Adoption of volunteered geographic information into the formal land administration system in Kenya

Adoption of volunteered geographic information into the formal land administration system in Kenya

Land Use Policy 63 (2017) 279–287 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol Ad...

1MB Sizes 1 Downloads 96 Views

Land Use Policy 63 (2017) 279–287

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol

Adoption of volunteered geographic information into the formal land administration system in Kenya David N. Siriba a , Sagi Dalyot b,∗ a

Department of Geospatial and Space Technology, University of Nairobi, P.O. Box 30197, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya Transportation and Geo-Information Engineering, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion − Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 4 May 2016 Received in revised form 26 January 2017 Accepted 26 January 2017 Keywords: Community-led land mapping Formalization Integration Land administration VGI Crowdsourcing

a b s t r a c t Individualization of tenure through title registration programmes introduced in many African countries after independence with the promise of security of tenure and increased agricultural productivity has, instead, had the opposite effect. Informal land arrangements continue to emerge as a result of the slow pace of land adjudication (formalization) and updating of land information systems. The trend towards computerization of land information systems has only put focus on already existing formal land tenure arrangements, leaving out the informal social tenure arrangements. As a result, there are now many efforts worldwide motivated by the introduction of the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM), and freelyavailable and easy-to-use technology tools to identify, document and map land in support of informal land administration arrangements. Actions are made towards the use of community-generated information to support land administration. Using theories from the interplay between formal and informal institutions, this paper discusses the potential outcomes in adopting Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) in land administration in Kenya. Two case studies are presented that demonstrate the complementary-accommodating, versus the substitutive-competing approaches. These are then compared with the formal land adjudication process in Kenya. It is established that because of the direct involvement of the national mapping agency in land adjudication where VGI is utilized, the outcome is a case of formal adoption of VGI, while in the other case, where there is little or no involvement by the national mapping agency, the outcome is more of competition and substitution. The latter is an example in which the VGI is used just like any other information to inform policy making, rather than taking it as the authoritative source. We argue that since informality is – and will always be – part and parcel of land administration in many African countries as a result of ingrained social relations and power structures, adopting crowdsourced land information into existing formal land administration systems should consider the particular land administration process, satisfying innate demands and requirements, thus re-engineered to accommodate VGI. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction A common argument during the history of colonial and postindependent African states was that customary systems of tenure contribute to low agricultural productivity. As part of an attempt to facilitate development and increase agricultural productivity, most African governments introduced land reforms in the form of individualization of tenure through title registration programmes – either freehold or individual leasehold on state-owned land.

∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D.N. Siriba), [email protected] (S. Dalyot). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.01.036 0264-8377/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paradigm of individualization of tenure through title registration programmes has had the mixed results in many African countries (Besteman, 1994). This is partly due to the fact that land tenure reform has got more to do with social relations and power structures than with reforms of land use. In addition, title registration and subsequent land subdivisions have led to uneconomical fragmentation of land, thus undermining the very initial goal of improving, among others, agricultural productivity. To put a case for title registration also, De Soto (2003) in his book “the Mystery of Capital”, explained why capitalism only thrives in the West and fails everywhere else. He observed that although a large percentage of the people in the world are poor, the poor own houses, crops, and businesses, but they are all extra-legal. Therefore, without titles, deeds, and articles of incorporation, the

280

D.N. Siriba, S. Dalyot / Land Use Policy 63 (2017) 279–287

poor cannot use their extra-legal property, and therefore termed as “dead capital”. In fact, most developing countries have less than 30 percent cadastral coverage – which means that over 70 percent of the land in many countries is generally outside the land register (Lemmen, 2010). This has caused problems for countries with regard to land management issues, especially in the rural and peri-urban areas. Moreover, dynamics in land administration and the obvious lengthy processes and lags in updating land information systems present opportunities for informal arrangements to emerge and persist. The trend towards computerization of land information systems has not helped the situation either, since the focus has been on already existing formal land tenure arrangements, leaving out the informal social tenure arrangements. Whereas the Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) is an effort focused on formal systems, the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) represents the same effort targeting informal systems. In fact, the STDM came to be on the premise that LADM did not consider customary and informal social tenure arrangements. The essence of STDM and its widespread applications demonstrates that informality is – and will always be – part and parcel of reality in land administration – at least in the case of developing countries. The development of customary and informal land tenure systems based on the STDM has given rise to another interesting trend in land administration, the involvement of the community (citizens, crowd) in mapping social tenure arrangements, those particularly considered to be informal. The main reason for this is the lack of reliable data about informal settlements due to the fact that their existence is often, for political and economic reasons, only unofficially recognized by local authorities and national governments (Panek and Sobotova, 2015). The incorporation of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI in this context is considered as informal on the basis that disparate groups of individuals who are not professionally-trained are involved in geographic data collection) into existing formal land administration frameworks is considered an overarching and crosscutting theme. Against this backdrop, this article presents a general framework for the adoption of VGI (informal practices) into formal land administration systems using two case studies from Kenya. The framework is based on the theory on the interplay between formal and informal institutions/systems (Helmke and Lavitsky, 2004). The rest of this paper is organized as follows: background on land administration and VGI, theory on formal and informal systems, an outline of the methodology and case studies, presentation and discussion of results from case studies, followed by preliminary conclusions relating the formalization of VGI data into formal land administration systems in Kenya.

