•To cost  Rwf 25 Billion

The Rwandan government is set to register all land partitions in the country and issue land titles to owners starting next year January, the country’s top Registrar of land Titles announced yesterday.

Eugene Rurangwa, during a business tour at the National Land Centre, said that the centre already finalized trials to map and register some land plots in the country and that it was ready to start mass land registration come next year.

"The government’s plan today, is that all the land in Rwanda be registered and titled to its owners. This is a way to help people get written titles for their land resources in order to use them in their different investments,” Rurangwa said.

He also revealed that modern registration of land using digitalized systems and practical Geographic Information Systems (GIS) will be carried out and aerial pictures taken to design maps for all land partitions owned by both government and the people.

Only slightly below ten percent of the country’s land is registered so far, according to the Registrar.

Government recently spent about Rwf 2 billion to map land partitions in four villages of the country’s Eastern, Northern, Western, and Kigali City provinces as pilot trials in the land recording process.

These trials had some Rwandans get their land titles after the Land Centre mapped their land plots using aerial pictures and satellite photos.

"Some of those who got their land titles already went to ask for loans in banks,” Rurangwa said, observing that issuance of land titles will help to improve living standards of many Rwandans.

The country needs about Rwf 25 billion to carry out the whole process of land registration and land titles issuance. Some of the targeted donors to help the country get this money is the Investment Climate Facility for Africa (ICF), a continental trust fund formed last year to help remove obstacles to investments in Africa.

"They [ICF] came here to see how what we have started looks like and they have appreciated the stage we have reached. There is hope that they will help us even more than they had planned before visiting our achievements,” Rurangwa said at the end of the tour at the centre.

According to The Baroness Lynda Chalker of Wallasey, former UK Minister for Africa and one of the ICF’s Board members today, land is a core point in as far as investments are concerned.

"When land ownership is clear, then investors know what they are buying, where they are putting their money. It encourages them to have clear legal requirements,” she said.

Baroness Lynda said that ICF was ready to invest millions of dollars into different projects in Rwanda and in other parts of Africa to make the continent a better place for investments and business.   "We are real partners to this government of Rwanda in making sure that the barriers to doing investments are removed,” she said.

If kicked off next year, the land registration process is expected to be complete after two or three years. The programme follows the country’s land law enacted in 2005.

Linda Chalker was accompanied by former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, who is co-chair of ICF.

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