Community-State Administration of Private Property Records in Rural Afghanistan

Abstract

"Political and economic turmoil for the past 25 years has led to widespread insecurity, which itself has many facets, including a lack of security of property rights in land. State centered efforts to reconstruct the country's political and economic system miss community institutions, which are resilient foundations for the future of the country.

"The State's institutions which were created prior to the conflict period for the protection of rights to land were centered on the Judiciary, in that Primary Court judges traditionally had the responsibility of preparing and archiving legal deeds. The web of people and agencies involved in the conduct of land rights transactions is complicated and costly to those who want to complete a transaction in a legal way. For these and other reasons fewer than 10% of rural properties and fewer than 30% of urban properties are actually covered by court prepared deeds.This paper reports on an experiment to archive in community centers the agreements about legitimate users of rangeland and community verifications of privately owned agricultural land. The paper also presents suggestions for linking the administration of these community land rights archives with the traditional administrators of property records in governmental agencies."