2. Land administration and volunteered geographic information The land administration arrangements within any jurisdiction reflect the nature of people to land relationships as a result of social-cultural and power arrangements that exist. Among the public administration systems, land administration is considered the most important because it provides the infrastructure for implementing land-related policies and land management strategies in support of sustainable development (Williamson et al., 2010). The practice in land administration systems is to develop systems that are formal, although informal systems continue to emerge and change. In practice, the implementation of LADM focuses more on formal systems, while the STDM – the fact it is pro-poor and recognises those informal tenure rights that are often outside of the formal freehold parcel based tenure systems – focuses on informal systems.

The LADM, as one of the first spatial domain descriptive standard within the ISO (ISO, 2012), is a conceptual model that ensures domain-specific standardization to capture the semantics of the land administration domain. LADM provides a shared ontology that allows communication between professionals involved in land administration for system design, system development and system implementation purposes, and for purposes of data exchange and data quality management (van Oosterom and Lemmen, 2015; Lemmen et al., 2015). The STDM is a specialisation of the LADM, which means that there are some differences in terminology and the application area. The gap that often exists between the conventional (formal) land administration systems and informal tenure cannot be handled easily, and this created the need for complementary approaches for land administration. The STDM supports the recognition of a range of rights and claims in order to extend security of tenure to more people, including the poor in both urban and rural areas (Augustinus, 2010). The STDM thus bridges the gap by providing a standardized way of representing people to land relationships independent of the level of formality, legality and technical accuracy. Considering the varied nature of both the formal and informal land administration systems, the World Bank and the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) made a declaration that require jurisdictions to develop fit-for-purpose systems that consider available resources and capacities. Through this approach, the systems are expected to be flexible and focused on serving the purpose of the systems, and can be incrementally improved over time. Among the elements of a fit-for-purpose land administration system is to allow for participatory (mapping) approach in relation to data capture and use, ensuring community support (FIG, 2014). A participatory approach in developing a fit-for-purpose land administration system entails identifying and recording the various legal and social tenure rights associated with occupancy and use of the land. Participation can be considered at different levels in the process, either during the identification or during the mapping. In traditional land adjudication programmes, the communities were required to be present and participate in the identification of their rights, while a professional land surveyor could then demarcate and map the identified boundaries (i.e., top-down scheme). In modern times, and as a result of availability of technology, communities can be involved both during the identification of rights, and also during mapping of legal and social tenure rights (i.e., bottom-up scheme). The bottom-up scheme of participation in land administration through the crowd, i.e., crowdsourcing, is being proposed and seen as a way of getting citizens to collaborate in land administration, leading to the enhancement of transparency and decrease of costs (McLaren, 2011), and also to bridge gaps that administrative authorities, such as National Mapping Agencies (NMAs), cannot handle, e.g., volume of data, shortage of manpower, growing types of data (Olteanu-Raimond et al., 2016). In the early 1990s, the Mapping Science Committee in the US released a report (NRC, 1993), which described new ideas in respect to mapping practices. Among the new ideas, the report had presented the issue of patchwork working-practice, suggesting that mapping agencies need not provide uniform coverage of the country being mapped, but alternatively, to publish standards and protocols that will meet a number of bodies or entities who will create the required infrastructure: scale, coverage and accuracy might vary as needed. VGI concept was ‘born’ from similar premise: a collection of people working independently (“crowdsourcing”) while responding to the needs of the local committees working together to create a patchwork mapping coverage. Crowdsourcing is a method of gathering data or information, which involves contributions from a large and heterogeneous group of individuals to accomplish a sizeable work (or project) usually

