Taking the Wisconsin Idea to Albania

Land Tenure Center researcher and Albanian colleagues interview a farmer about land registration.

Written by Vicki Aken, Photo by Susana Lasttarria-Cornhiel

The UW-Madison Land Tenure Center is helping Albania make the transition to a free market economy by helping create land market institutions where none existed five years ago.

The Land Tenure Center's involvement in Albania began in 1993. Three people from the center, along with political science professor Edward Friedman, submitted a research report on land reform in Albania to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). With support from this agency, a team from the Land Tenure Center went to Albania to help implement recommendations in the report.

The UW-Madison team launched the Land Market Development Project, which is collaborating with government agencies, private entrepreneurs and environmental planners in Albania to create real estate markets.

The university took a risk by getting involved.

Project goals include creating property registration offices and providing research assistance in developing laws and regulations for defining rights and responsibilities of land ownership. USAID, in cooperation with organizations like the World Bank and the European Union, is funding the project.

"The university took a risk by getting involved in the Albanian project," said David Stanfield, a project director at the Land Tenure Center. "By going beyond making recommendations to engaging directly in institution building, the Center exposed itself to criticism from different political sides."

The university took another risk by giving up total control of the project when it contracted with an Albanian institution to launch the program. The land tenure project dealt with very sensitive issues and needed to be strongly rooted in local culture to succeed, said Stanfield.

So far, the risks have paid off. Registration offices opened in 22 of Albania's 36 districts. About 800,000 properties, nearly one-third of those needing registration, have been recorded. An effort to map boundaries and roads is more than half done, and Albanians have come to UW-Madison for training in law, business administration and development studies.

Earlier this year, political upheaval threatened the project when pyramid schemes deprived thousands of Albanian families of their savings. Many Albanians rebelled, believing the government had done too little to prevent the schemes. One registration office, located in the Municipal Building in Lushnja, was burned; fortunately the staff saved many registration documents. Currently, things are settling down, and the new government, elected in June, strongly supports the Land Tenure Center project.

Because land tenure problems are often volatile political issues, a university can play an important role in solving problems as an objective participant, said William Thiesenhusen, an agricultural economist and director of the Center. "The university is viewed as searching for the truth," Thiesenhusen said. "Universities have to be honest or they have no credibility."

A university can play an improtant role in solving problems as an objective participant.

Since 1962, the center has worked in more than 50 countries, conducting research on resource tenure, agrarian reform, and institutional aspects of rural development and natural resource management.

For more information about the Land Tenure Center,
see the following website: http://www.wisc.edu/ltc