Participatory and Inclusive Land Readjustment recognized at eighth FIG conference

The International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) recently held its eighth regional conference in Montevideo, Uruguay which acknowledged Participatory and Inclusive Land Readjustment (PILaR) as a governance tool to reduce slums and promote orderly extension.

The approach, which FIG lead Teo CheeHai underlined as overdue, has been a point of cooperation between FIG and GLTN/UN-Habitat.

While making reference to the work UN-Habitat’s two-year program on land readjustment, GLTN’s Solomon Haile also highlighted the need to have efficient information systems in place.

“We introduced the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM), a pro-poor land information system developed by GLTN partners, to the surveyors who were quite intrigued by the innovation,” reports Haile. The system, already piloted in Mbale, Uganda, services the land information needs of the poor and undocumented.

Presentations on PILar took into account the critical role surveyors, as land managers, play in sensitising expert stakeholders as a lead in into the FIG’s Working Week in 2013 which will take place in Abuja, Nigeria.

The three-day meeting further allowed the Young Surveyors Network to engage GLTN’s youth focal point, Toril Iren, in looking at youth responsiveness in the land sector with particular interest in sustainability ahead of the UN-Habitat’s Youth Fund meeting Morocco. The meeting, which will host the Youth Fund winners will bring to the table both technical and non-technical contributors to deliberate on, among others, issues of youth and land.

The International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) leads the International professional bodies cluster under the Global Land Tool Network of partners.