D.N. Siriba, S. Dalyot / Land Use Policy 63 (2017) 279–287

handled by a small group of professionals. VGI is a subset paradigm used for this concept. According to Brabham (2008), crowdsourcing is “. . .a distributed problem-solving model, . . . (that) can be explained through a theory of crowd wisdom, an exercise of collective intelligence. . . a model capable of aggregating talent, leveraging ingenuity. . .”. Estelles-Arolas and Gonzalez-Ladronde-Guevara (2012) argues that “. . .Crowdsourcing is a type of participative activity, in which an individual, an institution, a nonprofit organization, or company proposes to a group of individuals of varying knowledge, heterogeneity, and number, via a flexible open call, the voluntary undertaking of a task. . . (thus, it) entails mutual benefit. . . the user will receive the satisfaction of a given type of need, be it economic, social recognition, self-esteem, or the development of individual skills. . .”. According to Harvey (2013), in VGI, information, which is geographic in nature, is contributed by the users that are absolutely aware of the process, even though data and information chunks can be collected passively and actively. On the other hand, crowdsourcing can involve any other forms of open source information, which can also be such as social media feeds, e.g., Twitter and Flickr, where the users may not have given formal consent. In this regard, VGI (or participatory mapping) is the appropriate term to use when considering this concept in land administration. A good example of a crowdsourced VGI effort is OpenStreetMap initiative, where everybody everywhere can contribute with mapping data that is then used to map the world (Arsanjani et al., 2015). Accordingly, VGI enables to reduce the dependency on experts while relying on the fact that data can be collected or produced via diverse sources. This influences on common practices since it allows for a more complete and broad knowledge of the environment we live in on all aspects of life, encompassing new services to take place, applications and processes to be developed (Newman et al., 2011). VGI for land administration, which can otherwise be referred to as Volunteered Land Information (VLI), can include information on rights, on physical land objects (spatial/geometric units) or land use, i.e., thematic (Navratil and Frank, 2013). However, the quality, completeness, update, organization and relationship between these aspects (that might also be derived subjectively from the contributors’ affinity) would need to be established (Bajpai and Yadav, 2013), before formalization or adoption into formal land administration systems is considered. For an inclusive land administration, a comprehensive documentation of a land object is required, including, rights, restrictions and responsibilities (RRR). The documentation is an important foundation for the four functions of land administration that include land tenure, land value, land use and land development. Adoption of VGI in land administration, i.e., forming a VLI framework, is largely dependent on the particular functions of land administration, in which it is being applied.

3. Formal and informal systems A formal system is one that has a well-defined structure of authority, functionality and relationships amongst the various system components. Formal systems work along strict pre-defined sets of policies, plans, protocols, procedures, schedules and programmes. The main limitation of formal systems is that there is loss of initiative and suppleness, leading to unsatisfied social needs, sometimes derived from the conformity and lack of attentiveness of these systems. Because the social and personal needs of individuals cannot always be satisfied through formal systems, informal systems emerge. Informal systems are commonly described in terms of their opposite with formal systems, and as such, they are not governed by any formal set of principles, but nevertheless, are important. In

281

terms of definition, an informal system is a system in which there are non-codified settings of day-to-day interaction concerning policy issues, in which the participation of actors, the formation of conditions, and preliminary decision making are not structured by pre-given sets of rules of formal institutions (van Tatenhove et al., 2006). The main benefit of informal systems is the satisfaction of individual needs by solving a problem. The main limitation of these systems is the lack of conformity, and the possibility of having goal conflicts. The degrees of formality of a system vary with respect to legal or normative framework, state recognition, appointment and interaction, control and accountability mechanisms, and systems of monitoring and supervision (UNDP, 2014).

3.1. Interplay between formal and informal institutions It is important to view formality and informality as continuum, instead of a duality. This is because informal practices can shape organization cultures just as formal practices do. On one hand, informal practices may reinforce formal rules, and on the other, may serve to incorporate changes in formal systems. Formal systems also tend to informality if new practices within a formal system take place outside and beyond enforceable codes (van Tatenhove et al., 2006). The interplay between formal and informal institutions largely depends on the strategic intent of the actors in both institutions. Generally, there are four types of relationships based on two dimensions: the degree of convergence and whether formal systems are effective. These types of relationships are: complementary, accommodating, competing and substitutive, as illustrated in Table 1 (Helmke and Levitsky, 2004). In a complementary relationship, the informal systems are considered to “fill in the gaps” left by formal systems by addressing problems or contingencies that are not explicitly dealt with in the formal rules, without violating the overarching formal rules. Hence, they are often said to enhance the performance or efficiency of the relevant formal systems. Accommodating relationship occurs in a situation where there is an effective formal system but the goals conflict with those of an informal actor, and in which case actors may dislike the outcomes generated by the formal rules but are unable to change or openly break those rules. When a weak formal system with compatible actor goals fails to achieve its expected outcomes, an informal system emerges as a substitute – hence a substitute relationship, where the informal system contradicts or even eventually replaces formal systems. A competing relationship exists when informal systems co-exist with weak or ineffective formal systems. Very often, there is conflict between an informal system and a formal system as a result of incompatible goals; to follow rules in an informal system requires an outright violation of the rules of the formal system. Complementary and accommodating informal-formal relationships exist in stable institutional settings, while substitutive and competing relationships exist in contexts of weak and unstable formal systems. Moreover, this typology is not exclusive; in fact, a particular informal system category may fall into more than one category only.

