on Land Governance Monitoring that was established by the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine and included representatives of the above and several other government authorities.
Problems during the pilot implementation. Three main problems with administrative data were identified, which may affect the time for implementation of fully operational Monitoring system. First, there were issues with delays in data supply and lack of common structure for reporting. Besides, there are cases when data important for policy making is not recorded and/or is not provided in the form of regular reports (e.g. number and characteristics of the land plots that were expropriated for public use, area of land reported in tax declarations, etc.).
Next steps. The experience of pilot implementation suggests the following next steps to be taken: development of normative framework for automated regular reporting, data exchange, and for provision of monitoring results to public; and development of reporting software.
Yearbook “Land Governance Monitoring in Ukraine 2014-2015»
Yearbook “Land Governance Monitoring in Ukraine 2014-2015” is the first report in Ukraine, which contains information on all key indicators of land governance in Ukraine based on administrative data collected by the central government authorities. The information is presented at the rayon and regional levels.
The Yearbook was developed by the Project "Capacity Development for Evidence-Based Land & Agricultural Policy Making”, carried out with support by the World Bank, and in collaboration with the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre and other government authorities.
The Yearbook contains 46 graphs, 54 maps, 44 description tables, 10 appendices and resulting conclusions to each of the 8 sections.
The Yearbook Structure. The Yearbook consists of two parts. Part I - "Monitoring Results" is a reference material on the main characteristics of land governance and land resources. Part II is an electronic database with corresponding values of the monitoring indicators at the level of rayons and cities. Both parts can be found on the project website www.land.kse.org.ua. Later, they will be transferred to the corresponding web site for Land Governance Monitoring in Ukraine. Data is publicly available in a format suitable for further analysis; it will be regularly updated.
Results of the Land Governance Monitoring for 2014-2015
Results indicate that:
- The introduction of a 7-year minimum rental period for agricultural land and the increase in the land tax rate coincides with a significant drop in the number of registered lease contracts. This decrease takes place despite the fact that notaries have received the right to register lease rights;
- As of December 1, 2015, 16,661,051 plots were registered by the State Land Cadastre with total area of 41,812,127.76 hectares, representing 69% of Ukraine’s territory. However, only 22.6% of state-owned land was registered;
- Development of the agricultural and non-agricultural land market is constrained by the lack of bank finance. From 2013 to 2015, only 1,899 plots were sold in Ukraine with the total area of 6215.76 hectares (0.02% of the privately owned land area). During this period, 91 mortgages were issued for the total area of 52.9 hectares. This indicates that mortgages practically do not exist in Ukraine. In contrast, mortgages are the primary source of finance for other developed real estate markets. Assessment and overcoming barriers on mortgage market deserves a primary attention by the Government during the development and implementation of land reform;
- As of 01.07.2015, about 4,671.5 thousand rental contracts for private agricultural land (shares) were signed in Ukraine for the total area of 16,597.0 thousand hectares (~50% of privately owned land). The average rent payment was 786 UAH/ha per year. Also, 56,053 rental contracts for state-owned land were established with an average rental payment of 1351.6 UAH/ha per year with a significant difference in rental price across the regions;
- During 2013-2015, rental (use) rights were registered for 832,551 land plots with the total area of 3,513,015.64 hectares (about 16% of the leased land);
- In January-September of 2015, the total number of land tax payers was 7,337,191 persons, among which 98% were individuals (vs. legal entities). This number represents 46% of the total number of landowners, registered by the State Land Cadastre, and only 31% of private landowners, reported by the statistical form 2-zem;
- Statistics for land distribution among public, private and communal ownership, reported by the existing statistical forms, does not match the actual distribution;
- The results of Monitoring point to a significant difference in the characteristics of land resources and land governance at the local level. Therefore, land reform must take into account the diversity of local conditions and capacity for implementation of reforms at the local level.
Graphical materials
Monitoring results are presented by more than 150 graphical materials. They allow assessing the situation and development of a broad set of indicators: from the situation with registering private and state late with the State Land Cadaster, rental contracts durations for land plots of different sizes and ownership, to private and state farmland rental prices across the regions, even the ‘density’ and the details of land court cases on the map of Ukraine. In particular,
Full version of the Yearbook is available at www.land.kse.org.ua
