Project Profile: Albania

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Project Overview and Contact Information

Project Title: Land Market Project Cooperative Agreement

Term: 1994-2000

Funding: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Amount: $10 million

Project contacts: J. David Stanfield, Project Director (608-263-5461 jdstanfi@facstaff.wisc.edu); Mark Marquardt, Resident Advisor (011-355-42-23296, mamarqua@facstaff.wisc.edu); Malcolm Childress, Program Manager (608-262-9548, mdchildr@facstaff.wisc.edu)

Participating institutions: Project Management Unit; Ministries of Agriculture, Justice, Public Works, Defense, and Finance; GeoAnalytics, Inc.; University of Florida Civil Engineering Department; Measurement Science International; International Computer Company

Summary: The Land Tenure Center (LTC) entered into a cooperative agreement with USAID/Tirana to implement a Land Market Action Plan. LTC is establishing a universal, parcel-based immovable property registration system in all 36 districts of the country and assisting in developing policies and legislation to facilitate sustainable development of a land market.

Objective: Assist the Albanian government in creating the informational, legal, and administrative basis for socially and environmentally sustainable land markets. Also, LTC has begun to delineate, record, and publicize the nature and extent of private and public rights to land. This will aid democracy and contribute to broadly-based and environmentally-sound growth in the new market economy.

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Land Market Project Cooperative Agreement

Background

Since 1991, Albania has embarked on an ambitious program of creating a market-oriented economy. This has resulted in a nearly total privatization of agricultural land and most housing units. This privatization program has created approximately 3 million immovable properties (land and buildings attached to the land).

Following privatization, the government was faced with making land markets work. It developed a strategy for land market institutional development that seeks to create institutions and policies to facilitate socially and environmentally sustainable real estate markets.

In November 1992, the government, in coordination with international donor agencies, asked USAID to take the lead on the land question. USAID asked LTC to assist the government in preparing the Land Market Action Plan of 1993 and then to provide technical assistance.

Project components

Research

Publications from LTC's Albania Land Market Action Plan Series deal with social, economic, and technical issues in land market institutional development. The 1995 Immovable Property Registration Baseline Survey is the first land market survey ever carried out in Albania. A forthcoming book-length analysis of the survey will cover topics from land price determinants to gender issues in the establishment of a property registration system.

Technical Assistance and Capacity Building

A Resident Advisor and Tenure Advisor are posted in Tirana. The project finances the staffing of the Project Management Unit, which coordinates the legal, informational, and administrative components of the Land Market Action Plan and the Immovable Property Registration System. Experts in land and natural resources law, cadastral mapping, geographic information systems, and land economics are engaged in consulting and training activities. Albanian students receive graduate training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in law, business administration, and geographic information management technology, while select Albanian professionals receive short-term training in land information systems. The project finances purchases of surveying equipment, computers, and office equipment for the Project Management Unit.

Achievement Highlights

• 1995 legislation (further streamlined in 1998) legalized buying, selling, renting, and mortgaging real property. Now entering operation, the Immovable Property Registration System is the foundation for establishing guaranteeing rights in land transactions.
• The Immovable Property Registration Act of 1994 is the blueprint for the informational and administrative operation of the system. Cadastral mapping of each individual property and the first registration of these properties is ongoing in 35 of Albania's 36 districts. As of March 31, 1999, 1.6 million of the country's 3 million properties had begun the registration process, with 320,000 completed.
• LTC assists the government in making recommendations for basic legislation in environmental protection and restrictions of land use and transactions. LTC also assists government efforts to legislate the management and distribution of land information.

Publications

• "Albania's Privatization Pause," by J. David Stanfield.
     (Article in Land Tenure Center Newsletter, no. 76, spring 1998)

• Other LTC Publications about Albania

• Studies available from Terra Institute:

  • Bockheim, James G. 2001. "Action Plan for Protecting Albania's Natural Resources"

  • Bockheim, James G. 2001. "Proposal to Study the Economic and Environmental Benefits of Reducing Soil Erosion in Albania"

  • Lemel, Harold. 2001. "Braodening Urban Research Activities of IPRS/PMU in Albania"

  • Lemel, Harold. 1996. "Study of the Vaqarr Comuna"

  • Lemel, Harold. 2000. "Tenure Security and Investment Patterns among Properties in the IPRS Urban Property Survey"

  • Manthorpe, John. 1999. "Review of the Institutional and Organizational Arrangements of the Offices of the IPRS and the PMU in Albania"

  • Massey, Dean T. 2001. "Development of a Law on the Public Ownership of Properties in Albania"

  • Massey, Dean T. 2001. "Legal and Institutional Framework for Land Protection in Albania"

  • Schutten, Helen. 2001. "Assessment of the IPRS Offices in Albania"

  • Singer, Norman J. 2001. "Legal Analysis of Various Issues Involved in the Registration of Urban Immovable Property in Albania"

• Rural Property and Economy in Post-Communist Albania, edited by Harold Lemel.
      (Published by Berghahn Books)

Trip Reports

• Malcolm Childress, September 28-October 5, 1999

Background Information about Albania

• World Factbook entry
• Albania Country Data (World Bank; pdf format)
• Albania Country Brief (World Bank)
• Background Note (US State Department)
• Links to Development Information (Eldis)
• Links to OtherWeb Resources (Russian and East European Network Information Center)

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