FIG PUBLICATION NO. 60 2ND EDITIONFit-For-Purpose Land AdministrationJOINT FIG / WORLD BANK PUBLICATIONStig Enemark
Contents1 FOREWORD ForewordThis publication is the result of cooperation between the World Bank and the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) over recent years to address the issue of building and sustaining land administration systems that are basically fit-for-purpose rather than blindly complying with top-end technological solutions and rigid regulations for accuracy. The cooperation started by the joint FIG / World Bank conference in 2009 addressing “Land Governance in Support of the Millennium Development Goals”. A report from this conference can be found as FIG Publication No. 45 (FIG/WB, 2010). At the following annual World Bank Conferences on Land and Poverty concerns
were raised by various stakeholders that the current procedures and requirements
for mapping and boundary delineation were often too cumbersome and expensive and
did not comply with the actual needs of most citizens for achieving security of
tenure. Furthermore, many of the systems that have been established are costly
to maintain and operate and do little to improve service delivery and access to
land information. These Emerging from these events is the concept of “fit-for-purpose” indicating
that land administration It is our hope that the fit-for-purpose approach will be widely applied throughout the world and especially in less developed countries seeking to address issues such as poverty alleviation, insecure access to land, inadequate shelter, social inequity and environmental degradation. CheeHai Teo FIG President, Executive SummaryLand administration should be designed to meet the needs of people and their relationship to land, to support security of tenure for all and to sustainably manage land use and natural resources. However, the current solutions to delivering land administration services have very limited global outreach; 75 percent of the world’s population do not have access to formal systems to register and safeguard their land rights. The majority of these are the poor and the most vulnerable in society. There is an urgent need to build affordable and sustainable systems to identify the way land is occupied and used. FIG and the World Bank have been cooperating on solutions to this global issue since 2009 and this fit-for-purpose approach to land administration has emerged as a game changer. Fit-for-purpose means that the land administration systems – and especially the underlying spatial framework of large scale mapping – should be designed for the purpose of managing current land issues within a specific country or region – rather than simply following more advanced technical standards. The fit-for-purpose approach is participatory and inclusive – it is fundamentally a human rights approach. Benefits relate to the opportunity of building appropriate land administration systems within a relatively short time and for relatively low and affordable costs. The fit-for-purpose approach being proposed here offers governments and land professionals the opportunity to make a significant improvement in global land issues. It is a realistic approach that is scalable and could make a significant difference in the intermediate timeframe. The cases provided in this report highlight just how successful this approach can be. The term “fit-for-purpose” is not new at all, but what is new is relating this term to building sustainable land administration systems. Therefore, the approach used for building land administration systems in less developed countries should be flexible and focused on citizens’ needs, such as providing security of tenure and control of land use, rather than focusing on top-end technical solutions and high accuracy surveys. A fit-for-purpose approach includes the following elements:
A country’s legal and institutional framework must be revised to apply the
elements of the fit-for-purpose approach. This means that the fit-for-purpose
approach must be enshrined in law, it must still be implemented within a robust
land governance framework, and the information must be made accessible to all
users.
Ensuring advocacy for change and providing support to change management is a key role for organisations like the World Bank, UN-FAO, UN-HABITAT, FIG and other land related professional bodies. The politicians and decision makers in the land sector are key players in this change process. The hearts and minds of land professionals need to be turned to fully understand and embrace the fit-for-purpose approach. Organisations in the land sector need to ensure the awareness and up-to-date skills of their members and staff. The largest change will be focused on the public sector where this may involve institutional and organisational reforms, including legal framework, processes and procedures, and awareness in terms of incentives and accountability. To drive this change process there must be effective knowledge-sharing to ensure the lessons learnt and good practices are widely implemented. It is hoped that this publication will pave the way forward towards implementing sustainable and affordable land administration systems enabling security of tenure for all and effective management of land use and natural resources. This, in turn, will enable political aims such as economic growth, social equity and environmental sustainability to be better supported, pursued and achieved. Read the full FIG Publication 60 in pdf Copyright © The World Bank and the International Federation
of Surveyors (FIG) 2014., March 2014 International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) Published in English Published by |
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FIG PUBLICATION No 60 Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration Joint FIG / World Bank Publication Published in English Published by The International Federation of Surveyors (FIG), March 2014 Printed copies can be ordered from: |
