Discussion of the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure
organized by the Habitat Professionals Forum
at the United Nations Special Session for an overall review and appraisal
of the implementation of the Habitat Agenda
New York, June 6th 2001
Keynote Introduction
Access to
Land and Security of Tenure as a Condition for Sustainable Human
Development
by Prof. Holger Magel, Vice President of the International
Federation of Surveyors
"Providing legal security of tenure and equal
access to land to all people" is one of the major claims of the
Habitat Agenda. Five years have been past since the Agenda has been
signed. Our objective as professional is today to review the achievements
that have been made since then but also to point out open questions and
key issues that have to be further developed and taken into account by the
currently running global campaign for secure tenure.
Security of tenure is closely linked to two central
objectives of international policies: the right to adequate housing or
shelter and sustainable natural resource management. Security of tenure is
therefore a condition for both: sustainable urban and rural
development. Consequently, all activities, programs, planning, projects
etc. focusing on secure tenure have to be part of an integrated,
comprehensive approach. This has to include decentralization and the
strengthening of local authorities, community participation in tenure
regularization and land development, integration of informal settlements
and land development, improving women's access to land, formal private
sector participation including public-private partnerships, adequate
norms, standards and procedures for facilitating implementation and
financing and so on as stated in the New Delhi Declaration (1996). In
addition, norms such as subsidiarity, equity, efficiency and transparency
have to be respected. Brief, access to land and security of tenure are
closely related to the second global campaign, the one on urban
governance.
Agenda 21 and the Habitat Agenda provide concrete
programs for related actions to be taken by governments, the private
sector and non-governmental organizations including professionals like
planners, architects, surveyors and lawyers. In Agenda 21, the importance
of access to land and security of tenure are underlined in chapter 7
"promoting sustainable human settlements" and in chapter
14 "promoting sustainable agriculture and rural development".
In the Habitat Agenda, security of tenure is addressed to in the Global
Plan of Action as well as in the Commitments in connection with the
objective to achieve adequate shelter for all.
The implementation of these legally binding
international policy papers requires the readjustment of most
institutional and organizational aspects dealing with land:
- Land tenure
as the way in which the rights, restrictions and
responsibilities that people have with respect to land are held;
- Land administration
as the process of determining, recording and
disseminating information about the tenure, value and use of land;
- Land management
meaning the activities associated with the
management of land as an environmental, an economic and – in my
opinion also – a socio-cultural resource such as land use planning and
finally
- Land policy
which has to provide the legal base for all these
activities according to the individual situation of a country by
simultaneously respecting and guaranteeing human rights.
These definitions have been widely agreed upon. They
are part of the Bathurst Declaration which has been adopted by several UN
agencies, the World Bank and FIG in 1999.
Recognizing that security of tenure includes measures
related to land tenure, land administration, land management and land
policy, key factors for a successful secure tenure campaign therefore are:
- A widely accepted national land policy;
- The recognition of informal (including customary) land rights;
- A cadastral system and register – as the main part of local
administration systems – adopted to local conditions and accessible
by the local people;
- A functional, however simple (cost effective), land valuation
system;
- Adequate procedures for land readjustment and land consolidation;
- Legal recognition of formal and informal institutions for conflict
resolution;
- Spatial Data Infrastructure and other surveying and mapping
infrastructure;
- Inter-sectoral land use planning as an important objective of land
management;
- Effective and efficient project management;
- People’s participation: participation of NGOs and CBOs and
strengthening of Civil Society.
The success and sustainability of any project of this
kind as good as it might be designed always also depends on having the
appropriate personnel to implement it. Therefore, capacity building for
public institutions as well as for citizens and NGOs has to be an integral
part of all projects concerning land issues.
It goes without words that successful and sustainable
urban planning, construction and investment has to be based on clear and
secure regulations of land access, land use and land administration.
Recent experiences in Eastern Germany and in countries in transition have
once again underlined this fact. They also highlighted the importance of
land readjustment.
