Guidance for Practitioners
longer-term reconstruction can involve the following elements: Standardised information management tools, including beneficiary lists, data on tenure status, location, etc. It is necessary to translate information from interim tenure documents into digital databases or official records. It also facilitates verification, quality control, and recognition of resulting tenure documents by other donors and reconstruction actors. International actors should advocate and support the issuance of standardized documents by competent domestic authorities. Gender-sensitive databases. Post-disaster tenure documentation databases should include fields to record (1) details of women’s rights to land, including rights other than ownership; and (2) marital land co-owned by a husband or wife. The introduction of such measures should be accompanied by gender-sensitive training and information campaigns. Boundary identification. In many cases, community members and NGOs need only identify basic parcel layouts and sites for utilities and public facilities. Formal surveying of boundaries is expensive, time-consuming and may be difficult or impossible to achieve at the required national standard. Law reform. Law reform with a view to creating tenure security for all disaster victims should recognize a flexible hierarchy of legal evidence of land rights, including: sworn witness or community leaders statements; marriage and birth certificates; house numbers and addresses; land tax payments; utility/telephone bills; confirmations of inheritance; sale or mortgage documents, parcel maps; proof of longterm occupation; genealogical records; and burial grounds. Collection of supporting evidence. Where formalization of land rights will enhance tenure security for landholders, program beneficiaries should be assisted to collect evidence for applications to record or register formal legal rights to their land, wherever possible in the names of men and women. Recognition of customary tenure. Where initial tenure security for reconstruction is based on customary mechanisms, intermediate steps may involve documentation of customary groups’ claims to land. Where there are existing procedures, donors should assist customary groups to obtain documentary evidence of their rights to land. Otherwise, donor agencies should support advocacy and preliminary social mapping efforts to obtain formal recognition of customary claims to land. Resolution of disputes. Interim tenure documentation should not be issued where rights to land remain disputed, but the parties should rather be referred to mediation and adjudication mechanisms. Further reading UN-HABITAT (2007) A Post-Conflict Land Administration and Peace-building Handbook, www.unhabitat.org 83