Amalgamated territorial communities anticipate instruments for managing their own land resources: methodologies and legislative amendments discussed
Nine topics covering key issues of land management in amalgamated territorial communities (OTGs) were discussed at a seminar with representatives of oblast state administrations and OTGs from Mykolayiv, Lviv, and Kyiv oblasts in Kyiv on July 1-2. These are the tree pilot oblasts within the World Bank and the EU Program “Supporting Transparent Land Governance in Ukraine.”
The overall objective of the Program is to assist both central authorities and local residents in Ukraine in developing the capacity to maximize the efficiency of using land resources in order to increase the revenues and welfare of the state and its citizens.
The OTG representatives were presented 3 draft methodologies aimed at resolving outstanding issues in land governance. These are the Methodology for OTG Land Inventory, the Methodology of Land Surveying Quality Control for Land Inventory, and the Methodology for Spatial Planning in OTGs.
In addition, the suggestions were discussed on the following topics of land and decentralization reforms: (1) Procedure for data error correction in the State Land Cadastre, (2) Defining OTG boundaries, (3) Required institutional changes in land governance, (4) Simplification of the procedure for registering land parcels transferred from state and communal property, (5) Land e-auctions, and (6) “The land surveyor work place”: capacity building needs to strengthen oblast and OTGs in effective land management.
Using the Methodologies, local governments, particularly OTGs, will be able to independently use satellite observation technologies to control land use, obtain clear criteria of land management quality assessment when doing inventory of their land, and receive spatial planning tools (including software and required knowledge). This will substantially increase the efficiency of using land in communities, including the land transferred to communities by the state under decentralization processes.
The methodologies and legislative amendments are developed by the World Bank and the EU Program “Supporting Transparent Land Governance in Ukraine” in cooperation with the USAID “Agrarian and Rural Development Support” Project and with participation of experts from the Reforms Delivery Office at the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Better Regulation Delivery Office.
It is planned to finalize drafting methodologies and legislative amendments no later than fall 2019.