(Ecofin Agency) - Determined to “contribute to the improvement of land governance which necessarily requires rationalization and transparency of land management system”, the project to support the reform of urban land (PAGEF) has decided to use sensitization and training as its main weapons. In this framework, it has organized on October 25, 2016, in Tambacounda, a workshop on the modernization of land governance.

Addressing actors of the land sector from the communities of Tambacounda and Kedougou (in the South Eastern region of Senegal), Macodou Guèye, PAGEF’s Director, recalled how important the land issue and its rationalization were. “We must improve the availability, reliability and accessibility of land data. The project will focus on two main axes: revising the legal and regulatory framework which is fundamental and harmonizing procedures to make them more transparent. To these add the modernization of administration,” he said, Tambacounda.info reported.      

“The land governance issue in Senegal is raised by all actors operating directly or indirectly in land management knowingly: the State, local communities, populations, the civic society, economic actors, technical and financial partners. Stories told each day by newspapers and the significant number of land conflicts in court attest of the gravity of the issue. From a normative perspective, there is a discrepancy between the legal and regulatory framework and the perception of local populations that still attach a great importance to traditional land holding practices. The plethora of rules, of which some very old and disparate does not make it any easier to insure the respect of regulations, even for professionals,” states the report of the workshop disclosed to journalists by the organizers.

Souha Touré