The United Nation has reportedly rolled out a blockchain-based, urban areas-focused tool, in a bid to offer assistance to the Afghan authorities, regarding property ownership management problems. 

Specifically, the U.N. Human Settlements Programme (U.N.-Habitat), will reportedly put up its new digital land registry solution to the Ministry of Urban Development and Land in Afghanistan in the final month of this year. 

The U.N reportedly firstly released its blockchain initiative, dedicated to sustainable urban development in Afghanistan last year. 

Now, with the freshly built, blockchain-powered solution for controlling land registration, the U.N reportedly looks to support Afghanistan in dealing with big issues, regarding urban informal settlements – also referred to as slums or shanty towns – nominally land-grabbing, land usage inefficiency, and insecure land tenure in informal settlements. 

Per the UN, a majority of properties in Afghan urban areas (80%) are at the moment not having any registration with “municipal or national land authorities, and occupants do not have formal ownership documents.”

Going by the name “‘goLandRegistry”, the new system is reportedly developed to keep a blockchain-based record of every property document, along with generating occupancy certificates. This will reportedly enable property owners to independently provide evidence for the authenticity of occupancy certificates, via employing an open-source blockchain verification tool.

“By using Live Contracts, data can be automatically distributed to different stakeholders and systems to facilitate land-registry transfers, tax automations, provision of credit, etc.,” Head of LTO Rick Schmitz reportedly remarked.