Land governance in the South Caucasus region : comparative study of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan
Salukvadze, Joseph & Olga Medvedkov
The present study looks at the land governance situation in three countries of the South Caucasus region Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. These countries have undertaken cardinal land reforms since 1990s, after collapse of the Soviet Union, in order to introduce free land market with all necessary attributes and infrastructure for its efficient operations. The study focuses on general trends, key achievements and remaining challenges. The objective of the study is to evaluate the overall conditions, differences and similarities in land governance situation in the countries of the region. The presented approach to land governance includes governing access to land as well as its use. The countriess land governance situations have been evaluated according to existing land policy indices, ease of property registration, and some other land related indicators. The study is based also on interviews with national and international experts on land governance, a substantial literature review and personal experience from working in the region. Despite the obvious differences between the three countries, one can observe a clear general trend, characteristic for the entire region: in the fields of access to land and land tenure, including parcel privatization, security of property rights, efficiency of property registration and public land management, all countries of the region achieved an impressive progress. For the ease of property registration, according to the World Bank and IFC launched Doing Business ratings, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan rank as high as among top ten worldwide.
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