3.2. Government adoption of VGI It is no longer the question of whether VGI will be used by and for the government, but of how and to what extent VGI should be adopted. To ensure successful adoption of VGI by government and acceptance by the public, the following issues must be considered (Haklay et al., 2014):

282

D.N. Siriba, S. Dalyot / Land Use Policy 63 (2017) 279–287

Table 1 Typology of relationships between formal and informal institutions. Effectiveness of formal institution Degree of convergence Convergent Divergent

Effective formal institutions Complementary Accommodating

Ineffective formal institutions Substitutive Competing

(i) There should be a separation between data collection and use for policy analysis. This way, the public could understand how and where their data and contributions have been put to use. (ii) VGI is generally perceived as a challenge to existing procedures, funding and professional standing. This can be addressed by developing clear processes for VGI, including issues of engagement and feedback to contributors into established systems, practices and procedures. (iii) The inherent coverage, temporal and participation biases towards populated and popular places, such as urban areas, can be addressed by providing special incentives to encourage public involvement from specific regions and known biases. (iv) Adoption of crowdsourcing by government is a process, and as such, a long-term plan for adoption of VGI must be considered. (v) Data ownership and specific licensing agreements are another concern in the adoption of VGI by the government. This issue must be considered at the outset of the project. (vi) There is need to define a clear ownership of the process and responsibility over its management. This will ensure that the volunteers can easily identify and contact the responsible individual. In addition, where there are multiple channels of reporting, this should be made clear. Most national cadastral and mapping agencies instead of seeing VGI as a threat, should consider it as an opportunity to adopt and integrate it in their mapping operations. Although the potential role of the community in sensing valuable information might be limited by a series of concerns, e.g., issues related to data quality, the nature and motivation of the contributors, specific legal issues, and the sustainability of data source, it is becoming acknowledged that national cadastral and mapping agencies can produce richer and more up-to-date geospatial databases (Olteanu-Raimond et al., 2016). Two examples that demonstrate the complementary and accommodating relationships on one hand, and the substitutive and competing relationship on the other, are presented as case studies in the adoption of crowdsourced geographic data in formal land administration systems in Kenya. The case studies are respectively referred to as complementary-accommodating and substitutive-competing approaches. 4. Methodology To demonstrate the adoption of VGI into formal land adjudication process in Kenya, a case study approach was used. Two case studies that represent the complementary-accommodating approach and the substitutive-competing approach respectively are presented; the case study areas are depicted in Fig. 1. The formal land adjudication process in Kenya is then presented and compared with the two case studies to demonstrate the pros and cons, and give understandings concerning both approaches for adoption of VGI. 4.1. Case study 1: adoption of VGI in a complementary-accommodating approach Following the phenomenal overhaul and revision of land policy and laws in many countries in the last few years, there is a common trend of attempts to uphold customary land tenure on one hand,

Fig. 1. Map of Kenya showing the location of the two case studies.

and to formalize the informal land administration arrangements on the other. In Kenya, the formalization of informal land tenure arrangements has been given more attention; for example, through the Kenya Informal Settlement Improvement Projects (KISIP). The main objective of KISIP, carried out in some selected municipalities in Kenya, is for slum upgrading and improving tenure security. The process, which has been termed as “Interactive Community Mapping” by the World Bank, entails five basic steps: i) Making of ownership claims by individuals; During the preparations, community members and stakeholders are informed of the exercise, and are asked to be present during the enumeration to have the opportunity to point out their land/structure claims to the enumerators. ii) Data collection by residents and community representatives; Community representatives are trained with basic geographic data collection techniques, for example, using a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) device. During data collection, all house structures are numbered and marked (using GNSS coordinates) on a field map that had been prepared earlier based on a high resolution (60 cm) satellite imagery. At the same time, questionnaires are used to record this information in addition to complementary details

D.N. Siriba, S. Dalyot / Land Use Policy 63 (2017) 279–287

283

about any uncertainties or disputes concerning mapped structures and information, e.g., house, parcel of land or tenure.

