How do we design land transaction system investments? A State of Practice report.

Land transaction systems are often reviewed as part of land administration reform. And what we know is that land administration reform is difficult. There is a long history of paper-records and the digitisation of these – and associated processes – and it is not always straightforward, with both technical and social challenges. Yet reform is important, particularly to ensure land transaction systems effectively protect land rights and ‘unlock capital’ to support the livelihoods of men and women. Well developed, digital land administration information and transaction systems (Land IT Systems) further provide a solid spatial information base for governments to provide critical services and generate revenue through land valuation, taxation, and value-added services.

Over the past few months we’ve worked with a local digital design team and are pleased to invite you to revisit our website. It boasts a fresh new look, improved site navigation and for us, greater usability to share our news and project updates. We hope you enjoy browsing … www.landequity.com.au.

Interest in joining the Summer School on Mekong Land Relations increased almost three-fold this year. We wish all the participants an informative and motivating week-long session from 14th-19th July 2019 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. To think that only 2 years ago, 130 people were applying for the 24 places on offer, and now more than 320 have applied. We at LEI are very proud of our enthusiastic and dedicated partners at RCSD, the University of Chiang Mai’s Regional Centre for Social Science and Sustainable Development, for persisting and encouraging young academics to engage in the difficult discussion space of land issues in the Mekong, in particular land and forest tenure security.

The Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held their second Regional Land Forum in Bangkok on 28-30 May 2018.

Here at LEI and Gret’s Mekong Region Land Governance project we are moving towards the end of Phase 1 in June. We expect a relatively seamless shift into the second phase, which is anticipated to start in July this year, for another four years.

The year has gone quickly for the LEI team working on the One Map Technical Assistance project in Indonesia. The primary objective of this technical assistance was to assist with the project preparation of the One Map Project – a project to support the implementation and acceleration of Indonesia’s One Map Policy. Working alongside the two implementing agencies – the National Land Agency (BPN) and the Geospatial Information Agency (BIG) – as well as the World Bank, the LEI team prepared a series of background and project preparation reports detailing the project design of the One Map Project. These are now ready for review and appraisal by the Government of Indonesia and the World Bank, and the project wrapped up at the beginning of February.

At the age of 60, Ibrahim Ng’wala a husband of six wives with 17 children has lived his entire life in the village known as Nyange. This village is located nearby the famous Kilombero Sugar Company Limited in Kilombero district, Morogoro Region.

Tanzania’s Land Tenure Support Programme (LTSP) has again demonstrated that there is strong national and sectoral leadership and commitment to improved land service delivery and transparency in Tanzania. In any land project there is always a need for strong communication and coordination within and between government and non-government stakeholders. The LTSP has recently established a Multi Stakeholder Group (MSG) to best facilitate and improve inter-agency cooperation, in support of land tenure reform as envisioned under the Strategic Plan for Implementation of Land Laws (SPILL) 2013.

From the 4th to the 8th of December 2017, the International Federation of Surveyors (or FIG in French), held the annual meetings of Commission 7 and Commission 9 in the city of Cartagena, Colombia. The president of the organising committee was Dr Daniel Paez, a LEI Land Specialist based at our headquarters in Wollongong. LEI was a main sponsor of the event.

The Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project is currently undertaking a planned program of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities. These are designed to assess the effectiveness of some of the MRLG Learning and Alliance (L&A) and Grant-funded activities.