Co-operation
between FIG and the United Nations Agencies
Prof. Ian Williamson, Director, United Nations
Liaison, International Federation of Surveyors
Key words:
1. BACKGROUND
The following abstract is based on the report on
recent activities given to the FIG General Assembly by the Director,
FIG / UN Liaison in Seoul, May 2001.
The General Assembly confirmed the FIG policy with
the United Nations and its agencies at its meeting in Prague, 2000.
The main joint projects and activities were discussed previously with
the different UN partners at a round table during the UN/FIG
Conference in Melbourne in 1999. They are also recorded in the FIG
publication "Co-operation between FIG and the UN Agencies 2000–2003".
This co-operation includes a close relationship to UN/DESA, UNCHS
(Habitat), UNFAO, WTO, UNESCO and The World Bank. It further covers
co-operation with regional offices like the Economic Commission for
Africa, the Economic Commission for Europe (especially its Working
Party on Land Administration, WPLA) and UNCHS Branch offices and
activities like UN Regional Cartographic Conferences.
The co-operation is coordinated through Prof. Ian
Williamson, Director, FIG/UN Liaison, but the responsibilities are
shared between several actors, especially input from the Commissions
has increased remarkably during the past two years. In the following
only the highlights of the many activities after the General Assembly
in Prague are listed.
2. The World Bank
Prof. Ian Williamson spent 14 weeks in the World
Bank during 2000 as research fellow on study leave from the University
of Melbourne. The objectives of the visit were to interact with World
Bank officers involved in the Bank’s Thematic Land Policy Group with
regard to trends and developments in land administration, investigate
land administration "best practice", investigate the
relationship between land administration and sustainable development;
and to investigate capacity building in land administration projects.
During the period at the World Bank Prof.
Williamson undertook a range of activities in the land administration
area. All these have direct relevance to the work of FIG and the World
Bank in land administration. He attended and presented e.g. a paper on
"Land administration best practice in developing countries"
at the World Bank sponsored International Conference on Land Policy
Reform in Jakarta, Indonesia in July 2000. Paper is also published on
the World Bank’s Thematic Land Policy Group. He further attended and
presented a paper on "The UN-FIG Bathurst Declaration on Land
Administration for Sustainable Development" at the 22nd
Urban and Regional Data Management Symposium at the Technical
University of Delft, The Netherlands, September 2000.
The visit to the World Bank resulted in closer
contacts between FIG and the World Bank and during the visit Professor
Williamson managed in establishing links between the FIG and relevant
World Bank officers. With the support of the President of The World
Bank, Mr Ian Johnson, Vice President for Environmentally and
Socially Sustainable Development, has agreed to make one of the
keynote presentations at the FIG Congress in Washington, 2002.
The contacts to the World Bank resulted in the FIG
contributing to the World Bank–USAID workshop on capacity building
in land administration in El Salvador 27–28 November 2000. At this
workshop FIG was represented by Professor John Parker, Chair of FIG
Commission 1. His visit was also the first direct contact between FIG
and the new affiliate members in El Salvador and Guatemala.
3. Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations FAO
FIG has been working for some years to establish
formal relationship to UNFAO. This work is now closing to its end and
the Memorandum of Understanding will be discussed during the visit of
Professor Holger Magel, Vice President of FIG to UNFAO in Rome
in March/April 2001. Hopefully the MoU could be signed by the General
Assembly in Seoul.
UNFAO has shown interest for several projects with
FIG including best practices and a joint publication on women’s
access to land based on the FIG Commission 7 task force work. The
English version of the UNFAO thesaurus was also completed in 2000.
Dr. Fritz Rembold represented FAO at the FIG
working week in Prague giving his and Dr Jim Riddell’s paper
"Farm Land Rationalisation and Land Consolidation: Strategies for
Multifunctional Use of Rural Space in Eastern and Central
Europe".
Dr. Paul Munro-Faure, Chair of FIG
Commission 7 was appointed as the Director of the UNFAO Land Tenure
Service in November 2000 after Dr. Riddell’s retirement.
4. United Nations Centre
for Human Settlements (Habitat)
Of all UN agencies FIG has perhaps the closest
co-operation with the UNCHS (Habitat). During the past year the
co-operation included following activities:
- Dr. Sylvie Lacroux participated in the FIG working week
in Prague making two presentations: "Challenges in Rebuilding
a New Land Administration System in Post-Conflict Countries"
at the plenary session and a paper on "CSD-women - Position
Paper on Land Management" by Diana Lee-Smith, Catalina
Trujillo and Sylvie Lacroux at the session of the Task force
on under-represented groups in surveying.