4.2. Case study 2: adoption of VGI in a substitutive-competing approach

iii) Aggregation of the data into a database;

The nature of informal systems, and the extent to which they are incorporated into formal systems, largely depends on the historical circumstances of each country. In Kenya, for example, since independence it was government policy to formalize land tenure – however, the customary arrangements persisted. As a result, land that was designated as government land, and was not put into any use, and because of the lack of a comprehensive inventory and registry, the management of such lands were faced with a number of malpractices; among them, illegal acquisition (land grabbing) and irregular allocations. To protect and ensure proper management of such public land, GROOTS (Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood) Kenya, a local Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), initiated a community-led public land mapping process to identify, document and map all public lands within Kiambu County in Kenya (Kenya is divided into 47 counties). The process of identifying, documenting and mapping public land in the said target area was carried out by grassroots women, with the help of youth and men. The team worked under a research expert, which was not a government representative. The six steps included the following:

Information from the field maps and questionnaires are entered into a database, and consolidated into a settlement register. The database includes the following attributes: name of owner, owner identity number, gender, type of plot ownership, land/house use, parcel area, details of occupants, years of residence, witness (person in the field at time of data collection) – among others. The majority of these attributes are the same ones normally required in the official and formal land registry in Kenya, thus the latter stage (indexed as v) of incorporating these information is straight-forward. iv) Data verification by the community; For the verification, each individual household receives a verification form to see and check the details. There exists a counter-verification by the community through a community register displayed at the resource centre, validating aspects as calculated area, overlapping and gaps between boundaries. During these community meetings, any disputes regarding the database are adjudicated. Another interesting aspect is that the number of disputes is greatly reduced; this is mainly linked to the process at hand, but also due to the fact that the elders from the settlements are involved, who provide the required sense of authority. v) Presentation of the database to the authorities (formalization); To reinforce community ownership of the data collected, the enumeration is carried out on a voluntary basis. Moreover, by having the community collect the data on the informal settlements, the residents stake a claim on their property, increasing their security and even enhancing the prospects for eventual titling (Schaefer and Schaefer, 2014). In the KISIP projects, after the database and corresponding maps are presented to the national authorities, a physical development plan is prepared (to plan for the provision and access to services), and then the survey of structures from the approved physical plan is carried out. The maps according to the survey plan are submitted to the Director of Surveys for authentication for issuance of title. Figs. 2 and 3 depict an example of the outcome of the process in the community of Kisumu, considered an informal settlement in Kenya (Karanja, 2010). The attributes that were captured during the data collection, among others, include: the name of the owner, occupation, education, marital status, tenure relation, share, household relation, and witness. Percentage share indicates the percentage of ownership, and from the surveyed cases, almost all cases were 100% because of the patriarchal social system. A sample of the database produced is depicted in Fig. 2. Fig. 3 shows the outline of structures owned and claimed by individual community households. The outlines (polygons) were derived from satellite imagery, used by the community members during data collection, and verified using GNSS measurements. A resource centre for administering and managing the database was set up, and is entirely managed by the community, and remains open to the community groups from the informal settlement in the area for successive update and processing. This process has also enhanced peer exchange between groups from different informal settlements in Kisumu, and is also being replicated in other KISIP areas. The fact that government agencies were involved in the mapping process, and the fact that it was a government initiative, makes the outcome complementary-accommodative to the existing formal process.

i) Designing of data collection tools; The main data collection tools included questionnaires, and a template of attribute information to be collected (e.g., nature of public utility, name, physical size, official registration size, official registration number, geographic location name, initial intended purpose, GNSS coordinates based on already existing maps and other information). The tools, i.e., the questionnaire and the reference maps, were pretested before use. ii) Sampling respondents; The respondents were sampled considering their age, opinion leaders, diversity in range of stakeholders, as well as people suspected to have taken possession of public lands. iii) Assigning data collection teams members to specific target zones to administer the tools and collect data; This was to ensure that community members would provide information to people that are familiar to them considering that land issues are sensitive in most communities. The data collected included the nature of public utility, local name, official registration number and GNSS point reference (coordinates), among others. iv) Cleaning, entry, compilation and processing of the raw data into a draft inventory; This was done by using common statistical software packages, like the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The output was a draft inventory to be subjected to validation by the community. v) Validation of the draft land inventory; The validation is carried out by sharing and comparing data collected with the information on existing maps, putting the analysed data in the right context, identify public lands that may have been left out, and presenting the draft inventory and findings to the com-

284

D.N. Siriba, S. Dalyot / Land Use Policy 63 (2017) 279–287

Fig. 2. Database sample for case study 1.

