Project to support the modernisation of the land and cadastre administration in Lebanon

Assisting the Lebanese authorities with the reform and modernisation of the land and cadastre administration

Sound management of land and cadastre affairs has significant potential for economic and social development, increasing State revenues related to land activity and improving services to users.

In Lebanon, the Lebanese Ministry of Finance and its General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre have initiated a reform to continue the modernisation of land administration.

Agence Française de Développement (AFD) is assisting the Lebanese authorities with the implementation of this reform by financing a project to support the modernisation of the land and cadastre administration. This project is implemented by Expertise France, the French international technical cooperation agency, in conjunction with the French Public Finances Directorate General (DGFiP), which has expertise on the issue of land and cadastre administration.

Improving land data management: four areas of operation

The project responds to a need identified to improve land data management in Lebanon. The objective of the project activities is to build the capacities of the land and cadastre administration via four areas of operation:

1) Work on legislation on property rights management,

2) Modernise the governance of the General Directorate of Land Registry,

3) Improve the quality of the land and cadastre service for users,

4) Modernise data collection and the information system.

This project is helping the Lebanese authorities make cadastral information available and strengthen property data in order to improve the collection of property tax. Expertise France is mobilising the expertise of France’s DGFiP for the implementation of the activities and the peer-to-peer exchanges. The institutional partners in this sector are naturally involved in the project: notaries, surveyors, lawyers…

The objective of the project is to secure rights, strengthen tools for the mobilisation of tax revenues and modernise relations within the administration and with users by supporting the working methods, legislation, dematerialisation and procedures. This will lay the foundations for a reformed property taxation and mechanisms to raise revenues derived from secured rights.

Project news

A draft law to modernize property deeds

The project “Support to the modernization of the cadastral and land administration in Lebanon” supported the drafting of a law project aimed at modernizing property deeds, the result of an unprecedented dialogue between the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre in Lebanon and the Lebanese Council of Notaries. The benefits of this reforming law are multiple: promote transparency; increase tax revenue; facilitate the procedures for the end-users; simplify and dematerialize the registration process; reduce deadlines for publication of acts; digitize documents to improve management and reduce the volume of archives: encourage and boost the investment climate in Lebanon; strengthen the public / private sectoral partnership.

Building on a close cooperation with the Council of Notaries, and soon with the Order of Topographic Surveyors of Lebanon, this reform initiative will ultimately set and institutionalize the foundational processes leading to the one-stop-shop that secures the exchange of data and the issuance of land deeds. On July 26th 2021, this legal text was sent by the Minister of Finance Mr. Ghazi Wazni to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and at the same time to the Presidency of the Republic. 

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