What documents do you need to receive compensation?

Three things: proof of who you are, proof of the claim, and — where someone else's name is on the record — proof that you are entitled to receive on their behalf. Holding none of these does not disqualify you. A project working to lender standards is required to have a route for claimants without documents, because insisting on paperwork excludes exactly the households the standards single out for protection.

Identity

A national identity document is the simplest route and many people in affected areas do not have one. Where that is your situation, the workable alternatives are a photograph and biometric taken at enumeration, an attestation from local leadership naming the person attesting, and corroboration from two neighbours who are themselves on the register.[1]

Ask the project to help you obtain the document itself. Where identification is a condition of payment, obtaining it is part of the assistance the project owes you — and it takes months, so start at census rather than at payment.[3]

Proof of the claim

A title or certificate settles it where one exists. Where none does, what substitutes:

• Boundary agreement with your neighbours, walked and recorded during the survey with those neighbours present. This is the strongest evidence available for unregistered land.
• Attestation by local authority or clan leadership, with the attesting person named rather than an anonymous stamp.
• Physical evidence — planted boundary trees, graves, permanent crops — photographed and located.
• Length of occupation, corroborated by people who can speak to it.[2]

Where the record is in someone else's name

This is the single largest cause of delayed payment. If the registered person has died, you will need letters of administration or an equivalent determination recognised locally — and the project cannot short-cut it, because paying the wrong person is not reversible.

What the project can do is start the process with you immediately and fund it. Ask for that, in writing, as soon as you know the record carries a deceased name.[4]

Keep your own copies

At enumeration you should be given a copy of the inventory sheet recording what was measured on your land, signed. If you were not, ask for one. It is the cheapest protection available and it converts any later disagreement from a contest between recollections into a comparison of two documents.

Keep it with a photograph of your assets, taken on the day, and any slip you are given at payment stating what was paid and for what.

What you should never have to provide

• A payment to any official or agent to process your file.
• Documents the project requires but will not help you obtain.
• Consent to withdraw a complaint in exchange for being paid.