Fig. 3. Map derived from satellite image, and mapped by the community (Karanja, 2010).

munity members. During this stage, any disputes regarding the land inventory are adjudicated. vi) GIS mapping, storage and dissemination of the inventory. The final validated public lands inventory was then used by the grassroots community members in formulating a Geographic Information System (GIS) map of the target area. This was done under the supervision of a GIS specialist. During the GIS mapping stage, the data collection team is taken through a refresher course on GIS mapping, and is trained with the STDM. Public land is identified and mapped, among other facilities that are of interest. The public lands and facilities identified, focusing on facilities having definite significance for this community, include: cemeteries, cattle dips, health centres, schools, market centres, recreational facilities, water points and waste disposal points. In addition to these, public land parcels– either reserved or purchased through public funds − are also identified; unlike case study 1, some of these parcels had been registered and mapped earlier, but the fact they are considered public by the government, their boundaries may have been changed. The outcome of the project was a web-map, depicted in Fig. 4, published using ArcGIS online (Kuria, 2015). For each public land, the key attributes collected include: the name, Land Registration Number (LR No), Intended purpose, Current use, Year established, Acreage and Administrative unit (sub-location/location/ward), in which the public land lies. The public lands were picked as point feature, which is unconventional compared to formal cadastres, which use polygon features for the property outline. Property boundary lines would be required to get meaningful titles. The main outcome from this process was

enhanced capacities of grassroots women and communities, a public land inventory and map, and voluntary surrender of public lands. As such, campaigns that are NGO-initiated, have no direct government involvement. Government plays a role only when the National Land Commission is interested in using the inventory to improve on it policy, relating to the management of public land. 5. Discussion Table 2 presents the main processes and stages associated with formal land adjudication process in Kenya. The process is compared with the steps used in the two case studies. For each step in the established formal land formalization process, the corresponding step in the case studies is identified. The main difference between the community mapping process presented in case study 1 and the traditional land adjudication and mapping process is that: data collection is carried out by the community and its representatives rather than by a specialist team of professionals. Moreover, the last two steps in the established adjudication process is replaced by a single process in case study 1. This makes the entire formalization process quicker, inexpensive and effective. Instead of presentation of the inventory to the authorities for formalization, data verification by the authorities can be carried concurrently with the community verification, responding also to (and thus resolving any) local social and cultural relations, as well as power arrangements. In case study 2, sampling of respondents is done ahead of any step. The respondents include local administrators and people with local knowledge to guide in the identification of public lands. Data collection is done by the community team members, after which the compilation and validation of the inventory is done before the

D.N. Siriba, S. Dalyot / Land Use Policy 63 (2017) 279–287

285

Fig. 4. Public Land Inventory for Kijabe & Nyanduma (Kiambu County, Kenya); retrieved on 14.04.2016.

Table 2 Comparison of the formal land adjudication process in Kenya with the outlined complementary-accommodating and substitutive-competing VGI approaches; the corresponding steps are identified by their numbers in brackets. Step

Formal Land Adjudication Process

Complementaryaccommodating approach (Case Study1)

Substituting-competing approach (Case Study2)

1

Land owners in the presence of the land adjudication officer identify their boundaries The identified boundaries are demarcated by adjudication officers using enlarged aerial photographs or by ground methods − or by both Ascertainment (and arbitration) of rights and interests in land through Land Adjudication Committees Preparation of the Registry Index Map by the Director of Surveys showing the land parcels and their approximate areas. Preparation of a land adjudication register containing adjudication section, parcel number, name of the owner, size of land and the map sheet number Director of land adjudication signs the certificate of finality after the land adjudication officer has addressed the objections raised and the Minister of lands has determined the appeals The Chief Land Registrar effects registration and issues title deeds

Making of ownership claims (i) Data collection by residents (ii)

Sampling respondents (ii)

2

3 4

5

6

GIS-based mapping and dissemination of the same. It is noteworthy that the process ends here without any further step to formalize it, and the inventory is available for use by an interested parties, including government departments. The involvement of the cadastral and land administration authorities in case study 2 is minimal or (as in most cases) completely absent. This is largely because the intent of the project described was to safeguard public lands, whose inventory was absent from the first instance. The process presents a case of substitution-competition with cadastral authorities not only by not engaging them directly, but also in the nature of the database, which mainly considers point features and attributes essential to the community and campaign. At best, this inventory can be used for policy analysis by one government agency, the National Land Commission. The acceptance of information derived from crowdsourced volunteered geographic data can be recognized ranging from tacit acceptance that there is merit in an alternative system, to full gov-

Data verification by community (iv) Aggregation of data into an inventory (iii)

Designing of data collection tools (i), and the actual data collection by community team members (iii) Validation of draft land inventory (v) Data entry, cleaning and compilation (iv), and GIS mapping and dissemination of inventory (vi)

Presentation of inventory to the authorities (v)

ernment guarantee of title based on VGI-based system (Fairbairn et al., 2015). As discussed earlier in this chapter, there are two alternative approaches to the adoption of VGI in developing land administration systems. The examples presented in Section 4 as Case Study 1 and Case Study 2, respectively, represent these two approaches. The differences between the two examples are summarized in Table 3. In terms of the communities and government relating to the efforts, case study 1 was initiated by the government since the process was necessary in the slum upgrading programme, not only in security of tenure, but also through general community development. Accordingly, the community participating feel to be directly involved in the process. In Case study 2, the outcome of the project was enhanced capacity of the community, a formulation of the comprehensive public land inventory map, such that the process prompted voluntary surrender of public lands. Nonetheless, also differences exist as to initiators and motivations involved, it seems that efforts from the two case studies provide a way through which

