Best Practices for Land Administration Systems in Developing Countries

This paper provides an introduction to best practice in land administration systems. It draws on a number of key documents such as the Land Administration Guidelines produced for the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Europe (1996), the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) Statement on the Cadastre (1995), the UN-FIG Bogor Declaration on Cadastral Reform (1996), the FIG Cadastre 2014 publication (1998) and the UN-FIG Bathurst Declaration on Land Administration for Sustainable Development (1999). It also draws on a wide range of publications concerned with best practice in the development of cadastral and land administration infrastructures, as well as the author’s experience over many years. While the paper is focussed on world’s best practice, it does so in the context of developing and emerging industrial countries such as Indonesia which have diverse land tenure relationships ranging from areas in cities with active land markets approaching modern land markets, to whole provinces which are almost completely under traditional or customary tenure. While the paper recognises that each country has different requirements for cadastral and land administration infrastructures due to their specific social, legal, cultural, economic, institutional and administrative circumstances, the paper highlights some common principles in the design