Project assistance completion report [: agricultural structural adjustment project (538-0090)]

Lucia through: (1) increased banana export, (2) private sector marketing activities, and (3) creation of a land registry. Progress was made toward all objectives, although project design was modified in some areas. For example, the banana industry improved dramatically without project assistance, so almost all of the funds allocated for this objective were transferred to the land registry component. The remaining funds were used to finance computers for the Banana Growers' Association. To promote crop diversification, the project substantially upgraded three plant propagation facilities in Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) stations, established a Marketing Promotion Unit within the MOA, and designed an overall marketing strategy with a private sector focus. However, neither the GOSL nor RDO/C approved the strategy, which was a prerequisite for disbursement of remaining marketing funds. Therefore, these funds were also reallocated to the land registry component. The bulk of the project was concentrated on TA for land registration and titling activities aimed at encouraging investment in agricultural infrastructure. Prior to the project, approximately 45% of St. Lucian agricultural land parcels lacked secure title; only 20% had an adequate survey plan, and 23% had no written description of boundaries. Land insecurity was a major constraint on the development of a more productive and equitable agricultural system. The project demarcated, surveyed, and recorded a total of 33,287 parcels to create a land registry map of all parcels in the country. The Land Registry office established by the project is now used on a daily basis by notaries and the general publc. The number of transactions - mostly land certificates, land transfers, and mortgages - has increased from 178 in January 1987, to more than 600 in March 1988. Unfortunately, achievement in the land registry component was limited by difficulties in resolving family-land issues. Due in part to inadequate or conflicting legislation, approximately one-third of all parcels are still unpartitioned family-land parcels, half of which do not possess absolute titles. Two lessons were learned. (1) The project was blessed in that it enjoyed widespread popular and political support; without this support the project would have been doomed to failure. (2) Projects must be flexible in responding to external influences, as demonstrated in the reallocation of this project's banana component funds.