286

D.N. Siriba, S. Dalyot / Land Use Policy 63 (2017) 279–287

Table 3 Comparison between the complementary-accommodating and substitutive-competing approaches. Subject

Complementary-accommodating

Substitutive-competing

Initiator

The adoption of VGI is initiated by the government

Status of registration

The land parcels involved had never been adjudicated, i.e., the ownership have never been registered before The land parcel outlines are represented as polygons; data is more accurate, and will generally require simple spatial transformation when integrated

The use of VGI is initiated by a Non-Government Organization The land parcels involved had been registered before, only that they are not in the hands of the rightful owners The land parcels are represented as points; data, in general, is not accurate, and will require complex spatial transformation when integrated due to data- discrepancies and distortions Information produced and gained is used by the community to strengthen its legal rights (’make a stand’) and interrelations; information can be used by the government for general policy management A one-time effort, sporadically maintained

Geometry

User

Information produced and gained is adopted (and used) by formal agencies

Approach in establishment

Usually a continuous and repeated process with updates

the government can achieve its development goals, as long as the eventual register is not considered to be in parallel with the existing land registries. Approval of VGI approaches by government is not only when the government is the initiator of the project, but even when there is cooperation from government for a VGI project initiated by a non-government agency. The two examples respectively represent VGI projects imitated by the government and the non-government agencies. It is also interesting to see that in the government initiative (case study 1), the land parcels involved had never been registered, while in the NGO initiative (case study 2), the land had been registered in the past, however, it is not in the hand of the rightful owners. The data structures used in the two cases are also different, whereas in the first case the land parcels were represented as polygon features, while in the second case, the land parcels were represented as point features; this is regarded to constraints derived mainly from attainable resources, e.g., reference maps and measuring/surveying devices. The integration of the VGI-based data and information in the first case study will require minimal alignment in terms of schema translations, unlike the second case study, where, dimension and scale of spatial representation is different, and might introduce more discrepancies and distortions. In fact, in the second case study, the government has so far used the VGI-derived information to inform policy development on public lands, and also for validation of the contents of the land registry, but not in integrating the spatial objects into the formal cadastre. Accordingly, based on Haklay et al. (2014), case study 1 can be considered more of a VGI that is challenging/modifying the existing process, while case study 2 can be considered as case of policy use for VGI. 6. Concluding remarks The classification of land tenure as either formal or informal, and the respective connotations of secure and insecure land tenure has led to land policies that are either expensive or slow. Despite the expenditure of large sums of money to implement private land tenure programmes, informal land tenure arrangements have continued to emerge, as a result of costly, lengthy, inefficient and bureaucratic land registry systems. Even the existing formal land registries in Kenya have a lot of out-of-date information, resulting in a bureaucratic process that discourage proprietors to provide updated information, and instead resort to informal arrangements. As a way forward in accommodating these informal tenure arrangements, two possible alternatives exist as reviewed in this paper: complementary-accommodating and substitutivecompeting approaches. In either way, the introduction of crowdsourced VGI paradigm provides with new perspectives, suggesting the quickest, cheapest way to acquiring location and supplementary information about the land parcels where different

interest are claimed. It is also introducing new social perspectives, encouraging the community to get involved, and thus strengthen their esteem, and making them be a part of an important and a larger effort. Thus not only the community gains from such campaigns, but also national cadastral and mapping agencies, even if the full information integration might still be a lengthy process. Following the dichotomy of formal and informal land tenure systems, the development and implementation of the STDM within the context of LADM seems to have followed the same philosophy of separating the informal from the formal – and much of the examples of VGI in land administration in Kenya tend to implement STDM to some extent, and in a successful manner. The fact that informal will always be part and parcel of reality, it is important to establish ways of adopting informal VGI in formal land administration systems, mainly by re-engineering the processes to accommodate the new VLI paradigm. This way, VGI can contribute to better land administration by overcoming the lack of systematic cadastral coverage, consistency currency and content of land registry and cadastral repositories, as well as addressing the inadequacy of services from the formal land administration offices, thus strengthening the communities. The two case studies presented here showcased this concept.

