Gavin Adlington

In his book, "Real Estate Registration and Cadastre – Practical Lessons and Experiences", launched in March 2020, Gavin Adlington with the contribution of T. Lamb, R. Tonchovska and R. McLaren, translates a practitioner’s lifetime experience (including more than 20 years of experience with the World Bank) into a practical handbook providing a unique step-by-step guide to approaching land administration projects. As the author portrays his book “it is a description of the key things to consider when trying to reform, establish or renew the real state registration and cadastre systems, and written by practitioners who have been involved in dozens of projects and programs in multiple countries”.

As a result of cross-country practices and experiences in land administration and management, the book is a practical tool for those involved in design and reform projects aimed at strengthening and reinforcing land and property rights through the implementation of real estate and cadastre systems –and those issues directly related to establishing and monitoring those systems. Written with a “conversational” tenor, the author and co-authors ultimately intend to share their experiences to contribute to a broader conversation with experts and practitioners all over the world in order to mainstream the establishment of a transparent, efficient and sustainable registration and cadastre systems that provide security of tenure for all, and thus ensuring and promoting land tenure rights and facilitating real estates markets.

The author highlights the importance of the role of the legal systems of the host country, such as the interface between customary and written laws that must be taken into consideration when implementing and monitoring a project. Among other key considerations the author place emphasis on indigenous, minorities and woman rights, to understand the limits that might exist, and how rights can be held, such as communally or individually. The author reiterates the importance of recognizing custom and informal rights existing around the world especially in Africa, the Pacific, the Americas and Asia, as a success-determining component of the project.

In line with the FAO’s Land Toolkit scope, Adlington’s work is a source of added value for practitioners providing a practical framework with key technical elements and considerations for preparing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating projects that are geared at modernizing the land administration sector providing better services to the different kinds of users.

Information about the authors and a free downloadable copy of the book can be found on the following link. The author invites readers to provide their own examples and lessons learned from experience of implementation, which can be added on the same website page.

A shorter version of the eBook has been published by the Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors (RICS): "Real Estate Registration and Cadastre. Insight". This RICS insight paper builds on the knowledge, understanding and wisdom found in the eBook. The eBook provides much of the basic theory, empirical examples and a detailed annex with a literature review. On the other hand, the insight Paper focuses on the practical experience and understanding that led to the success of the projects in the multiple countries where the work was undertaken. Please refer to this link to download a copy of the Insight paper.