Assessment of Land Administration in Ecuador Based on the Fit-for-Purpose Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Table 2 is very general, could be important to present the questions of the interviews and the answers of the experts.

In the conclusions and recommendations item, it is not clear the way how Ecuador is going to implement Fit for Purpose methodology following activities in figure 3.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Many thanks for your time and comments/remarks for further improvement. The interview form and questions are described in section 3 in the new version. Based on the assessment done and the new score table in this paper better steps forward for fit-for-purpose land administration implementation in Ecuador are derived. In addition, the title of the paper is changed into The assessment of land administration in Ecuador based on the fit-for-purpose approach. 

Kind regards

Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for this contribution. It is an interesting article, which describes the land administration situation in Ecuador in a detailed way, as well as ways to speed up the process. 

Some questions and remarks:

• A Figure with the FFP criteria and the scores of Ecuador is necessary. Now this is all hidden in the text, in different parts of the paper.
• Regarding the structure of the paper:
• the literature review currently is too elaborate.
• Are there more recent publications to refer too in the literature list?
• The structure of the Results section is confusing: in each sub-section we read about the institutional, legal and spatial frameworks. Perhaps the sub-sections should be those frameworks, and discuss the national level, the urban and rural parts within each framework. This makes it more readable, together with the much needed figure mentioned above.
• You mention Fit for Purpose at scale.
• What does ‘at scale’ implies?
• Besides downsizing the number of attributes and alternative use of aerial imagery, what would you suggest to include to have an FFP approach at scale?
• Have you also thought of which attributes should be removed from the conventional surveys? And is it also feasible?
• Is the up to date, high resolution imagery available for use? What are the experiences with the alternative use of aerial imagery?
• “Finally, this research found out that one million parcels are completed in rural cadaster in Ecuador in the period of 5 years, using a loan of 10 million US dollars representing 25% of the rural territory (see subsection 4.3); with this a price per parcel is calculated at 10 US dollars. We can compare this to the same time period and approximately 10 million parcels for 6 US dollars in Rwanda”.

The authors give an example of a survey that took 4 years , where 1 million parcels have been surveyed. The average costs were 10 USD per parcel, comparable to the good-practice case Rwanda. Does this mean that the conventional approach (precise field measurements and 60 attributes) is already efficient? This does not support the argument that there is a need to have a land administration with lower costs. Or would a FFP at scale approach reduce these costs and time more (and how would you sunbstanciate that)? 

• The methodology section describes that surveys and writeshops are used to obtain the main results, but it does not go into much detail about exactly what is discussed in these interviews. Why no interviews with people of organizations that are mentioned, such as IGM, SOT? It is recommended to specify the interview topics, or could the authors include a short summary of the questions or surveys? 
• What would be the next step of the project? Based on the investigation, the authors propose to include the FFP approach in the governmental land administration. How will this be done? Is there any follow up research planned? Or a strategy to implement these recommendations? This would be interesting to include in your conclusions.  

• The quality/resolution of the images could be improved (for example Figure 3).
• Check the numbering of the figures. Two figures have the same number.
• Refer to image in the Page 2: 12 principles which ones? Please specify. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Many thanks for your time and constructive comments/remarks for further improvement. After every comment/remark, we include red text about what and how was improved. In addition, the title of the paper is changed into The assessment of land administration in Ecuador based on the fit-for-purpose approach. The English language was improved by reviewing a native English speaking person and using the software package Grammarly.

Kind regarads

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Attached is the document summarizing the review of the paper.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for your time and constructive comments/remarks for further improvement. After every comment/remark, we include red text about what and how was improved. In addition, the title of the paper is changed into The assessment of land administration in Ecuador based on the fit-for-purpose approach; the paper objective is updated accordingly. 

Kind regards,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

- The authors have made good improvements and have generally adequately processed the comments.

- The use of English in the new pieces of text could be improved. 

- Figure 3 can be improved (map of Ecuador). Several times there are references in the text to figure 3, but I have the impression that another Figure is meant.

- I did not notice in my first review that research based on this write shop from 2017 has already been published at the World Bank (Land in Poverty 2018). It is not clear to me whether this article is based on the same data, or that additional data has been collected. The methodology remains rather weak: could other researchers repeat the study?

- The main criticism is this point, as mentioned in the first review: “Finally, this research found out that one million parcels are completed in rural cadaster in Ecuador in the period of 5 years, using a loan of 10 million US dollars representing 25% of the rural territory (see subsection 4.3); with this a price per parcel is calculated at 10 US dollars. We can compare this to the same time period and approximately 10 million parcels for 6 US dollars in Rwanda”. A survey of 4 years of 1 million parcels for an average cost of UIS$ 10 per parcel, is comparable to the good-practice case Rwanda. For me this still means that the conventional approach (precise field measurements and 60 attributes) is already efficient and very much fit for purpose. The findings do not support the argument that there is a need to have a land administration with lower costs.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for your time and new constructive comments and suggestions for further improvement. We include red text (in the attached file) about what and how was improved.

Kind Regards

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Good to see the major revisions including the refocusing of the objective of the paper. More elaboration is needed in terms of the 'score' table as I see it as the main contribution of the paper in the research agenda of fit-for-purpose land administration, aside from the specific country assessment. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for your time and new constructive comments and suggestions for further improvement. We include red text (in the attached file) about what and how was improved.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for addressing the comments in the article. Wise decision not to refer anymore to Rwanda, but focus instead of the implications of the number of attributes for maintenance purposes and so on. Glad to find a contribution from Ecuador in the journal, well done!

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your time and constructive comments/remarks for the improvement of the paper, much appreciated,

Regards,

Authors

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.