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After an extended process of conceptualising, developing, and pilot testing, the Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) in collaboration with the World Bank, is now being rolled out in Benin, Rwanda and Mozambique. A final Economic Sector Work report on LGAF will also be published in the near future by the World Bank.

For the past 12 months LEI have been assisting the Government of Yemen to deliver improved land services under a new land agency GALSUP (General Authority for Land Survey and Urban Planning). We assisted the Government of Yemen in formulating a national and local level policy and regulatory framework for public land management, land registration, and urban planning following the consolidation of these activities in GALSUP.

On the 14th and 15th April LEI were involved in organising the first Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Workshop during the Sydney FIG Congress 2010. More than 40 island state representatives from the Pacific, Caribbean and Africa joined fellow international land practitioners to discuss the latest developments and challenges facing land administration and management.

After 9 years and two phases of the Philippines-Australia Land Administration and Management Project LEI have sadly closed the project office on 30 June 2010. Much has been achieved on this project.

Hello, my name is Mark Williams. For those that don’t know me I am the latest in a long line of Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development (AYAD) volunteering on the Lao Land Titling Project II. I am a GIS/IT Officer and within my 8 months here in Laos, have been working on a variety of projects with a range of organisations.

As LEI’s successful and committed team of national and international staff close project operations of Phase 2 on the Lao Land Titling Project we reflect on the impact of over 15 years of donor assistance.

LEI have been managing the Land Administration and Management Project (LAMP) for AusAID in the Philippines since 2001. The project has focused on institutional reform, policy development, improving tenure security through land registration, and introducing valuation reform.

It has been an exciting 6 months for LEI with our strategy to target new projects in Africa starting to come to fruition. We have had two recent project wins in Lesotho being awarded an MCA contract for a Systematic Land Regularisation and Land Allocation Project in July 2009 and being formally notified of our success in bidding for a second project, Modernisation of Land Services and Institutional Strengthening, in August 2009.

LEI is supporting the US company ARD in implementing a USAID-funded project aimed at addressing property rights and land tenure issues in Timor Leste. Land tenure has experienced a rather tenuous history in Timor-Leste. Formerly known as East Timor, the country was occupied as a colony of Portugal for some 450 years, experienced three years of Japanese occupation during WW2, some twenty five years of Indonesian occupation following its first attempts at independence late 1975, through to formal acceptance of independence in May 2002. During each of these occupations, some property rights were granted. However, since independence, no property rights have been issued and no former rights are recognised, as no land law under the new Government yet exist.

Since our last newsletter, AusAID has approved the restructure of the technical assistance team, which will see all our national adviser positions extended up to the official end of AusAID’s Phase 2, in November 2008. t also permits some additional international cadastral inputs, to help the TA team to finalise its capacity-building program. AusAID has also approved the proposal for an extension of technical assistance to June 2009, to correspond with the official end of the World Bank Phase 2.

LEI has had some good news over the last quarter with AusAID advising of their intention to extend the contract for two years to complete the 5 year commitment of development assistance to LAMPII. This will see LAMP II continue till January 2011.

This short article is written to raise awareness of the ever present theme of gender and the making of inroads towards positive social development by Kate Dalrymple. After a pleasing response to the Laos Community Education and Gender Lessons presentation made at the Knowledge Sharing Workshop, I’m following up with some general discussion for practitioners in our industry to consider. Conveniently, this coincides with the Global Land Tools Network (www.gltn.net) forum discussion on gender responsive land tools (Sept 8 – Oct 15, 2008) which I encourage you all to visit.