Practices And Challenges Of Urban Land Governance: The Case Of Ambo Town Land Administration Office, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Sound land administration needs effective and good governance, which has become a major area of focus for the government of Ethiopia. However, there is still a gap in applying the principles of good governance to urban land administration. The objective of the study was to assess the practices and challenges of urban land governance in the Ambo Town Land Administration office. To achieve this objective, the study has applied a two-stage representative sampling technique. The researcher has employed a descriptive research design, and both quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted and binary logistic regression model to see the determinants of urban land governance. The study used 124 systematically selected sample households from two sampled kebeles. The primary data was collected from city municipal officials and experts, participants in focus group discussions, and households by the researcher with the help of enumerators, and secondary data were collected from rules and regulations, documents concerning land and property registration systems, different documents on good governance principles, and official records. Five (5) key informants from sectoral offices concerning urban land governance were interviewed. The researcher has also organized two focus group discussions with six (8) purposefully selected participants in each group, comprising the residents of Ambo Town. Qualitative data were analyzed through narration, while quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive statistics. The cumulative findings revealed that there is an absence of transparency, less participation of people, a problem of responsiveness and inefficient as well as ineffective land administration systems, and administrative, technical, and capacity problems were the major challenges in the study area. Finally, the study recommends improving the participation of people, striving for high level integration between service rendering departments and offices, instituting a pro-poor land allocation and management system, strict controlling and evaluation systems for employees, applying the modern cadastral system of land registration, balancing employees-customers' ratios, and setting clear and uniform work procedures as recommendations based on the findings of the study