Key challenges and outcomes of piloting the STDM in the Caribbean

Abstract

The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) was assisted by the Australian government's aid agency, AusAID, with technical input from UNHabitat and the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, in the developing of regional land policy guidelines that will address the most critical land issues being faced by the countries. A key aspect of this project was to evaluate pro-poor land tools that would provide comprehensive land administration and thus facilitate the equitable use and allocation of the limited land resource in the sub-region. This initiative provided for and included an opportunity for introducing the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) to support economic, social or environmental land policy goals. The individual member states of the OECS committed to participate in the project notwithstanding existing institutional shortcomings that may affect implementation.This paper reviews the major characteristics in land administration shared by most of the OECS countries that will affect the implementation of the STDM which is based on the LADM international standard ISO 19152:2012. It then presents a proposed STDM profile that will address the land issues common to most of the OECS states. Lastly, it presents the preliminary results of pilot testing of an implementation of the STDM, software version 0.9.5, developed by the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN). The pilot was conducted in Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The primary aim was to examine the practical and social implications of implementing the recording process for informal tenures using the STDM software developed by the GLTN. It was found that some of the technical process went smoothly but middle and lower middle income groups are resistant to the idea of recognising informality because they perceive difficulties in differentiating between legitimate land tenure rights and illegal occupation and use, and because they anticipate impacts on their own legal tenure.