Land Reform in Afghanistan: Full Impact and Sustainability of $41.2 Million USAID Program is Unknown
Publisher: Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)
Date: 2017
Topics: Land, Monitoring and Evaluation, Programming
Countries: Afghanistan
According to land reform experts, land reform is generally understood to be efforts to correct problems with land distribution and rights to its use. Since 2004, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has worked to address land reform in Afghanistan because of its effect on the economy and the lives of the Afghan people. The majority of Afghans do not have proper legal documentation of their land ownership due in part to poor paper records and land titles. Other factors affecting land reform include the influx of Afghan refugees returning from other countries, past governments and agencies issuing multiple titles for the same parcel of land, corrupt courts, and a lack of legal protection for land owners. To address these problems and help the Afghan government develop a sound land administration system, USAID spent a total of $96.7 million from 2004 through 2014 to reform the existing system. The agency initiated its most recent effort—the Land Reform in Afghanistan (LARA) program—when it awarded the contract to implement the program to Tetra Tech ARD in January 2011. The contract ended in November 2014 and cost $41.2 million.