The importance of enhancing land registration and cadastre : some general considerations
Molen, Paul van der
Backgroundpaper to the conference.
Land and the way governments deal with the land, are issues of major importance in the development of society. This does not go unnoticed at global level. In the Global Plan of Action for Sustainable Development, as adopted by the Rio Conference 1992 (Agenda 21), global objectives of combating poverty, sustainable settlement, sustainable agriculture and forestry, are directly related to the land issue. According to the Plan of Action, strengthening legal frameworks for land management and land ownership is strongly recommended to facilitate access to land for the urban and rural poor, to create efficient and accessible land markets, to establish appropriate forms of land tenure that provide security for all land users especially for indigenous people. Another Plan of Action, as adopted by the HABITAT II Conference in Istanbul 1996, considered sustainable housing not only as a roof above onees head, but also as having enough room, access to land and security of tenure. This Plan advocated providing sufficient legal security of land ownership and land use, an equal distribution of land to all people and protection against illegitimate expulsion. Governments should furthermore, as it says, aim to provide legal frameworks facilitating the land market, by clarifying the definition of land tenure and property rights, by creating clear procedures for transfer of rights, by establishing a transparent and reviewable market, by encouraging access to land especially for women, and by creating fiscal systems providing opportunities for adequate housing. One new initiative is the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure launched last December by the UN Commission on Human Settlements (Habitat) as a follow-up to the Istanbul Conference. The Campaign states that insecure tenure inhibits investment in housing, hinders good governance, promotes social exclusion, undermines long-term planning, distorts prices of land and services, reinforces poverty, and adversely affects women and children. Action point number 1 is the struggle against forced eviction, as the UN feels that forced eviction constitutes a gross violation of human rights, in particular the right to adequate housing (see the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). In a world where 1, 3 billion people live on less than 1$ a day (with the worst decline in living standards in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union), 1 billion people live without adequate housing, 100 million people are homeless, 600 million people suffer from chronic under-nourishment, reviewing the way how governments deal with land and land administration seems to be a matter of urgency.
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