What's the School all about?
Land is at the basis of all societies. Inappropriate land policies can constitute a serious constraint on economic and social development. Sound land policy regulates the access to land and the management of land, and as such is considered an important factor in the realisation of government policy objectives pertaining to, for example, economic growth, food security, poverty reduction and housing.
Land policy and land policy instruments determine how a government can provide access to land, offer tenure security, regulate the land market, implement land reform, protect the environment and levy land taxes. Such tasks are by nature complicated, and become even more challenging in post-conflict or post-disaster areas, and where government systems are in transition.
Within the context of the UNU-ITC Joint Programme on Capacity Building in Disaster Management and in Land Administration, the School for Land Administration Studies aims to provide support in this area through education and capacity building, research, advisory services, and expert meetings.
The School was established by the then International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) now Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente and the Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency (Kadaster) in the Netherlands. The cooperation between ITC and Kadaster combines scientific and practical approaches.