Vice President Chryssy Potsiou participates in International Seminar on Land Administration and Management

12 April 2011 Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo

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Murat Meha, chief of the Kosova Cadastral Agency and Vice President Chryssy Potsiou

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All participants of the Seminar
 

The “International Seminar on Land Administration and Management” was organized in Prishtina, Kosova, on the 12th of April 2011, by Geo-SEE and its President Prof Bashkim Idrizi from FY Republic of Macedonia and Kosova Cadastral Agency and its Chief Executive Officer Prof Murat Meha and was supported by FIG, AGISEE and Geography department of SUT. The main sponsors were Astrium, GIZ, GeoConnexion and Vector1Media, and the Albanian Association of Geodesy.

It was a well organized and very important Seminar for the region that was attended by 94 participants from 34 organizations from 13 different European countries. The technical Program included 2 sessions with 13 presentations that can be found at the Seminar’s web site http://LandAM.geo-see.org, as well as 2 technical/marketing presentations made by Astrium and GIZ.

There were 2 keynote speeches, one made by Prof. Chryssy Potsiou who represented FIG with a title: “Compulsory Purchase and Compensation in EU-Land Takings in Greece”, and another by Prof. Murat Meha, Kosova, Chief Executive Officer of Kosova Cadastral Agency, Kosova, with a title: “Land administration and management in small countries and Kosova”.

Based on the abstracts, presentations, keynote speeches and discussions, the resolutions of this Seminar can be summarized as following:

  • Security of legal rights, land registration, administration and management are an ongoing project in most countries in the region of South-East Europe (SEE);
  • Land registration process is one of the main challenges of all cadastral agencies in the region of SEE;
  • Land administration and land management are quite young terms that emerged during the last decades of the 20th century;
  • Land policies are changing in the 21st century, and there is a need to develop appropriate land tools;
  • There is lack of understanding of the importance of land administration and land management among governmental institutions;
  • Decision makers are not so familiar with the necessity of land administration and management;
  • There are no completed operational Land Parcel Identification Systems in the region of SEE;
  • Digital land data are under the developing process in the developing countries in the region;
  • Many governmental institutions are responsible for land administration and management, without fixed rules and responsibilities within the state system;
  • Main actors of land administration and land management systems within the governmental institutions in the countries of SEE are cadastral and mapping agencies, ministries and agencies for agriculture and forestry, as well as the ministries and agencies for spatial planning and environment;
  • There is a lack of cooperation between the state institutions, NGO’s, private sector and end users;
  • Law and regulations are similar, but they vary among the countries,
  • Interpretation and enforcement of Law is important;
  • Defining the policy, strategy and the legal aspects are the first steps toward SDI developing;
  • There are no clear defined strategies for development on land administration and management;
  • Non harmonized data is one of the main problems while developing the land datasets within the responsible governmental organizations;
  • Coordinate reference frames should be the basis for developing land datasets;
  • Land administration and land management systems are fundamental necessary tool for regional, urban, rural and physical planning and management.

Participants agreed to continue to contribute on:

  • Increase understanding and awareness about land administration and land management;
  • To promote building land administration and land management systems;
  • Develop and improve security systems for land owners;
  • Harmonized increase cooperation between all stakeholders such as state institutions, NGO, private sector, academia, and citizens;
  • Create LPIS platforms based on various utilized software;
  • Show the importance of land administration and land management systems in sub-national/national up to the global level;
  • Harmonize data coming from various sources-institutions;
  • Define and improve the legal basis, policies and strategies for developing, maintenance and utilization of LPIS;
  • Encouraging the re-use of public sector information in the land data context;
  • Strengthen the land networking activities in the SEE region.

Participants have agreed that Geo-SEE (South-East European Research Association on Geo Sciences) and Kosova Cadastral Agency (KCA) in cooperation with the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) will organize a follow-up seminar within 2 years to address the current Land Administration and Management needs and assess the progress in the South-Eastern European region.

Chairs:
Murat MEHA, Kosova, Chairman
Chryssy POTSIOU, Greece, Vice-Chairman
Bashkim IDRIZI, FY Republic of Macedonia, Vice-Chariman

7 July 2011