RURAL DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE - Consulting Services



	Capacity Statement & Expertise Curricula Vitae Experience

Bulgaria: Land and Real Estate Mortgages
Reform Assessment and Follow-On Review
World Bank. This project included reviewing the institutional and legal framework for mortgages, stakeholder discussions, and an assessment as to legal, financial, economic, institutional, and political feasibility for mortgage law reform. Extensive fieldwork was conducted in both rural and urban areas and included interviews with farmers, bankers, real estate brokers, lawyers, banking, and real estate associations. A paper was written for the World Bank and was presented at the stakeholder workshops held in Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna. The paper was published by RDI. September 2000 to May 2001.

Bulgaria: Land Mortgages Legal Review and Recommendations
World Bank. RDI attorneys provided legal analysis and recommendations focusing on rural finance and agricultural land mortgages in Bulgaria. March to June 2000.

Bulgaria: Land Mortgages Fieldwork, Research, and Recommendations
World Bank. Fieldwork, report, recommendations, and in-country workshop focusing on rural finance and agricultural land mortgages. February to June 1999.

Kyrgyz Republic: Analysis and Development
of Legislation Regarding Private Ownership of Land
ARD/Checchi and USAID. RDI provided legal drafting assistance and policy advice on a package of laws on land and land market development including the: (1) land code; (2) law on registration; (3) peasant farm law; (4) law on cooperatives; (5) law on mortgage; and (6) law on privatization of land. The advice was based on numerous rounds of rural fieldwork conducted through the country. The assistance included extensive review, commentary, provision of comparative information and laws, and legislative drafting. With the passage of the package of laws in late 1999, RDI provided assistance with education and regulatory development. October 1998 to July 1999.

Kyrgyz Republic: On-Going Land Market Development,
Land Reform, and Regulatory Reform Legal and Policy Consulting
ARD/Checchi and USAID. RDI provided ongoing legal regulatory and institutional reform, legal drafting assistance, policy advice, and implementation assistance on the new Kyrgyz land code and laws on registration, peasant farms, cooperatives, mortgage, and privatization of land. RDI also organized and led an extensive field research and survey effort directed at obtaining baseline information on land administration, dispute resolution, land use, servitudes, and zoning to inform the drafting of regulations and institutional reform. The fieldwork and survey results were used in the development of implementing regulations and in public education programs. RDI attorneys then participated in the design and writing of a training program on land legislation and legal issues related to land ownership and land transactions presented to Kyrgyz lawyers slated to staff legal assistance centers. RDI lawyers also participated in the 3-week training session as trainers and facilitators. August 1999 to August 2001.

Legal Impediments to Effective Rural Land Relations
in Europe and Central Asia: A Comparative Perspective
World Bank. RDI attorneys prepared a comprehensive research report that included the construction of a methodology for officials in Europe and Central Asia to assess the extent to which existing legal and institutional environments effectively support rural land relations. Containing chapters on land ownership, privatization, transactions, restitution, use regulation, mortgage, taxation, compulsory acquisition, and administrative institutions, the report sets out a sampling of applicable comparative law from developed land market countries, and then catalogs the existing legal impediments to land relations in the EE/FSU countries. The report also contains a treatment of gender-related issues and land-related judicial institutions. March to November 1998.

Uganda: Land Market, Land Consolidation,
and Land Readjustment Study
Government of Uganda. RDI provided oversight of fieldwork, household surveys, and report and recommendation preparation for a land market and tenure study. The team determined how land transactions are carried out, who the participants are, how prices are determined, how transactions are financed and documented, and how existing laws and regulations either support or constrain the market. A land fragmentation, consolidation, and readjustment component focused on the extent to which fragmentation is actually a problem and whether it might have an impact on agricultural production.

Recommendations included simplification of transaction requirements, reconciliation of conflicting claims, facilitation of a variety of market support actions, a concessionary mortgage credit pilot project, and a set of criteria for use in designing a land readjustment pilot project. The study process included a stakeholders’ workshop where government representatives (local, regional, and national), NGO representatives, and villagers from a variety of locales were pulled together to hear preliminary results and to provide comments and ideas. October 2001 to April 2002.