Land Administration Guidelines –Ian

Land Administration Guidelines –Ian Williamson - 5 August , 2000 –Page 1
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LAND POLICY REFORM
Jakarta, 25-27 July 2000
LAP-C Project
Support for Long Term Development of Land Management Policies
IRBD Loan No 3792-IND
BEST PRACTICES FOR LAND ADMINISTRATION SYSTEMS IN
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
IAN P. WILLIAMSON
Professor of Surveying and Land Information
Department of Geomatics
The University of Melbourne
Parkville,
Victoria, AUSTRALIA
Email: i.williamson@eng.unimelb.edu.au
From July-October, 2000
La nd Administration Consultant
The World Bank
DECRG,
1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433, USA
Email: iwilliamson@worldbank.org
Abstract
This paper provides an introduction to best practice in land administration systems. It draws on
a number of key documents such as the Land Administration Guidelines produced for the
United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Europe (1996), the International Federation of
Surveyors (FIG) Statement on the Cadastre (1995), the UN-FIG Bogor Declaration on
Cadastral Reform(1996), the FIG Cadastre 2014 publication (1998) and the UN-FIG Bathurst
Declaration on Land Administration for Sustainable Development (1999).
It also draws on a wide range of publications concerned with best practice in the development
of cadastral and land administration infrastructures, as well as the author’s experience over
many years. While the paper is focussed on world’s best practice, it does so in the context of
developing and emerging industrial countries such as Indonesia which have diverse land tenure
relationships ranging from areas in cities with active land markets approaching modern land
markets, to whole provinces which are almost completely under traditional or customary tenure.
While the paper recognises that each country has different requirements for cadastral and land
administration infrastructures due to their specific social, legal, cultural, economic, institutional
and administrative circumstances, the paper highlights some common principles in the design
Land Administration Guidelines –Ian Williamson - 5 August , 2000 –Page 2
and implementation of l and administration infrastructures that are usually applicable for
countries such as Indonesia, either now or in the foreseeable future. Importantly not all
principles will be applicable for all countries.
The paper discusses the principles under the following headings:
1. Land policy principles
2. Land tenure principles
3. Land administration and cadastral principles
4. Institutional principles
5. Spatial data infrastructure principles
6. Technical principles
7. Human resource development principles
The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of developing a vision for a land
administration system within each country.
Land Administration Guidelines –Ian Williamson - 5 August , 2000 –Page 3
Introduction
This paper provides an introduction to best practice in land administration
systems. It draws on a number of key documents such as the Land
Administration Guidelines produced for the United Nations (UN) Economic
Commission for Europe (1996), the International Federation of Surveyors
(FIG) Statement on the Cadastre (1995), the UN - FIG Bogor Declaration on
Cadastral Reform (1996), the FIG Cadastre 2014 publication (1998) and the
UN- FIG Bathurst Declaration on Land Administration for Sustainable
Development (1999). It also draws on a wide range of publications concerned
with best practice in the development of cadastral and land administration
infrastructures, as well as the author’s experience over many years. While the
paper is focussed on world’s best practice, it does so in the context of
developing and emerging industrial countries such as Indonesia which have
diverse land tenure relationsh ips ranging from areas in cities with active land
markets approaching modern land markets, to whole provinces which are
almost completely under traditional or customary tenure.
In particular the paper adopts the recommendations from both the Bogor
Declaration and Bathurst Declaration.
While the paper recognises that each country has different requirements for
cadastral and land administration infrastructures due to their specific social,
legal, cultural, economic, institutional and administrative circumst ances, the
paper highlights some common principles in the design and implementation of
land administration infrastructures that are usually applicable for countries such
as Indonesia, either now or in the foreseeable future. Importantly not all
principles will be applicable for all countries.
A Land Administration Reform Framework
In undertaking land administration reform by drawing on “Best practices in
land administration”, it is important to consider the factors that affect the
reform and the choice o f the specific strategies adopted. These factors are many
and varied which re- enforces the statement that the land administration system
for each country requires its own individual strategy. On the other hand
strategies can be developed using the “tool box” approach. That is each specific
strategy and resulting system can be made up of many separate, well
understood, proven and widely accepted components (see for example Holstein
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(1996a), Dale and McLaughlin (1988) and (1999), UNECE (1996), UN - FIG
(1996) and (1999)).
In designing a strategy it is important to recognise that almost every country
will require a range of different strategies depending on the relationship of
humankind to land in each specific region in the specific country. In simple
terms th ese arrangements include:
?? Cities and urban areas, where active land markets operate on titled land,
?? Cities and urban areas, occupied by informal settlements (squatter, illegal or
low cost systems outside the formal or regulatory structures),
?? High value ag ricultural lands which are titled and are part of the formal land
market,
?? Private untitled lands in rural areas and villages,
?? Informal or illegal settlements in rural areas, especially in government
forests,
?? Lands which are subject to indigenous rights, su ch as Adat lands in
Indonesia,
?? Lands in all categories which are the subject of claims from previously
dispossessed persons, and
?? Government or state lands, reserves and forests
To some degree these categories are common to all developing (and many
developed) countries.
The next consideration is that the relationship of humankind to land is dynamic
with the result that there is an evolution in the each of these categories. None
of these relationships stay the same in the long term. They are affected by th e
impact of the global drivers on the relationship of humankind to land such as
sustainable development, urbanisation, globalisation, economic reform and
environmental management, and the stage of development of the specific
country. In simple terms in theAsian - Pacific area for example there are four
general categories of countries:
?? Developed countries, such as Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and
Singapore,
?? Newly industrialised countries or countries in transition, such as PRC,
Indonesia, Thailand, M alaysia and the Philippines,
?? Countries at an early stage of development such as Vietnam and Laos, and
?? Island states such as Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu.
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While each country has different development priorities, those in each group do
share some similar priorities. A complication is that many countries do not fit
easily into these categories with some countries having aspects of all
categories. But in general the stage of development overall of an individual
country does significantly influence the choice of whi ch land administration
strategies are adopted.
The combination of these factors determine or at least strongly influence, the
specific strategy or strategies adopted in reforming or establishing the land
administration system. These strategies draw on theland administration and
cadastral “tool box” for their institutional, legal, technical and administrative
solutions.
For example there is a whole range of surveying and mapping technologies and
approaches depending on what is the stage of development of the country and
what is the major relationship of humankind to land which is being surveyed or
mapped. These options include sporadic and systematic approaches, graphical
and mathematical surveys, different positioning technologies such as satellite
positioning or scaling off photomaps, different mapping technologies such as
photomaps, topographic mapping and simple cadastral maps.
In addition there is a whole range of options for the recording or determination
of land tenure relationships. There are government guaranteed land titles, deeds
registration systems, title insurance systems, qualified titles (both to boundaries
and title), individual ownership and communal ownership.
For all these arrangements there are a range of technologies which are again
strongly influenced by the wealth and development of the country. For example
whether titles or deeds and cadastral maps will be computerised or held as
paper records or whether the Internet can be utilised to access land records.
Institutional arrangemen ts are influenced by the same factors. Whether the
system is decentralised, deconcentrated or centralised. The level of education
and training in a country. For example if Indonesia wished to have a land
administration system supported by a land title andcadastral surveying system
similar to Australia for example, this could possibly require 40,000 professional
land surveyors and 30 or more university programs educating professional
surveyors (based on Steudler et al,1997). Clearly this is not realistic and as a
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result this re - enforces t