RICS at World Bank ?Land and Poverty? global event - Geo ...

14 June 2012, 10:40pm

The Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty brings together representatives from governments, civil society, academia, the private sector and the development community to discuss issues of concern to land practitioners and policymakers worldwide. The conference aims to foster dialogue and sharing of good practices by showcasing the diversity of reforms, approaches and experiences that are being implemented in the land sector around the world)

Held under the theme of "Land Governance in a Rapidly Changing Environment", the 2012 conference provided a forum to discuss innovative approaches to dealing with different aspects of land governance in the context of structural change and economic transformation, climate change, increased demand for key natural resources, urban expansion and (post) conflict in a pro-poor and gender-sensitive perspective. The conference has been growing each year and this year attracted over 500 participants from 85 countries. RICS was represented by Richard Grover and Robin McLaren. Both members are RICS FIG delegates.

Some sessions such as those on Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) and the FIG sponsored workshop on Spatially Enabling Government and Society (SEGS) stand out. The latter session segueing with the recent release of the FIG publication ?Spatially Enabled Society?

The conference also provided yet another platform for the RICS output for ?Crowdsourcing and Land Administration? and ?Land Markets? outputs. Crowdsourcing is gaining serious momentum in global agency terms for a whole variety of purposes and land issues are at the forefront of this citizen orientated technological revolution. RICS, in tandem with the author Robin McLaren, have a real opportunity to be involved at the highest and most cutting edge level in this area and hopefully 2012-13 will see this initiative move to the next stage of development.

Land is gaining political momentum as we have seen with the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) officially endorsing the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. The Land & Poverty Conference has become a major event in the calendar and the diversity of the 500 participants, including a significant private sector representation, reflects the need for multi-disciplinary approaches to solving the challenges of the 21st century. The debates were more balanced this year as the usual representatives from the donors, land practitioners and policymakers, academia and NGOs were counter balanced by strong representation from private companies financing and investing in land.

A full report from the RICS delegate Robin McLaren is available to download.

Geo: International

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