Representatives of the Dutch Embassy held a working session with the PMAF team.

A delegation from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands led by the Head of Cooperation Antonie de Kemp, accompanied by Mrs Sigrid Meijer (First Secretary) and Mr Clément Edah (Food Security Expert) carried out a fact-finding visit on 31 August 2020 to the project bureau of the Project for the Modernisation of the Land Administration, located in Gbèdjromèdé in Cotonou.

In an atmosphere marked by a reunion after the period of remoteness linked to the coronavirus crisis, the exchanges focused on the evolution of the project's activities and the measures taken to build resilience to the coronavirus. A presentation made by the Deputy Project Manager on the level of implementation of activities enabled the delegation to appreciate with satisfaction the efforts made by the project bureau, the effective commitment of ANDF and the established collaboration frameworks. With regard to the essential results expected from the project, the process of collecting cadastral data is underway in the first two municipalities (Bohicon and N'Dali). Delays were observed due to the coronavirus pandemia, some programming disruptions and the communal elections of 2020. A second wave of municipalities is currently being programmed for the start of data collection. As for the cadastral system (SIF), efforts are being made both by the technical assistance teams in the Netherlands and by the local team, and the database development mechanism is planned to be operationalized in the coming weeks. Recommendations have been made for speeding up the activities and for strengthening the barrier measures against covid 19. The mid-term evaluation study of the project envisaged to take place this year 2020 will probably be postponed to next year in order to free the experts and actors involved to focus on the urgent and primordial project implementation activities.