References Arsanjani, J.J., Zipf, A., Mooney, P., Helbich, M. (Eds.), 2015. OpenStreetMap in GIScience: Experiences, Research, and Applications. Springer. Augustinus, A., 2010. Social Tenure Domain Model: what it can mean for the land industry and the poor. In: Proceedings of the XXIV FIG International Congress 2010, Sydney, Australia (2010). Bajpai, V., Yadav, D.K., 2013. Management and validation of VGI. In Emerging Trends and Applications in Computer Science (ICETACS) 2013 1 st International Conference on, 58–61. Besteman, V., 1994. Individualization and the assault on customary tenure in africa: title registration programmes and the case of Somalia. J. Int. Afr. Inst. 64 (4), 484–515. Brabham, D.C., 2008. Crowdsourcing as a model for problem solving: an introduction and cases. Convergence 14 (1), 75–90. De Soto, Hernando, 2003. The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. Basic Books, New York, NY, US. Estelles-Arolas, E., Gonzalez-Ladron-de-Guevara, F., 2012. Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition. J. Inf. Sci. 38 (2), 189–200. FIG, 2014. Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration. Joint Fig/World Bank Publication. FIG Publication No. 60. FIG Office, Copenhagen, http://www.fig.net/resources/ publications/figpub/pub60/Figpub60.pdf (retrieved on 14.04.2016). Fairbairn, D., Moreri, K., James, P., 2015. Technological solutions for citizens’ participation into cadastral mapping. In: 27thInternational Cartographic Conference and 16th General Assembly, August 23–28, 2015, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Haklay, M., Antoniou, V., Basiouka, S., Soden, R., Mooney, P., 2014. Crowdsourced geographic information use in government, Report to GFDRR. World Bank, London, 73pp. Harvey, F., 2013. To volunteer or to contribute locational information? towards truth in labelling for crowdsourced geographic information. In: Sui, D., Elwood, S., Goodchild, M. (Eds.), Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge: Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) In Theory and Practice. Springer, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, New York, London, pp. 30–42.

D.N. Siriba, S. Dalyot / Land Use Policy 63 (2017) 279–287 Helmke, G., Levitsky, S., 2004. Informal institutions and comparative politics: a research agenda. Perspect. Politics 2 (4), 725–740. ISO, 2012. ISO 19152, Geographic Information –Land Administration Domain Model, edition 1. ISO, Geneva, Switzerland (118p). Karanja, I., 2010. An enumeration and mapping of informal settlements in kisumu, Kenya, implemented by their inhabitants. Environ. Urbanization 22 (1), 217–239. Kuria, 2015. Kijabe & Nyanduma Public Land Inventory (retrieved on 14.04.2016) http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer. html?webmap=a57e0906be4d46e99fbc2bd4d6b5df2d. Lemmen, C.H.J., van Oosterom, P.J.M., Bennett, R.M., 2015. The land administration domain model. Land Use Policy 49 (2015), 535–545. Lemmen, C., 2010. The Social Tenure Domain Model − A Pro-poor Land Tool, vol. 52. Fig publication (21pp). McLaren, R., 2011. Crowdsourcing support of land administration −A partnership approach. In: International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) Article of the Month −December 2011 (12pp). National Research Council (NRC), 1993. Toward a Coordinated Spatial Data Infrastructure for the National. National Academics Press, Washington, DC. Navratil, G., Frank, A.U., 2013. VGI for land administration – A quality perspective. In: International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XL-2/W1, 2013 8th International Symposium on Spatial Data Quality, 30 May – 1 June 2013, Hong Kong.

287

Newman, G., Graham, J., Crall, A., Laituri, M., 2011. The art and science of multi-scale citizen science support. Ecol. Inf. 6 (3–4), 217–227. Olteanu-Raimond, A.-M., Hart, G., Foody, G.M., Touya, G., Kellenberger, T., Demetriou, D., 2016. The scale of VGI in map production: a perspective on european national mapping agencies. Trans. GIS, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ tgis.12189. Panek, J., Sobotova, L., 2015. Community mapping In urban informal settlements: examples from nairobi, Kenya. Electron. J. Inf. Syst. Developing Countries 68 (1), 1–13. Schaefer, P., Schaefer, C., 2014. An innovative approach to land registration in the developing world: using technology to bypass the bureaucracy. In: Policy Analysis No. 765. CATO Institute, pp. 157–163. UNDP, 2014. Informal Justice Systems Charting a Course for Human Rights-Based Engagement. United Nations Development Programme Publication. Williamson, I.P., Enemark, S., Wallace, J., Rajabifard, A., 2010. Land Administration for Sustainable Development. ESRI Press Academic, Redlands, California (ISBN 978-1-58948-041-4, 497 pages). van Oosterom, P., Lemmen, C.H.J., 2015. The land administration domain model (LADM): motivation, standardisation, application and further development. Land Use Policy 49 (2015), 527–534. van Tatenhove, I., Mak, J., Liefferink, D., 2006. The inter-play between formal and informal practices. Perspect. Eur. Politics Soc. 7 (1), 8–24.