Sound land administration and land management support many goals of the United Nations, including secure tenure for peoples’ homes, environmental protection, disaster risk mitigation, conflict prevention and economic development. In the region of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) , many agencies work to improve land administration and land management through strengthened property registers, improved geospatial data collection, easier cross-border property transfers, more transparent and accessible land data, and much more.
On 21 May 2014, the UNECE Working Party on Land Administration (WPLA) hosted a meeting of key international agencies in order to discuss how to better work together in order to use land management to improve the quality of life of people in the region. High-level representatives from the Council of European Geodetic Surveyors, EuroGeographics, the European Land Information Service, the European Land Registry Association, the International Federation of Surveyors, the Permanent Committee on Cadastre in the European Union and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme participated in this meeting.
Participants came away with an agreement to work to coordinate activities, such as collecting data from member States, and to try to develop a common statement of goals for the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development to take place on 2016. They also agreed to work together to examine other key issues in the UNECE region, such as informal, unplanned housing and the development of address registers.
The conference preceded a half-day workshop hosted by the European Land Information Service and a two-day workshop hosted by the Danish Geodata Agency and WPLA on, “The Socioeconomic Potential of Land Administration Services”. This last workshop examined how land registration data can support effective land administration through an exchange of experiences on developing open and interoperable property data systems and related applications. The development of such systems is essential to protecting consumers, developing efficient land registration services and encouraging property markets which can attract capital and drive economic growth. In addition, related applications can be used to support more efficient government and private sector services.
For more information on the UNECE and its work to develop land management in its region, please visit www.unece.org/hlm/welcome.html or contact:
Michael Milligan
Housing and Land Management Unit
Email: [email protected]