Rwanda Initiative for Sustainable Development (RISD) on Friday renewed its working relations with Rwanda Natural Resources Authority (RNRA) signing a four-year Memorandum of Understanding. The Director of RISD, Annie Kayiraba, said the decision to have the working relations extended is due to the identified need in dealing with land-related issues, especially as the land registration exercise comes to an end. “During this one year, relations we have had with RNRA, we mainly focused on enabling the population to register their land with focus on ensuring that land related disputes among communities are minimized through the sensitisation and education programmes about their rights among other measures in partnership with Abunzi,” she said. Abunzi are local mediators operating under the Ministry of Justice with capacity to mediate or give free legal services to enable community members solve issues without necessarily going to courts of law. “Rwandans have now realized the need and benefits for them to legally own land. It is in line with this that there might be more conflicts or land disputes if there are no measures to that effect,” she said. The Director General of RNRA, Emmanuel Nkurunziza, said RISD’s previous partnership with his agency was a strong foundation for the new four year programme. He explained that the partnership is among the many efforts that have contributed to the successful implementation of the land registration process. “Based on the sensitisation campaigns, you find this exercise has not met many land disputes; and even the few identified are solved to pave way for the exercise,” he said. During the signing that also attracted representatives from various civil society organisations, participants had interactive discussions, mainly about the organic land law, which is currently in Parliament for amendment. Government urges that the 2005 land law has loopholes that need to be addressed. Meanwhile, Nkurunziza pointed out that collecting of the land titles by property owners is on track. Of the Rwf7 million titles that the government has issued, at least Rwf5 million have been collected, he said. The official was optimistic that, the remaining titles will have been collected by the end of the exercise. Last year, the government under Ubudehe scheme waived the Rwf1,000 title deed processing fee to enable those classified as vulnerable,22.28 percent of the population to collect their land titles for free.
