Kyiv, February 21, 2013 - A World Bank mission to review progress on the Ukraine Rural Land Titling and Cadaster Development Project completed its visit to Ukraine on Februaty 20, 2013. The World Bank team’s initial assessment is that the project is on track to complete all its activities by its Closing Date of April 30, 2013, including establishment of the electronic cadastre. The mission noted that further reviews by an independent technical evaluation firm will be completed in the coming weeks.
The Ukraine Rural Land Titling project became effective on July 30, 2004 and will close on April 30, 2013. The loan amount is $89.7 million dollars, of which $74 million has been disbursed to date.
The Project Development Objective is to assist Ukraine in: (і) privatization of the lands of state and communal farm enterprises, agencies, and organizations through transfer to the employees of these enterprises, agencies, and organizations as well as to retirees among them, designating for each of them a land parcel (share); (іі) allocating land parcels to owners of land parcels (shares) in kind (on site) and issuing state land deeds to them; and (ііі) establishing an electronic land cadastre.
The main achievements of the project are in the area of issuance of state land deeds, mapping, and the establishment of an electronic land cadaster. The project directly financed the issuance of state land deeds for over 700,000 parcels. Aerial surveys, orthophotomaps and cadaster index maps have been completed for the entire national territory. , making it Europe’s largest cadastral map. Under the project 16.7 million property records were scanned and indexed. An automated cadastral information system has been developed and installed nation-wide, which has been put into operation in January 2013. Local and oblast offices in 592 locations nation wide now have the resources to provide quicker and more accurate answers to inquiries about land parcel location and characteristics, and to prevent and resolve overlapping claims. The electronic cadastral system makes cadastral map information viewable on-line, and provides the opportunity for users to note mistakes in the information. The project has also trained over 1900 employees to operate the electronic cadaster system. The World Bank team noted that the strong cooperation of the State Agency for Land Resources was critical for reaching the project’s objectives. According to information provided by the State Agency for Land Resources, during the period January 14, 2013-February 7, 2013, 47, 519 applications for new parcels registration were registered and 34,219 registrations were completed. In addition, 10,990 applications for extracts were received and 10,176 extracts were issued.
World Bank Country Director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova Qimiao Fan noted, “The electronic cadaster is important for ordinary citizens because they can register a land plot, or receive their land extract now much faster and with less cost. More importantly, it increases transparency and security.”
As with any large new system there will inevitably be technical errors, but there is an ongoing program for systematic error identification and correction in place. The World Bank team emphasized that many serious challenges remain in the land sector. The team explained that while much important technical groundwork has been accomplished under the project, the overall set of land policies continues to present challenges which constrain agricultural/rural and urban development. The team noted that continuing uncertainty about the policy for the sale of agricultural land and the lack of a full inventory of state land holdings are examples of areas where further policy reform could yield large economic and social benefits, including increased investment into Ukraine.
