A Guide to Agriculture Land Acquisition in Rwanda

1. A Guide to Agriculture Land Acquisition in Rwanda GCC 19-04-18

2. Current status • Draft guidelines available - currently under review • Stakeholders’ consultations completed - Report ready in two weeks

3. Challenges - 1 Administrative: • Lack of clarity of where to go when seeking information related to land for agricultural investment • Sometimes uncertainties due to the sequence of steps in the procedure of land acquisition • Procedures, time line for land acquisition not known-leading to delays • Lack of land bank for agricultural activities, including lands for factories

4. Challenges - 2 Administrative: • Agriculture land is not delineated therefore it is difficult to protect it; • Land use competition-agricultural land used by various types of uses (real estate development etc) • Lack of land use monitoring indicators

5. Challenges - 3 Policy and regulatory: • Lack of a policy on agricultural investment • There is no definition of who is an agricultural investor and this leads to a confusion in the sector • The acquisition of land through open competition process is hampered by the lack of procedures to end the process • There is no clarity of procedures and modalities determining how leasing of unprotected swamp lands is done;

6. Challenges - 4 Policy and regulatory • The privatization process of Government lands needs reviewing as the one currently in use is obsolete (1996); • Instructions for swamps allocation are not yet in place • Ambiguous institutional responsibilities and lack of coordination-creating inefficiencies and overlaps

7. Recommendations - 1 • There should be a policy governing agricultural investment • There should be established a policy governing public land management • A law protecting agricultural lands against competing land uses with proper delineation should be set up • The Presidential Order defining urban delineation should be established • The privatisation process of Government lands should be reviewed

8. Recommendations - 2 • The law should clarify who is an investor in agricultural activities • There should be undertaken a comprehensive legal review so as to have institutional overlaps in the implementation of agricultural, investment and land policies banished • The Minister in charge of lands should establish instructions to guide procedures for lending unprotected swamp lands

9. Recommendations - 3 • Allow a One Step One day procedure’ to facilitate agricultural land registration and transfer as it is done for commercial and industrial land use • Establish a client charter for agricultural land acquisition • Clarify institutional roles and responsibilities during agricultural land acquisition process • The roadmap for agricultural business should be clarified by relevant institutions, i.e. RDB, MINAGRI and MINILAF so as to have respective roles clearly defined

10. Recommendations - 4 • Guidelines, including bidding fees, for open competition for agricultural land should be set up • RLMUA should set up the sublease statement form/certificate to secure sub-lessees rights • RLMUA should set up the assignment statement form/certificate to secure assignees rights • RLMUA to work on establishing clear and comprehensive land use monitoring indicators

11. Recommendations - 5 • Formalise public and community consultations as part of the land leasing process, allowing enough time in the process to conduct meaningful consultations; • Make sure agreements arising from the consultations are explicitly binding for continued access to land • The standard lease contract should be amended to reference the additional binding agreement under obligations of the parties to the lease contract, and clear dispositions in case of non-compliance with this agreement

12. Recommendations - 5 • There should be a regular and technical collaboration framework between relevant institutions involved in agricultural investment including the private sector