TRENDS AND IMPACTS OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRY AGRICULTURE

STEPS ACTION
rural communities and be able to use the land
productively. Any natural or legal person who is
allocated a plot receives a means of production
for an indeterminate period. When they die,
their heirs are allocated the land, provided they
can put it to productive use 13 . Table 6 illustrates
the major steps to be followed by potential land
investors seeking to work through the land policy
process of identifying, acquiring and registering
land potentially available for economic uses at
the rural levels. As can be noted below, there
are ten major steps investors have to go through
with additional ones ignored for brevity. In step
no. 9 for example, it is expected that the land
map be signed by the land registry (Cadastre),
where tasks carried out at that level are done
by a private land surveyor instead of a public
one. In short, there are too many land-related
13 Under the 1964 law, “productive use “ is understood as
defined for each region by order of the Prefect, but this
never seems to have been done. So the question of what
constitutes “mise en valeur” is left to the discretion of
the local councils.
Part 4: Business models for agricultural
investment: Impacts on local development
TABLE 6
Major steps to be followed when allocating land by a rural council in Senegal, 2009
1. Seeking for an appropriate project site in line with the project objectives and the scope of the project;
2. Meeting with the President of the concerned Rural Community (PRC);
3. Submitting an official request to the concerned Rural Community (CRC) ;
4. Setting up the Survey Land Commission (SLC) ;
5. Calling up the Rural Council in the case of the approval and meeting of the RC for deliberations;
6. Locating of landmarks;
7. Getting a copy of the deliberation certificate signed by the PRC and the Prefect or the Sub Prefect;
8. - Payment of the compensations to existing land occupants;
- Payment of landmark fees if the vote is favourable;
9. Carrying out the land mapping operations by a Land Surveyor;
10. Starting of the land preparation works.
LAND REGISTRATION - KEY IMPLEMENTING INSTITUTIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF SENEGAL
Court
Government of Senegal
Rural councils
Land offices, including Cadastre, Conservation, Foncier and Bureau de Domain
Source: APIX
steps and institutions involved suggesting the
need streamline the process. Furthermore, to
carry out the land registration process smoothly,
surveyors must be available in number and
quality. This is a frequent obstacle, due to the
cancellation of training programmes producing
this kind of skilled labour since 1986. In the
absence of surveyors, “surveys” are sometimes
carried out by completely untrained individuals,
resulting in “maps” that have no legal force
but are used anyway. And where available,
surveyors sometimes lack the equipment required
to carry out their jobs in a professional manner.
Consequently, projects such as PAMOCA 14 which
has attempted to tackle some of the prerequisites
to resolving land insecurity concerns should be
14 An EU and ADB funded land project designed to
develop a national map, cross-indexed with both satellite
images and with local records, provide training and
equipment to cadaster offices across Senegal, and assist
the government in policy formation. See description of
the project at www.devex.com/projects and
www.aps.sn/aps.php.
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SENEGAL