- FIG has co-operated with UNCHS (Habitat) in finding experts to
post-conflict areas like Kosovo and East Timor. Several FIG
actives have been working on these projects during the past year.
- Director of the FIG office represented FIG at the Urban 21
Conference in Berlin in July making an invited presentation at the
Professionals Forum. The Conference was organised by the German
government to assist the Istanbul+5 process. It was opened by Mr Kofi
Annan, Secretary General of the UN. The number of participants
exceeded 3,000.
- FIG was invited and participated the Expert Group meeting in
Västerås Sweden in November 2000 to prepare the 2nd
Prep. Com for Istanbul + 5 and the Special Session itself. The
main topics were the overall review of the implementation of the
Habitat Agenda and preparation of the Draft Declaration on
"Cities and other Human Settlements in the new
Millennium".
- Director of FIG office and Mr Martin M Baya, Honorary
Secretary of the Institution of Surveyors of Kenya (ISK) attended
as FIG representatives the 18th Session of the
Commission on Human Settlements, 12–16 February 2001 and 2nd
Substantive Session of the Preparatory Committee for the Special
Session of the UN General Assembly on Istanbul + 5, 19–23
February 2001 at the UN headquarters in Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya.
The main topics at the 18th Session were the Work Plan
for UNCHS (Habitat) for 2002–2003, evaluation of the two global
campaigns (security of tenure and urban governance) and
revitalisation of UNCHS and budget issues. The preparations for
the UN Special Session Istanbul+5 were the focus of the 2nd
Prep. Com. The programme at the Istanbul+5 will include plenary
session, ad hoc committee of the whole and thematic committee. The
professional partners will have a limited space in the special
session – some slots at the plenary and committee of the whole,
but mostly at the thematic committee, however these slots will be
divided between other partners like local authorities. In addition
there will be many parallel events organised both by UNCHS
(Habitat) and NGOs etc.
Future activities with UNCHS (Habitat) will
include:
- Jan Meeuwissen from the UNCHS (Habitat) Regional Office
for Asia and the Pacific (Fukuoka) will represent UNCHS at the FIG
working week in Seoul giving a presentation on
"Re-establishing Land Administration in East Timor".
- FIG will participate the UN Special Session Istanbul+5 in New
York 6–8 June 2001 and anticipates participating in a UNCHS
organised parallel events as invited partner. In addition FIG is
actively involved in the three parallel events to be organised
during the session together with Habitat Professionals Forum.
Professor Holger Magel will be the keynote speaker at the first
session on the Security of Tenure.
- FIG will organise together with UNCHS (Habitat) and ISK, Kenya
an international conference on Spatial Information for Sustainable
Development at the UN Headquarters in Nairobi 2–5 October 2001.
This event is chaired by Commission 3 but at least five other
commissions will be involved. Dr. Anna K. Tibaijuka, the
new Executive Director of UNCHS will open the conference.
- Dr. Tibaijuka has also promised to open the FIG Congress in
Washington in 2002 and make a keynote address.
Other co-operation with UNCHS (Habitat) include
e.g. FIG input in the Habitat Best Practices Database provided by
Commission 3 working group. Discussions on projects and publications,
especially on the field of security of tenure and women’s access to
land, are under preparation. The topic "the rural dimension of
sustainable urban development" on the agenda of the 19th
Session of the Committee on Human Settlements will offer many options
for FIG.
The current MoU between UNCHS (Habitat) and FIG
will be reviewed so that a new Memorandum will include the input from
the new Bureau and Commission work plans. It is planned to be signed
during the FIG Congress 2002.
5. United Nations Regional
Cartographic Conference for the Americas
The United Nations Regional Cartographic
Conferences for Asia and the Pacific and for the Americas are
organised by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).
UNDESA has been a long standing supporter of FIG have supported the
preparation of the UN-FIG Bogor Declaration on Cadastral Reform (1996)
and the UN-FIG Bathurst Declaration on Land Administration for
Sustainable Development. The key contacts are Mr Hermann Habermann
and Mr Amor Laaribi.
