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President Stig Enemark and Vice-President
Matt Higgins attended the World Bank Annual Conference on Land
Policy and Administration, Washington DC, 26-27 April 2010.
The conference was a follow up to the conference in
March 2009 organised jointly between World Bank and FIG. This year,
however, the contribution from FIG was limited due to the FIG
Congress in Sydney taking place just prior to the WB annual
conference.
The background of the conference relates to the
challenges posed by recent global developments, especially
urbanization, increased and more volatile food prices, and climate
change. These challenges have raised the profile of land and the
need for countries to have appropriate land policies. However,
efforts to improve country-level land governance are often
frustrated by technical complexities, institutional fragmentation,
vested interests, and lack of a shared vision on how to move towards
good land governance and measuring progress in concrete settings.
There is a need for the World Bank and their
partners, such as FIG, to act in a collaborative and coordinated
fashion for taking the land governance agenda forward. The
conference aimed to increase awareness of the successful
implementation of innovative approaches which can help to not only
improve land governance, but also contribute to the well-being of
the poorest and the achievement of the MDGs.
The conference was organized around three themes:
Large Scale Agricultural Investments; Land Governance; and Research
and Capacity Building.
The theme on Land Governance included presentations
from President Stig Enemark on “From Cadastre to Land
Governance: The Role of Land Professionals and FIG”; Vice
President
Matt Higgins on: “Global positioning infrastructures and
their relevance to building sustainable land administration systems”;
and Chair Elect of FIG Commission 7 Daniel Roberge on: “Reconstruction
in Haiti: A land rights infrastructure to support its sustainable
development”.
The conference was attended by 300 invited experts
from throughout the world. It included about 25 sessions with around
100 presentations. Proceedings are available at the WB website:
http://go.worldbank.org/IN4QDO1U10.
Sessions were well attended… |
...from throughout the world. |
The conference also had a book launch session that
included a new joint WB/FIG/UN-HABITAT/FAO publication on “Innovations
in Land Rights Recognition, Administration and Governance”
drawing from papers presented mainly at the joint FIG/WB conference
in March 2009. The book is available online at the WB website see
below. The session also included launching the book on “Land
Administration for Sustainable Development” by Williamson,
Enemark, Wallace, and Rajabifard, see:
http://www.fig.net/news/news_shortstories.htm
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The closing session provided an excellent overview of the
challenges ahead presented by two rapporteurs from each of
the three themes. The session was chaired by Ms. Inga
Klevby, Deputy Executive Director UN-HABITAT (third from
the right). The conference organiser Dr. Klaus Deininger
from the World Bank is at the far right.
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Finally, following the Joint FIG/WB conference in
March 2009 and the outcome in terms of the joint FIG/WB publication
on “Land
Governance in Support of the MDGs - a new agenda for land
professionals” (FIG publication no 45), the conference also
provided an excellent opportunity to discuss about the agenda for
the future FIG/WB partnership to be included in the FIG work plan
for the years ahead.
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