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Transparency in Land Administration – Phase 1

Development and Piloting of a New Training Programme

Background

The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) is a global land partnership which aims at contributing to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, poverty reduction in particular, through land reform, improved land management and security of tenure (http://www.gltn.net). Its members include international civil society organizations, international financing institutions, international research and training institutions, donors and professional bodies.  Among the various activities of the network are the establishment of a continuum of land rights, rather than a narrow focus on individual land titling, and the improvement and development of pro-poor land management tools, as well as land tenure tools. This approach also entails unblocking existing initiatives, helping strengthen existing land networks, assisting in the development of affordable and gendered land tools useful to poverty-stricken communities, and building capacity on how to implement security of tenure.

In the framework of the GLTN, two of its members the Training and Capacity Building Branch (TCBB) of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) and the United Nations University School for Land Administration Studies of ITC, the Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands, have jointly taken up the task to develop tools for and to build capacity in Transparency in Land Administration (TLA).

The Project

The first phase of the programme (covering the period 1/1/2007 – 31/7/2008) aimed at the Development and Piloting of a New Training Programme on Transparency in Land Administration, incl. a toolkit and a framework training programme and guide.

Phase 1 activities included:

• Case Study Development and Harmonization
• Course Preparation
• Course Delivery and Evaluation for Lessons Learned
• Upgrading and Finalising the Training Programme

This initiative was kicked-off with an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) in Nairobi, Kenya in January 2007, attended by some 40 experts from across the world. This EGM resulted in a framework for developing tools for and building capacity in transparency in land administration.

This framework was then elaborated resulting in the formulation of a draft Toolkit for Transparency in Land Administration and a draft Training Guide. These in turn were tried-out in a pilot course, organised in collaboration with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and technology (KNUST) from 22-24 January 2008 in Kumasi, Ghana targeting West African countries, and attended by 28 participants from Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

The experiences with the pilot course in Ghana were used to finalise the Training Guide and Toolkit (both currently being edited) with the purpose of serving capacity building programmes that could be rolled out in other regions and continents during Phase 2 and 3 of the Programme.

For more information: Transparency in Land Administration - Development of a Capacity Building programme

Group photo of the participants of the pilot course, organised in collaboration with the
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and technology (KNUST) from 22-24 January
2008 in Kumasi, Ghana.