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In the first plenary session on land administration Mr. Keith Bell from the World Bank discussed the key issues in land issues in East Asia in relation to six WB funded projects that are worth of more than 180 million USD in 2009. His conclusions included that land sector reforms are complex and cross-sectoral and thus require broadly based development strategy that addresses the wider social, economic, natural resources and environmental agenda. Land sector reforms require long-term engagement, but governments with a record of good governance and political will for reform are more likely to attract support. Keith Bell's presentation is published as the FIG Article of the Month in November 2009. The other two presentations in the first plenary session were presented by Dr. Paul Munro-Faure, Chief of the Land Tenure and Management Unit, FAO who discussed responsible governance of tenure and the FAO Voluntary Guidelines and Mr. Ton Gia Huyen, Former Director General, General Department of Land Administration who together with Mrs. Tran Thi Minh Ha, Director, International Relation Department, MONRE explained Land Administration in Vietnam, its past, recent and the future. In the second plenary session on infrastructures for sustainable environment Ms. Jude Wallace from Australia challenged the participants to re-think how land acquisition policies should be linked to human rights and to find the right tools to do so. This plenary session included also a presentation on the climate change and its implications in Vietnam and the responses Vietnam has been creating. Vietnam and the South-East Asian region are hit with the natural disasters much more often than earlier as many unfortunate cases has proved already during this year. It was stated that SDI must be used as a tool for risk and vulnerability analysis and for preparing action plans to prevent natural disasters and for preparations for early warning and evacuation systems as well as for reconstruction and access to shelter, water and food. These are all crucial for regions like South East Asia that the strongly hit by the impacts of the climate change. This puts big demand for political will and management responsibility as well as for responsive professionals and organizations. The last speaker in the second plenary session was Prof. Chris Rizos, President Elect of IAG who discussed the Importance of Geodetic Infrastructure. It should be mentioned that FIG Commission 5 had a strong input in the conference programme with 11 own or joint sessions. One of the objectives of Commission 5 at this regional conference was to support the Permanent Committee for GIS Infrastructure Asia-Pacific (PCGIAP) initiative known as the Asia Pacific Reference Frame project or APREF. This was one of the focus areas of the conference and preparation for the FIG Congress 2010 in Sydney in April 2010. The theme of the third plenary session was capacity building. Prof. Holger Magel, FIG Honorary President from Technical University Munich challenged surveyors to establish a Global Academic Partnership (GAP) with six targets for sustainable development. FIG Vice President Teo CheeHai discussed the code of ethics and urged FIG to revisit its ethical guidelines in relation to the recent development in the world. The Vietnamese contribution on this topic discussed innovations in surveying and mapping training for an integrated world. Technical programme in Hanoi included about 150 presentations in about 50 technical sessions and workshops. All FIG ten commissions contributed. The concept of the regional conference proved to be well functioning with good mixture of local and international presentations and good discussion. The social events and visit to Ha Long Bay allowed excellent opportunities for networking. The conference was made possible by the financial support from the platinum sponsor Trimble, gold sponsor MoNRE (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment) and silver sponsors ESRI and Intergraph and all exhibitors. As outcome of the conference it was stated that knowledge transfer has to involve all stakeholders which GLTN and FAO provide good examples. As outcome from the conference the Hanoi Declaration on land acquisition in emerging economies will be prepared and published before FIG Congress in Sydney. This publication will identify the problems and issues related to land acquisition in Vietnam and the South East Asia region, analyzes these problems in the context of best practice, and provides guidelines and recommendations and tools for good governance and practice. The summary of the conferences is presented in the closing address of President Stig Enemark. At the FIG Council meeting new member associations were adopted from Cyprus and Nepal and affiliate members from Afghanistan, Italy, Switzerland as well as correspondents from Ethiopia and Eritrea as well as a new corporate member from Portugal. The Council used most of the time for preparations of the FIG Congress in Sydney, Australia in April 2010. The Commission Officers meeting (ACCO) focussed on preparations of the technical programme for Sydney where already about 800 proposals for presentations have been submitted. The chairs elect discussed preliminary ideas for the commission work plans for 2011-2014 for discussions with the national delegates in Sydney. More about the conference:
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