Encouraging achievements
Since Istanbul many improvements have been achieved
regarding security of tenure. Above all, the aspect has been discussed at
many international conferences and has been included in their final
statements and in numerous additional declarations. To name only some of
them:
- World Summit on Social Development (Copenhagen 1995);
- World Women’s Conference (Beijing 1995);
- World Food Summit (Rome 1996);
and having special focus on land administration issues
- The UN-FIG Bogor Declaration on Cadastral Reform (United Nations
Interregional Meeting of Experts on the Cadastre, Bogor (Indonesia)
1996);
- The UN-FIG Bathurst Declaration on Land Administration for
Sustainable Development (UN-FIG Conference, Melbourne, 1999);
- The Potsdam Statement on Rural Development" (Rural 21, Potsdam
2000);
- The Bonn Statement on Access to Land (Bonn 2001).
In addition, many bi- and multilateral institutions for
development cooperation have launched campaigns on secure tenure and
introduced new programs on land policy, land management, cadastre etc.
Beside individual projects in developing and transitional countries, the
exchange between donors played an important role in the past five years.
Video and internet conferences such as the one on "cities without
slums" and the internet conference on land policy recently conducted
by the World Bank and UNCHS (Cities Alliance) have been successfully
carried out.
Furthermore, numerous publications – guidelines,
reports, documentations on this issue – have been prepared; often in
cooperation by different bi- or multilateral organizations. The
international cooperation among different institutions in the field of
tenure security has to be applauded for. Rarely, inter-institutional
cooperation has been so much extended as in this case where donors, NGOs,
professionals’ organizations and universities work together.
Also, research on tenure security and related issues
has increased. Research networks such as IRGLUS (International Group on
Law and Urban Space) and N-AERUS (Network-Association of European
Researchers on Urbanization in the South) focus on tenure. University
programs, formerly mainly concentrating on technical aspects such as land
administration or spatial planning, now increasingly integrate legal and
social aspects of land management. Capacity building still remains a very
crucial aspect for sustainable land management.
The commitments of the professionals – FIG as an example
Being aware, that the implementation of Habitat Agenda
needs for an integrated holistic approach within many others aspects the
co-operation of planners, architects, surveyors, lawyers and experts on
different fields, these international NGOs have decided to organize a
Professionals Forum as a platform of co-operation and interchange of ideas
and knowledge.
The International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) as
partner of this Habitat Professionals Forum is an international NGO, whose
purpose is to support international collaboration for the progress of
surveying in a wide sense: from cadastre, mapping, survey engineering,
photogrammetry, remote sensing, Spatial Data Management to land
management, valuation and urban and rural planning. Nearly 100 countries
are represented in FIG.
With respect to the above mentioned need and demand for
capacity building, FIG’s intention is to contribute to fill this gap. To
name just some of the activities pursued to support capacity building:
- organization of conferences and seminars by the nine commissions
such as for example those in Mexico City, Nairobi and Delft in
cooperation with the World Bank, the United Nations and UN FAO and
UNCHS (Habitat);
- implementation of an education database;
- introduction of academic membership;
- publication and dissemination of brochures such as the FIG
Guidelines on Women’s Access to Land or FIG Agenda 21;
- support of member associations.
Together with ITC, Netherlands Kadaster, Service New
Brunswick and the University of New Brunswick a workshop on capacity
building in land administration for developing countries has been realized
last autumn in Enschede to draft a new vision for the way forward in
building international capacity in land administration. Our FIG-UN-Liaison
Director Ian Williamson has been among the participants as well as
representatives of Commission 2 (on education) and 7 (on cadastre and land
management).
In cooperation with FAO, GTZ and TU Munich FIG is
actually participating in further activities on capacity building such as
an international conference on land tenure in Eastern Europe and the
introduction of a Master’s Program "Land Tenure and Land
Management" to train future experts working in developing and
transitional countries. Mainly supported by TU-Munich, GTZ and DAAD, this
postgraduate program is a further example of German and international
cooperation on land management as representatives of bi- and multilateral
donor organizations, FIG and different German as well as foreign
universities are among the lecturers.
Pleased by the many activities at the international
level, we should, however, not forget to have a look at the impacts of
these measures at national and local level. In most developing countries
especially in Africa, national land policies have been introduced in the
last few years. National cadastral systems are actually being implemented
in most transitional as well as in Asian and Latin American countries.
Generally, evictions of squatter settlements belong to the past, informal,
especially customary, rights and institutions are increasingly recognized,
cost efficient, however, effective municipal land registers and cadastral
systems are introduced in pilot regions, first attempts have been made
with private-public-partnership.
