Distributed Ledger Technology-Based Digital Platform to Transform Customary and Land Leasing Process
Country: Fiji
Year of implementation: 2023
Technology: Distributed ledger technology
ITD Partner ADB Department: Pacific Department
Local Partners: iTaukei Land Trust Board (TLTB); Land Development Vetting Committee (LDVC), comprising of TLTB, Ministry of Lands and the Department of Town and Country Planning
ADB Partner: KPMG Digital Village—technology service provider
In line with ADB’s Operational Priorities:
· Tackling climate change, building climate and disaster resilience, and enhancing environmental sustainability
o Climate and disaster resilience built
· Making cities more livable
o Improve access, quality, and reliability of services in urban areas
o Strengthen urban planning and financial sustainability of cities
o Improve urban environment, climate-resilience and disaster management of cities
· Strengthening governance and institutional capacity
o Strengthened public management and financial stability
o Enhanced governance and institutional capacity for service delivery
In 2012, the Government of Fiji launched the Digital Government Transformation Programme, otherwise known as digitalFIJI, which aimed to improve the quality and accessibility of government services using digital tools. One of the aims of digitalFIJI was to improve internal processes and efficiency, as well as streamline service delivery.
The land leasing system in Fiji stood to benefit from digitalization. Around 90% of land in Fiji is owned by indigenous Fijians. Called iTaukei land, it can neither be bought nor sold except to the state for a public purpose. However, it can be leased to investors. iTaukei Land Trust Board (TLTB) is the government agency responsible for administering, developing, and managing lands in Fiji on behalf of its owners, as stipulated in the Native Land Trust Board Act. Landowners must consent to have the land leased before the TLTB can issue the binding leases or agreements.
Back in 2017, the land leasing process was largely manual and paper-based, which carried its own set of risks. Data loss was a risk in the event of natural or man-made events. Fiji is particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise and flooding because of climate change. In addition, there have been reports of fire incidences in TLTB’s premises, further driving home the risks of relying on paper-based documentation. Besides the issue of data loss, the cumbersome process and various paperwork required in land leasing meant that processing documents could take as long as two to three years and required investors to visit TLTB offices several times. Tracking the bottlenecks was difficult because the government agencies involved in land leasing worked independently.
ADB provided four-year technical assistance to TLTB for the test demonstration of a land price index based on historical lease transactions under the “Promoting Smart Systems in ADB’s Future Cities Program”. This also covered the initial digitization of land leasing documents handled by TLTB. Additional financing from the High-Level Technology Fund extended the technical assistance until 2020, which supported the development of a prototype, and later a minimum viable product, of a digital platform that used distributed ledger technology (DLT), as well as user acceptance testing among TLTB’s stakeholders The digital platform co-created by TLTB, ADB and KPMG Digital Village was officially launched by the Fiji government in 2022.
TLTB deemed that DLT was the appropriate solution to address the specific challenge of land leasing. Subsequently, the agency championed using the DLT-based platform to other government agencies in Fiji.
TLTB approached ADB to get additional technical assistance to enhance the DLT-based land leasing platform to include several portals and systems used by other relevant government agencies to harmonize data. These portals were in silos and not interoperable, making data sharing difficult. These also needed to be made scalable given the large volumes of documents they were and will be handling.
KPMG Digital Village, which co-developed TLTB’s DLT-based platform with ADB, was again engaged to do the enhancements. TLTB assisted ADB in coordinating with the other government agencies whose portals will be included in the platform integration. The team also consulted with landowners from differing backgrounds to get their insights to support the development of the landowner portal.
The five-month engagement saw the successful integration of the Land Development Vetting Committee (LDVC) portal into the DLT-based platform.
Capacity building was provided to key Fiji government officials and personnel to enable them to continue integrating other agencies into the DLT platform should they wish to do so.
The proof of concept of the landowners’ portal was also developed. It included a mobile voting feature that would allow landowners to provide their consent digitally on the de-reservation of their customary land to make it available for lease. This was integrated to help speed up the land leasing process.