At the end of June, Katholic University Leuven, in collaboration with local partner, the Institute of Land Administration at Bahir Dar University, conducted its data collection for the ‘Get Needs’ work package in Ethiopia.

The activities comprised two components – site visits and interviews with local communities in rural and peri-urban kebeles (villages), and a series of workshops held in Bahir Dar and Addis Ababa targeting stakeholders across government, private and academia sectors. The main aim of the data collection activities was to elicit information about stakeholders’ land information needs, readiness (to use the relevant its4land technologies), and potential market opportunities.

Community interview at Robit Bata kebele

We visited communities in Yibab and Robit Bata kebeles, ensuring participation from men, women and youth. We also spoke with kebele land administrators, gaining grassroots insights into the challenges of land confronting communities and what types of information might support them in responding to these challenges. To minimise impact on the communities, these activities were also combined with site visits and introductory meetings with project partner, Muenster University. For the workshops, 35 organisations were conducted with around a 50% response rate. Each workshop commenced with an open discussion of the land administration challenges pertaining to the sector and common themes that emerged included the proliferation of customary/traditional practices of land information recording (e.g. via elders), lack of clarity over land rights due to different legislations, organisational arrangements, and frequent changes, lack of adequate compensation, and lack of land supply in a rapidly urbanising country.

Explaining sketchmaps to the kebele land administrator

Detailed reporting of the outcomes of the data collection activities will be available via Deliverable 2.4.