Experience has contributed to important lessons learnt:
It has become common knowledge that access to land is more important than
ownership, that access to land has to be broadened to resource tenure
including water and forest rights, that a focus is needed on the
regulatory framework, that legalization of informal settlements has to be
accompanied by the integration into the urban fabric, that locally adopted
systems are more effective than the import of sophisticated, time and cost
intensive Western models, brief: the euphoria that the solely distribution
of titles will solve all problems related to land had to be reconsidered.
The idea that by giving titles to informal settlers, land markets will
work and squatters will have access to credit which together will lead to
the up-grading of the informal settlement and to the reduction of poverty
had to be questioned. Why should a bank give credit to someone who owns a
shabby shack in an inundation area at the periphery of the city far from
every infrastructure? Also, still today some people believe in ‘the
mystery of capital’ (de Soto 2000), it has long been clear, that the
market by itself won’t make it. Instead of delegating the whole
responsibility to the market, governments and parliaments have to improve
access to land by groups whose needs are not met by the market. The state
should regulate the supply of land for housing, ensuring that land can be
acquired by different means and that the norms it establishes are
respected. Therefore, national land policies determining the roles of all
actors involved are a crucial precondition for the realization of tenure
security. This has to include – and normally does – a commitment to
the decentralization of land administration and land management.
Future challenges
It should have become clear that although we know a lot
about how to achieve security of tenure, there still remain open questions
we have to provide the answers for. The major challenges, I see for the
future are:
- First of all the implementation of recently established national
land policies;
- Second, a clear definition of the role of the market; its assets and
limits;
- Third, a clear distinction of responsibilities between the public,
private-profit and the private-non-profit sector and consequently
- Fourth, reorganization and implementation of land administration
systems and
- Fifth, addressing the issue of power: it is not uncommon for the
land administration agency to be considered one of the most corrupt
government agencies in a developing country, respectively retarding or
preventing the implementation of land policy reforms;
- Sixth, widening land tenure to resource tenure and integrating the
demand for security of tenure in international agreements on natural
resource management such as the convention to combat desertification (CCD);
- And last but not least, further promotion and development of
capacity building in land management and land tenure.
With this in mind, I propose the following issues for
discussion:
- To what extend do people actually need property titles? What tenure
alternatives are available?
- What are the basic components of a land administration strategy
(cadastral tool box)?
- What could be performance indicators to monitor the impact of land
administration?
- How can Civil Society be further integrated?
- What is the appropriate role of the public sector?
- What can be done by the market?
- What are the chances and limits of private-public-partnership?
- How to deal with corruption related to land?
- How can capacity building further be improved?
- How can the role as well as the mutual understanding and
co-operation of architects, planners, surveyors and other
professionals be improved?
- In which fields the professional associations should become more
active?
Literature
De Soto, Hernando: The Mystery of Capital. New York
2000.
Durand-Lasserve, Alain: Law and Urban Change in
Developing Countries: Trends and Issues. In: Fernandes, Edésino and Ann
Verley (ed.): Illegal Cities - Law and Urban Change in Developing
Countries. London 1998, p. 233 – 257.
FIG: FIG Agenda 21. FIG Publication No 23.
Frederiksberg, May 2001.
FIG: FIG Guidelines on Women’s Access to Land, FIG
Publication No 24, Frederiksberg, May 2001
Groot, Richard and Paul van der Molen (ed.): Workshop
on Capacity Building in Land Administration for Developing Countries.
Enschede 2001.
UNCHS: The Global Campaign for Good Urban Governance.
Concept Paper. Draft 5. 20 November 2000.
UNCHS et al.: HABITAT II – Global Conference on
Access to Land and Security of Tenure as a Condition for Sustainable
Shelter and Urban Development. New Delhi Declaration. Global Platform on
Access to Land and Security of Tenure as a Conditions for Sustainable
Shelter and Urban Development. New Delhi, January 1996.
Williamson, Ian: Review of the "Land
Administration" section of the World Bank Review Paper titled
"Land Policy and administration: Lessons learned and new challenges
for the Bank’s development agenda. Melbourne, March 2001.
Contact
Univ. Prof. Dr-Ing. Holger Magel
Vice President of FIG
Chair of Land Readjustment and Land Development
Technische Universität München
Institute of Geodesy, GIS and Land Management
Arcisstrasse 21
D-80290 München
GERMANY
Tel. + 49 89 289 22535
Fax + 49 89 289 23933
E-mail: magel@landentwicklung-muenchen.de
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