Afghan refugee returnees and IDPs have a very limited access to land. The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has committed to resolve this issue and ensure improved access to land.
Since 2017, UN-Habitat as the chair of the Housing, Land and Property Taskforce (HLP-TF), has been providing technical support to Afghan government to develop a legal framework to improve access to suitable state land. The partnership culminated in the approval of the groundbreaking Presidential Decree 305 on Identification and Allocation of Suitable Land for the Re-integration and Construction of Affordable Housing for Returnees, Internally Displaced Persons.

The main goal of the practice is to:

Support the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to meet its policy commitment to improve access to land and adequate housing to support the durable solutions and reintegration process of returnees and IDPs.

The legal framework involves the establishment of:
Governance Structure.
Land Suitability Criteria and Land Identification and Selection Committee.
Beneficiary Selection Criteria and the Beneficiary Selection Consortium.

A: Governance Structure
1. Implemented by the Executive Committee for Returnees, Internally Displaced Persons and Martyrs’ (DiREC)

2. Land Identification and Selection Committee

3. Beneficiary Selection Coordinating Commission

4. Provincial Beneficiary Selection Consortium

5. Reporting and Oversight Mechanism
Reports every three months to the
Cabinet.
Sub-Committee of the Council of Ministers.

Reports twice a year to the
High Commission for Migration, chaired by the President.

B. Land Suitability Criteria and Land Identification and Selection Committee
The PD established six core suitability and seven recommended criterias. If these criteria are not met, the government will not allocate and distribute such land. However, in the case of the seven recommended criteria, the government will try to fulfil it in 3 years through land improvement measures.
6 Core Requirements
1. Not a water resource/watershed
2. Permissible under the LML
3. Clear of landmines, explosive remnants of war and high levels of contamination
4. Close proximity to livelihood/employment opportunities
5. Adequate quantity of water,
6. No foreseeable risk of extreme hazards (severe floods, avalanches, and landslides) and slope of the land does not exceed 15%.

7 Recommended Requirements
1. Clear of chemical, biological pollutants
2. Close proximity to existing or planned access road
3. Health clinic
4. School
5. Availability of necessary building materials
6. Soil quality is sufficient to construct housing and
7. The land is not of cultural, religious, or archaeological significance.

C. Beneficiary Selection Criteria and the Beneficiary Selection Consortium.
There is a two step process:
1.1 Step 1: Basic Eligibility Assessment
Returnees: Prove return to Afghanistan.
IDPs: Prove continuous displacement five years before the PD was passed, or only protracted IDPs. Strict cut off of those IDPs displaced before 2013.

1.2 Step 2: Vulnerability Assessment
Based on the Vulnerability Assessment Criteria.
If meet the criteria, then Registration of Biometrics and inclusion in the Beneficiary Database.

2. Prioritisation and Matching
If the number of eligible families exceeds the number of available land parcels, a prioritization methodology would be used.

3. Construction Permits and Issuance of Title Deed (Security of Tenure)
Issuance of construction permits to family units for the construction of houses on allocated parcels of land.
After completion of construction, ARAZI will issue joint title deeds to both husband and wife/s.

The core objectives of SDG 11 Goals which are “Inclusivity”, “Safety”, “Sustainability” and “Resilience” are clearly highlighted in the new legal framework. An innovative strategy and an intra-agency approach is used towards resolving the problem of IDPs/Returnees lack of access to land, and housing
The main motive was to not leave IDPs and returnees behind.

Donor: Department for International Development (DFID)- UK Embassy Afghanistan.

Implemented by: UN-Habitat (PERDS project) (Chair of the HLP-TF)
Partners:
United Nations :UNAMA RoL, UNHCR, IOM, OCHA, UNICEF, UNDP.
NGOs/INGOs: NRC and all NGO members of HLP-TF, AIHRC.
Government Agencies: ARAZI, MoRR/DoRR, MUDH/DUDH, IDLG/DMM, CRIDA, Municipalities, President’s Office, CEO.

Beneficiaries of the Project: All IDP and refugee returnees in Afghanistan that lack their HLP rights- access to land, housing and basic services will benefit from this new legal framework.
As of January 2019, there are 6.3 million people IDP and refugee returnees

Implementation of the Practise: Chronology of Events

2016, over one million Afghan refugees—both registered and undocumented—returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan and Iran.
November 2016, the Government set up the Displacement and Returnee Executive Committee (DiREC) set up.
DiREC developed and approved the Policy Framework for Returnees and IDPs (2017) and committed to meet the Goal 4 of DiREC’s Policy Framework for Returnees and IDPs and the related Action Plan required the Government to “improve access to land and adequate housing”.
DiREC tasked the Technical Working Group on Land (chaired by ARAZI and President’s Office) to develop a new and effective legal framework for state land allocation that would resolve PD 104’s inherent problems.
The TWG-Land formed of line ministries and selected group of international community including the HLP-TF (UN-Habitat, UNAMA RoL, UNHCR, NRC etc)
HLP-TF and ARAZI the core member of the Drafting Committee worked over 17 months (Oct 2016-Nov 2017) to draft the new framework building on the Guidance Note on Suitable Land and Beneficiary Selection drafted by HLP-TF in 2016.
March 2017, the Drafting Committee produced the first complete draft of the legal framework.
5 Public consultations held by the HLP-TF (Kabul, Herat and Jalalabad)
Numerous meetings
Final draft (Version 71) finalised in November 2017
The Draft discussed at the Cabinet meeting on Monday, 5 March and approved on principle subject to incorporation of the changes.
The decree was approved by the President on 29 August 2018 (Version 77)
Published in the Official Gazette No. 1321 on 29 November 2019
Five of the six Implementing Guidelines to operationalize the decree and been finalised and approved.

