Supporting the cadastre of Burkina Faso in the municipalities of Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso

The land registry, also called cadastre, is a set of plans and administrative files listing all the properties in each municipality.

Burkina Faso's land registry support project is part of the third Indicative cooperation program between Burkina Faso and Luxembourg, covering the 2017 to 2022 period.

Improving land governance is at the heart of development issues in Burkina Faso. Thus, with the second National economic and social development plan (2021–2025), Burkina Faso' government is now engaged in adapting rural and urban land policies to ensure adequate governance and equity of access to these resources.

Starting in December 2021 for a two years period, the Supporting the cadastre of Burkina Faso in the municipalities of Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso project aims to contribute to the setting of a multipurpose cadastre in Burkina Faso that constitutes a sustainable development infrastructure. A multipurpose cadastre supports the four functions of land management:

• tenure (who owns and under what);
• value (property assessment for tax purposes);
• use (land use); and
• development (land planning).

Given its duration and budget, the project does not intend to set up the multipurpose cadastre on its own. The Supporting the cadastre of Burkina Faso in the municipalities of Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso project seeks to implement its first elements, contributing ultimately to the multipurpose cadastre.

The multipurpose cadastre, once operational, will reduce the number of land-related disputes, improve the business climate and increase tax revenues related to the land.

The Supporting the cadastre of Burkina Faso in the municipalities of Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso project aims for two results:

• the capacity building of the Directorate-General of Taxes in its attributions linked to the cadastre;
• the dematerialisation of the management of cadastral documents.

The first result includes three activities. Primarily, supporting the development of a cadastral strategy in the view of a multipurpose cadastre are planned. The other activities are related to the training of staff within the entities linked to the cadastre, and the reflection for the simplification of cadastral registration procedures.

The second result consists of, one hand, the digitisation of the priority collections of the cadastral archives in Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso and on the other hand, the establishment of a dematerialised chain of new cadastral and land documents.