Housing, Land and Property Advisor to the Global Shelter Cluster HLP Scoping Mission Field Review Report Central Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara 20th– 30th May 2019 Background On 29th July 2018, a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck off Lombok, province of West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Since then, four further earthquakes and multiple aftershocks have impacted the districts of North Lombok, East Lombok, West Lombok, Central Lombok and Mataram in addition to Bali and Sumbawa islands. BNPB estimated that 600 thousand people have been affected by the series of tremors, with over 85,000 houses listed as heavily damaged or destroyed and an even greater number mildly damaged, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in need of shelter and settlements assistance. On 28 September 2018 a series of strong earthquakes struck Central Sulawesi Province. The strongest of which measured at 7.4 and was just 10km deep with its epicentre in Donggala regency, close to the provincial capital Palu. The earthquake triggered a tsunami whose waves reached up to three meters in some areas, striking Talise beach in Palu and Donggala. The earthquakes, tsunami and resulting liquefaction and landslides have caused significant damage and loss of life in affected areas. Areas affected by the earthquake, tsunami, landslides and liquefaction suffered extensive damage of buildings and infrastructure. An estimated 65,000 houses have been impacted, with approximately 10,000 houses lost in areas requiring relocations and a further 10-15,000 houses heavily destroyed in sites that may allow for reconstruction. It is estimated that more than 35,000 households were left in need of emergency shelter support for a shorter term. The National Shelter Sub-cluster has responded under the National Protection and Displacement Cluster led by the Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSA). In support of MOSA, IFRC has deployed dedicated coordination support teams at the national level as well as in Palu and Lombok as part of their role as the global shelter cluster lead. Request for HLP Support This mission was requested by the National Shelter Sub-cluster in early March 2019. In this deployment, the GSC HLP Advisor was joined by an IFRC Asia-Pacific Disaster Law Specialist. The deployment took place from the 20th to the 30th of May 2019. Scope of the Mission The HLP Advice team - GSC HLP Advisor Ibere Lopes (IOM) and Asia Pacific Disaster Law Advisor Pauline Caspellan-Arce (IFRC) - were deployed to assist the Shelter sub-cluster to identify social and land tenure-related issues impacting the shelter response and suggest actions by shelter cluster partners to ensure increased tenure security for the affected population in the current recovery and on future responses. Specifically, as per the terms of reference, the HLP Advice team is expected to: § Conduct a field review of the main HLP issues affecting shelter and settlements response in the current disaster responses in Indonesia, with a focus on the responses in Central Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara; § Identify the core land tenure issues that may obstruct the provision of shelter and/or permanent housing assistance from both Government and Non-government actors; § Provide a roadmap for the development of a Shelter and Settlements HLP strategy outlining suggested actions (recommendations) that sub-cluster members or the ministry could undertake, or advocate for, to address HLP challenges and increase tenure security and access to shelter assistance for beneficiaries; and § Identify and work with a local organisations capable of providing continued assistance to the sub-cluster and its partners on the identified HLP issues. Scope of this Report This Field Review Report presents the findings from the 10-day scoping mission of the HLP Advice Team to Jakarta, Palu and Lombok. In addition to the findings, it includes suggestions for next steps in developing an HLP strategy for the response and an account of the activities undertaken in-country by the team. ToR Attached. Findings 1. General considerations 1.1 Despite the Indonesian Government’s recent push for land certification1, only 38 million of the 80-100 million parcels in the country are registered2. The lack of one united national cadastral map creates confusion and overlapping between national, provincial and district levels and between the differing ministries and directorates involved in managing land title and land use permit related issues. A unified land cadastre is planned, but still incomplete and facing challenges3. 1.2 Land certification in and on itself is not sufficient to provide security of tenure. The rights acknowledge in property certificates can only be adequately enforced if there is rule of law, a functioning and updated land management system and an accessible dispute resolution mechanism. In addition, land certification can have adverse effects, such as the dispossession of communities holding land under customary tenure4. Community leaders can be co-opted to sign off communal land rights to third parties (e.g. companies with interest in exploring minerals and other natural resources). 