Professor Williamson attended the UNRCC for the
Americas 22-26 January 2001 in his capacity as the Director, UN/FIG
Liaison and presented a paper titled "Land administration,
spatial data infrastructures and sustainable development"(which
highlighted the UN-FIG Bathurst Declaration n Land Administration for
Sustainable Development). Also in attendance were Mr Robert Foster,
President of FIG, Professor John Parker, Chair of Commission 1
and Professor Stig Enemark, the former Chair of Commission 2.
All three presented papers.
While the conference focussed on the Americas, and
particularly Latin America, there were representatives globally from
both developed as well as developing countries. In total 35 countries
attended as well as ISPRS, IUGG and IAC. Several specialised agencies
also attended. The Permanent Committee on SDI for the Americas
(PC-IDEA) had a high profile and was very active. Overall the FIG had
the highest profile of any NGO.
The most important outcome for FIG was the passing
of the following resolution under the heading "Land
administration and Spatial Data Infrastructures": "..further
noting the generous offer of the Government of Mexico to host a
special workshop on the integration of Spatial Data Infrastructure
initiatives and cadastral activities, along with the 4th
PI-IDEA Meeting and requests United Nations Secretariat, within
available resources and with the support of the Permanent Committee on
SDI for the Americas (PC-IDEA) and the International Federation of
Surveyors, to provide support on the program of the inter-regional
workshop to be hosted by Mexico to determine policies and programs for
educational, training and professional capacity building that will
ensure the development of appropriate land administration systems and
associated infrastructures".
It has been agreed that FIG would be responsible
for arranging this workshop in conjunction with the PC IDEA and the UN
(including the World Bank). It has been agreed that Professor John
Parker, Chair of FIG Commission 1 for Professional Standards and
Practice, would take the leading role in ensuring the workshop
happened. He will be assisted by Professor Stig Enemark and Professor
Ian Williamson, Director, FIG/UN Liaison. Initial thoughts are to
invite Government Ministers and senior bureaucrats to participate. It
is proposed to hold the conference at the headquarters of the INEGI in
Aguascalientes, in central Mexico 10-12 September 2002. John Parker
and Stig Enemark will visit Mexico during July 2001 to prepare the
workshop.
6. Permanent Committee for
Geospatial Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific (PCGIAP)
The PCGIAP is constituted under and reports to the
four yearly UN Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Pacific. At
the 15th UNRCC for Asia and the Pacific and the PCGIAP in
Kuala Lumpur in April, 2000, Commission 7 agreed to support the
establishment of Working Group 3 – Cadastre. Professor Williamson
represented the FIG at the conference. The workplan of the WG3
focusses on marine cadastres, benchmarking cadastral systems and
supporting the development of a global land tenure map. The Chair of
WG3 is Dato Majid Mohammed, the Malaysian delegate to
Commission 7. The activities of the Working Group are continuing with
input from Professor Williamson and Professor Don Grant (Australian
delegate to Commission 7). Working Group 3 will meet in Penang,
Malaysia in 11-12 September, 2001 and FIG will be represented by
Professors Williamson and Grant.
7. Others activities or
relevant developments
- Vice President Jerome Ives will participate the GSDI5 in
Bogota, Colombia, May 2001.
- FIG will send a representative to the second CODI meeting in
Addis Ababa in September 2001.
- FIG will be actively involved in the preparations and the UN
Special Session on Rio+10 to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa
in August 2002.
- Professor Williamson, Professor Stig Enemark and Ms Sylvie
Lacroux participated in the FIG sponsored Workshop on Capacity
Building in Land Administration held at ITC in 13-15 November
2000. Professor Williamson made two presentations titled
"World Bank Seminar on Capacity Building for Land
Administration" and "UN-FIG Bathurst Declaration on Land
Administration for Sustainable Development – the relevance for
land administration capacity building" (with Grant, D.M.)
- A long standing supporter and active participant of FIG
activities, Dr Dozie Ezigbalike, has been appointed a
Senior Land Information Officer to the United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa (UNECA) based in Addis Adaba, Ethiopia. Due
to the excellent conference and support facilities at UNECA in
Addis Adaba, FIG could consider this location for a future joint
FIG-UN initiative in Africa.
CONTACT
Prof. Ian Williamson
Director, United Nations Liaison, International Federation of
Surveyors
Professor of Surveying and Land Information
The University of Melbourne
Department of Geomatics
Parkville
Victoria 3052
AUSTRALIA
Tel. + 61 3 9344 4431
Fax + 61 3 9347 4128
E-mail: ianpw@unimelb.edu.au
28 March 2001
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