Review of Solutions for Open Land Administration (SOLA) Open Source Software Project

Project Narrative

Under the overall supervision of the Principal Officer, NRC, the Land Administration / LIS Consultant reviewed the SOLA Open Source software and its pilot implementations to assess whether the SOLA pilots do satisfactorily support cadastre and registration functions in those countries, whether the SOLA customisation process involving local teams of software developers was effective and resulted in up-skilling local software developers capable of providing in-country first level support to the SOLA based system in the future and whether the initial generic FAO developed SOLA software was appropriately generic to create a system to meet local cadastre and registration functions. The consultant was expected to make recommendations concerning improvements to the generic SOLA software and the SOLA customisation process to assist planning of future SOLA implementations.

Key project services

This work focused on the experience gained in the SOLA pilots and included:

1. Visits to each of the 3 pilot countries to observe the operation of the customised SOLA based systems and hold discussions with SOLA pilot country coordinators, registration and cadastre staff within the host land administration agencies and members of the SOLA pilot Customisation Teams.
2. Reviewing the future need for external (out of country) support for the pilot implementations and making recommendations as to how that support may be provided
3. A visit to Rome for discussions with FAO staff members (including the SOLA project coordinator and centrally based SOLA developer who have supported the Customisation Teams in the pilot countries).
4. Reviewing project documentation with particular attention to the progress made in meeting the recommendations of the SOLA Project Mid Term Review and the documentation and training material prepared for the pilot implementations;
5. An assessment of proposals to extend the SOLA software including but not limited to support for Mass Property Valuation, State Land Administration and Crowd Sourcing;
6. Identification of key measures to further strengthen the sustainability of the SOLA software; and
7. The preparation of  SOLA Pilots Technical Review reports identifying key issues raised through the consultant’s assessment of the SOLA pilot customisation’s and implementations with recommendations as to how the generic SOLA software and the SOLA customisation process can be strengthened.