1.3 Although no specific research has been found on this topic, discussions with shelter practitioners and a consultation of property records on the National Land Agency’s (Badan Pertanahan Nasional – BPN) website5 seems to indicate that land formalisation appears to be more prevalent in Central Sulawesi than in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), largely due to a greater level of modern land allocation through the large transmigration programs in Central Sulawesi as compared to primarily customary land transfer and inheritance in Lombok. 1 President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has announced a plan to issue 5-10 million certificates per year for the next 5 years: https://setkab.go.id/en/govt-to-continue-distributing-land-certificate-to-people-across-indonesia/ 2 Indonesia Land Governance Assessment Framework, WorldBank, 2016. 3 https://news.mongabay.com/2018/12/one-map-to-rule-them-all-indonesia-launches-unified-land-use-chart/ http://cadastraltemplate.org/indonesia.php 4 https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/why-land-titling-isnt-working/ 5 www.atrbpn.go.id/peta-bidang-tanah 1.4 Informants in the visited provinces postulate that NTB is more culturally homogenous, with generational continuity and long standing communities, where residents feel confident relying on custom and tradition for land tenure security. Central Sulawesi is more culturally diverse, with a history of immigration and new settlers. Between 1979 and 1988, 161 Transmigration villages have been established in Sulawesi, more than any other region apart from Sumatra and Kalimantan6. Such an influx of culturally and historically diverse newcomers – and the political and social issues that ensued – contributed to creating an environment of poor social cohesion and mistrust, where residents prefer to rely on State mechanisms to secure their land tenure – hence the tendency towards formalisation. 1.5 This difference has implications for shelter practitioners. Procedures for land tenure verification in Sulawesi may include requests for formal certificates or for an “SKPT” (Surat Katarangan Pemilik Tanah – a letter from the village chief on the tenure status of the land); Verification in Lombok may need to consider alternative means of proof and be satisfied with partially of fully customary forms of tenure recognition. 1.6 The number of HLP issues identified in Central Sulawesi being higher than in NTB may be a consequence of the HLP Advisor having spent more time and done deeper field work in Palu than in Lombok. However, Central Sulawesi is facing a unique combination of underlying transmigration atop of customary ownership that is now compounded by disaster-related displacement and relocation of some households, which may explain the disparity on the number of HLP issues identified. 1.7 The findings below are not an exhaustive compilation of HLP issues in West Nusa Tenggara and Central Sulawesi. It is a list of the land tenure issues identified by the HLP team, in the limited time of the field assessment, that may have the potential to hinder the effective and inclusive provision of shelter and permanent housing assistance in the disaster response in these two provinces. 2. HLP Issues in Central Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara 2.1. Exclusion of the “tenure insecure” “Tenure insecure” are those who do not hold ownership or equivalent formal land right, such as renters, or those who are hosted by extended or other families, or informal dwellers. The Government housing subsidy program is primarily based on the idea that one household - with one land title and one damaged house - is entitled to only one assistance package. Both Provincial governments’ approaches appear to indicate that any deviation or lack of ability to prove fulfilment of any one of these criteria has the potential to pose challenges to receiving government assistance. Property owners are required to prove their title in order to qualify as beneficiaries of Government housing assistance whether through relocation assistance7 or onsite reconstruction subsidy assistance. Regional autonomy laws however mean that the exact approaches of each province on this requirement, however, can differ. Whereas Central Sulawesi authorities appear to have pledged to uphold a strict enforcement of the requirement, NTB agencies claim to have adopted a “no-red lines, more flexible approach”, 6 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3f90/967a554b154e10137e7fdd8adae206398fe5.pdf 7 According to the housing assistance plan, households who have lost their house and cannot rebuild on site due to high risk will be allocated 50m2 of land and a two-room prototype house in a relocation site. willing to accept alternative means of proof, and allegedly are more open to accepting informal owners as beneficiaries. Exactly how this pans out for individual households is yet to be seen and may vary across individual districts, as under district autonomy laws, implementation lies at the district level. There is a tendency for NGOs to inadvertently emulate this strategy and thereby failing to assist vulnerable families who may not be able to produce proof of ownership and end up unassisted.