The decree has only been recently been promulgated : approved by the President on 29 August 2018 and published in the Official Gazette No. 1321 on 29 November 2019. Five of the six Implementing Guidelines to operationalize the decree and been finalised and approved. So the results and direct impact of the practise will be seen in the coming years.

Parallel to the development of the legal framework, UN-habitat has worked in establishing a reintegration process through an area-based implementation of the Sustainable Human Settlements in Urban Areas to support Reintegration in Afghanistan (SHURA) programme.

Working with the Government the SHURA programme works to operationalise the PD 305 by ensuring the provision of quality land, housing and security tenure for IDPs and returnees. This area-based intervention is in the inception phase in two city regions- the capital Kabul and Herat intended to provide land and housing to over 6,000 IDPs and returnees and unlock the humanitarian-development nexus potentials. This initiative is funded by the Government of Denmark and the European Union with a budget of US$30.6 Million.

The SHURA programme is supporting ARAZI to inventorize 19,000 hectares of State Land in the provinces of high return and displacement and is working towards the finalization land clearance and establishment of a Land Bank database for this purpose. The programme is also working on the development of a database system and equipment for the beneficiary selection and registration.

Planned afghan urban areas, with decent housing and the provision of basic services for all, are a prerequisite for development and prosperity. Cities already account for more than 50 percent of the GDP, much as the vast majority of Afghan urbanization is informal. With programmes and practices such as these; the Government will not only ensure decent living conditions for previously displaced Afghans, it will also create opportunity for an inclusive and prosperous future for its population.

Enabling factors include the strong governmental will to find a solution to the huge number of returning refugees from neighboring countries and the rising number of IDPs increasing due to deteriorating security, economic and environmental challenges in the country, and the urgent need for a functioning, transparent, and free of corruption state land allocation system.

The Government also aims to resolve these issues as it is highlighted in their policies (Afghanistan National Peace and Development Framework; Urban National Priority Programme; Citizen Charter National Priority Programme; National Policy on Internally Displaced People; and Solution Strategy for Afghan Refugees).

The strategy for sustainability of this practise and its impact is mainly through:
Development of the PD 305 training manual and rolling out of the training among Government,UN/NGO and IDP/returnees, this has already completed by UN-habitat and the HLP-TF.
The resourcing and strengthening of Government entities involved in the implementation of the PD 305.
Implementation, lessons learnt and scaling up of the SHURA programme in the other areas of high return and displacement.

Based on the new legal framework, the government will provide state-land and increase the security of tenure for the most vulnerable returnees and IDPs. Moreover, it will provide a streamlined and transparent procedure to identify and allocate free and suitable state land parcels and housing units.
The legal framework localizes different international policies and frameworks concerning refugee returnees and IDPs such as Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (1998), Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Framework on Durable Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons (2005), the SDGs as well as the New Urban Agenda in a coherent and integrated manner. The experience through the project will benefit Asia-Pacific as well as other regions, therefore making Afghanistan a global leader in Durable Solutions framework implementation. A key lesson learned is that effective coordination between governmental, international and local partners helps in removing the problems of previous regulations and instead paves the way for a separate legal framework on durable solutions for land allocation to IDPs/Returnees.

Depika Sherchan, Alison Mcfarlane, Jawad Peikar, “Improving Access to State land for returnees and IDPs in Afghanistan”, Paper presented at the 2018 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty (https://www.conftool.com/landandpoverty2018/index.php/08-03-Sherchan-822_paper.pdf?page=downloadPaper&filename=08-03-Sherchan-822_paper.pdf&form_id=822&form_version=final)

Presidential Decree “President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on the Identification and Allocation of Suitable Land for the Re-integration and Construction of Affordable Housing for Returnees, Internally Displaced Persons and Families of Martyrs of the Country's Security and Defence Forces”

Inter-Agency Durable Solutions Initiative: Profile and Response Plan of Protracted IDP Settlements in Herat, (2016) (http://www.globalprotectioncluster.org/_assets/files/field_protection_clusters/Afghanistan/files/HLP%20AoR/inter_agency_durable_solutions_report_herat_october_2016_en.pdf)

Herat Durable Solutions Survey: Settlement Profiling and Analysis (2018)

Kandahar Durable Solutions Survey: Settlement Profiling and Analysis (2018)

Kabul (KIS) Durable Solutions Survey: Settlement Profiling and Analysis (2019)

Jalalabad Durable Solutions Survey: Settlement Profiling and Analysis (2019)