FIG Commission 7 - Cadastre and Land Management

Term 2007-2010

Highlights Commission Chair 2007-2010
Commission 7 deals with land administration (“the process of determining recording and disseminating information about the ownership, value and use of land when implementing land management policies”, ref. UNECE Land Administration Guidelines 1996). Commission 7 established its concept of activities about 15 years ago. It is in line with the FIG long term strategy and selected topics to deal with Mr. Andras Ossko, Hungaria
  • advanced cadastre
  • creating secure land tenure
  • application of innovative, advance technology in land administration

Commission 7 aims

  • to provide a forum for enhancing knowledge about cadastre, land administration and land management world wide
  • to encourage the development of pro poor land management and land administration
  • to promote the importance of development of sustainable land administration as infrastructure for sustainable development to underpin economic growth
  • to promote the application of innovative and advanced technology in cadastre, land administration
  •  to promote awareness of the role of surveyors in land administration matters to the public and among stakeholders

Work Plan 2007-2010

The Commission activities followed the work plan basically but extended its work supporting participating and contributing actively in many FIG and other events relevant to Commission 7.

Annual meeting

The Commission 7 Annual meeting has been traditionally an important event for the Commission since many years. Commission 7 Annual meeting 2009 was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in October 12-16, 2009, together with a one-day International Open Symposium on “Progressing Towards Ubiquitous Cadastre”. The meeting was organized by the Commission in Cooperation with the Association of Authorised Land Surveyors Malaysia, PEJUTA. The chief organizer was Mr. Teo Chee Hai, Malaysian delegate and FIG Vice president who did an excellent job. The FIG Office helped the Commission in the registration for the Annual meeting.

More than 40 delegates from 22 countries participated in the event. The program followed the tradition of the Commission 7 Annual Meetings, three days meeting, one day open symposium and one day technical tour.

The meeting always starts with the introduction of the host country, information about the land surveyor profession, land administration activities, education, etc. These presentations used to be given by top officials but this time 4 young surveyors informed us about the current situation in Malaysia. It was a very good idea, delegates very much enjoyed it and Commission 7 followed FIG strategy to involve young surveyors in the FIG activities.

Commission chair András Osskó and working group chairs gave reports on the Commission 7 activities, including information about the major FIG events for those who were not able to attend. Working group chairs spoke about the progress of ongoing initiatives of the commission (Land Administration Domain Model-ISO acceptance, Social Tenure Domain Model, Cadastral Template, FLOSS Cadastre, etc.

Richard Grover UK delegate introduced a questionnaire on “Public, State Land management” which was circulated after the Annual meeting. The questionnaire was proposed by the Cyprus delegate Elia Elikkos. The topic is very live in every country hoping to have sufficient number of response to continue the work. All of the 22 national delegates gave a country report about the new developments in land administration and cadastre in 2008-2009.

The One-Day Open International Symposium on “Progressing towards Ubiquitous Cadastre” was a successful event. Besides the international delegates, more than 200 professionals attended from the host and neighbouring countries. Ubiquitous Cadastre is the next step after the e-Cadastre requires a very advanced e-technology. We could follow 12 very interesting presentations by Commission 7 delegates, Malaysian and other international professionals. FIG President Stig Enemark also participated in the Open Symposium presenting an excellent keynote paper “Facing the Global Challenges: the Importance of Land Governance and the Significance of the Cadastre”. Delegates visited the historical Malacca town. The technical tour included the visit to the Regional Cadastre Office and enjoyable sightseeing. In the Regional Cadastre Office we received many information about the development of e-cadastre in the region.

Work Plan

Preface

Commission 7 established its concept of activities about 15 years ago. It is in line with the FIG long term professional strategy and selected key topics to deal with

  • advanced cadastre
  • developing land administration
  • creating secure land tenure
  • application of innovative, advance technology in land administration

All topics are related to land administration matters. Developing, modernising land administration is an increasing demand by developed and developing countries world wide for many years.

During the last decade many new challenges have appeared – increasing focus on sustainable development, post conflict problems ( civil wars, tribal conflicts, etc.) increasing number of disasters, increasing gap between developed and developing world, rapid urbanisation in the developing world, etc. All the above challenges connected to land and property related activities. The profession has to find answer and solutions.

Several of the above challenges are being handled by existing cadastral, land management and land administration institutions, some of the existing institutions have not adapted to the challenges or been developed in an adequate manner. In bringing solution to the 21st. Centuries’ land and property related challenges, Commission 7 therefore believes that future orientated focus from the surveying profession is essential. The surveying profession must play an ever central role in the development and modernisation of cadastre, land management and land administration. The ultimate goal is to make land administration the proper infrastructure for sustainable development and to make land administration institutions developing sustainable solutions through land related activities.

To achieve Commission 7 concept, goals, involves efforts over a long period, therefore the commission wants to continue its professional work which was successful over the passed years. Of course there need to be some changes, new priorities have to be defined based on the last four years experience.

Following the FIG strategy, Commission 7 intends

  1. to continue its effort focusing on countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Middle East, CEE and provide meeting place as well
  2. Strengthening working relations co-operation with other FIG commissions
  3. To continue co-operation with UN organisations, agencies
  4. To find possibilities to co-operate with other professional organisations, NGOs, Dutch Kadaster, ITC, etc.
  5. Providing and disseminating information to the profession, national associations and authorities to develop and establish land administration systems
  6. Supporting the needs in different regions
 

Work Plan

 
     
Key Documents

 

Publications

 

Working Groups

Working Group 7.1 - Development of Pro Poor Land Management and Land Administration

Terms of reference

  • recognise and support the development of pro poor land management approaches
  • communicate, as far as possible, the FIG concepts in development of land policy and land management: land law, land tenure and security of tenure, land markets, land taxation, land use planning, land reform, land redistribution, post conflict land administration
  • identify (geometric) aspects related to social, informal land tenures
  • support the development of low cost, innovative, data acquisition methods
  • develop the social tenure domain model
  • contribute in the GLTN
  • propose a capacity building approach for pro poor land management

Chair

Mr. Christiaan Lemmen
ITC
The Netherlands
E-mail: lemmen[at]itc.nl 

Working Group 7.2 – Development Sustainable Land Administration to Support Sustainable Development

Terms of reference

  • investigate the necessary legal and institutional framework for the creation and development of sustainable development
  • identify other conditions for developing sustainable land administration
  • study solutions for developing land administration in post conflict areas
  • find simple, low cost solutions for creating sustainable land administration in developing countries
  • investigate improvements of land tenure security through new legal frameworks and new and better administrative tools
  • focus on solutions to combine formal land delivery process and customary approaches (neo-customary) land delivery process
  • study the role of gender-issues in creation of sustainable land administration development
  • analyse sensible forms of land taxation for funding land reform and upgrading programmes
  • identify and find solutions of assisting post conflict areas, disaster areas, etc. in rebuilding and maintain land administration after war and catastrophe of nature

Chair

Mr. Søren F. Christensen
KMS
Denmark
E-mail: sfc[at]kms.dk

Working group 7.3 – Application of Innovative Technology in Land Administration

Terms of reference

  • electronic conveyancing and governance
  • identify innovative and low cost technology to support the development for pro poor land management, land administration
  • identify innovative, advance technology for sustainable land administration
  • dealing with standards
  • focus on copyright and fee questions
  • dealing with identification and defining parcel boundaries
  • focus on national and international data infrastructure initiatives (SDI, INSPIRE)
  • 3D cadastre, land registry

Chair

Dr. Daniel Steudler
Switzerland
E-mail: Daniel.Steudler[at]swisstopo.ch