Posted June 1997
Bertinoro I
High-level Technical Seminar:
Private and Public Sector Cooperation
in National Land Tenure Development in Eastern and Central Europe
University Residential Centre
Bertinoro, Italy
1-5 April 1997
The Seminar took place at the University of Bologna Residential Centre in Bertinoro, Forli (Italy) on April 1-5 1997, and was itself the result of public and private co-operation. The Seminar received financial and technical support from: AIT Associazione Italiana Telerilevamento; ERVET SpA-Politiche Ambientali; Italeco SpA IRI-Iritecna Group; and OPVC-Australia; TERANET, Canada; Aerial Images, USA; and the Inland Revenue Service of the United Kingdom..
The Italian Ministry of Finance, the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Resources and the IRI Group also participated in the organisation of the event.
The Seminar has been structured and organised around two important panels: the first one presented the evidence on the obstacles and constraints of public and private co-operation viewed from representatives of the Public sector of the Central and Eastern European Countries involved on the modernisation of the cadastral system; the second Panel focused on conveyancing and finance from the perspective of the emerging private sector of the Central and Eastern Europe Countries. The topics presented at the Panels served also for the following working group sessions.
The second part of the Seminar presented important experiences from countries with well-established private sector involvement in land data development and administration.
Finally, the three working groups that had been established, entered in a dynamic and constructive discussion and their conclusions, presented in this document, are to serve as the basis for the development of future activities, programmes and collaboration among the participants and their respective agencies.
On the last day, the participants went on a field trip to Bologna to discuss with administrators and technical experts recent developments in the cadastre and emerging issues facing land administrators.
The Second dynamic trend that influenced the design of the Seminar is the availability of new technology and new kinds of partnerships. We found an important supporter in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Regional Government Group of Bologna and Emilia Romagna who not only helped financially but also assisted in finding private enterprises that would share some of the work in organising the Seminar. A second major area of support came from the profession itself. For example, the Italian Association for Teleditection (AIT), the FÈderation Internationale GÈometre (FIG) and other international professional associations all worked hard to see that participants had access to the state-of-the-art information on private and public sector co-operation.
In this vein, it became evident that if we were to continue to share ideas after the seminar we would need to rely on the Internet. This is not the place to discuss the importance of the Internet. However, we realised that we could not publish a paper containing contributions from 22 different countries, because if we were to do so, we would have to print a book of 350 pages. Expensive to produce, time consuming in production and hard to find: the day of printed distribution seems to have joined the plane table.
"SD-Dimensions", the World Wide Web (WWW) information service of FAO's Sustainable Development Department (http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/sustdev/default.htm), offers us the chance to inform you in detail of what has been presented in Bertinoro and to avoid presenting only condensed versions of the contributions that we would have to do if we were to publish on paper.
The Seminar documents will be accessible here for the rest of the year and allow us a rapid and timely up-date of material from any participant and participating country. The interested professional can print just those aspects which are the most relevant to the work at hand.
The role of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
by Dr.
Gianfranco Cicognani
The support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to this international
scientific Seminar, with 54 participants coming from 22 different Countries,
is an initiative in line with Italian policy, which has the aim to promote
Italian scientific and technological co-operation with the countries of
Central and Eastern Europe. Another goal of the Ministry is to assist countries
in the Region to develop suitable solutions in order to create co-operative
initiatives, identify priorities for planning bilateral scientific programs,
and to promote direct contact among Italian and CEEC public and private
organisations.
The Italian Law 212 is an operative financial tool available to the Italian Government for developing bilateral and multilateral scientific co-operation projects with Central and Eastern European Countries, in co-ordination with the General Direction of Cultural Relations activities.
With the above in mind, I want to assure all the participants at this imternational Seminar, the importance the Ministry places on your endeavours. We look forward to your conclusions to help guide us in the future and wish you a very productive stay with us in these exceptional surroundings.
Rural development: new trends and emerging coalitions
by G. Gordillo
de Anda Director, Rural Development Division, FAO
The world's agricultural systems are changing. The growing international
debate on how economic and political liberalisation can be the most effective
mechanisms for ensuring economic efficiency, social well-being and political
efficacy at the national level has produced clear impacts on the world's
agricultural systems. Changes in agriculture are reflected in both theory
and practice:
New ways of capital formation are being sought and other forms of ownership by civil society have emerged with the reduction of state property. The concept of private property is also being enlarged and now covers also communal and family property as forms of social, private property, a well as co-operatives and corporate enterprises, in addition to strictly individual property.
State and market are mutually related, but in order to benefit society, their norms of interaction have to be public and subject to revision. This is the best way to correct the negative impact of economic changes on social processes.
The chairman Professor Andrzej Hopfer contributed to the opening of this section by presenting the major problems and obstacles that the CEEC countries are facing.
First it is important to state that: "No problem of food security creates the main difficulty - on the contrary, there is or may be very soon be a surplus of agricultural production both as a food and as a market commodity. In order to improve the standard of living, to increase the employment in the rural areas, land must be kept and used by proper farmers, in proper portion, for proper reasons and under proper conditions." Consequently there are three major subjects for this Seminar to address:
Mr. Eric B. Shearer (see "Some thoughts on the role of public-private sector cooperation in financing and facilitating a land market") pointed out in his contribution to the Seminar, there are "twin policy goals" that the CEEC share:
Mr. Kestutis Kristianaitis from the Lithuanian private sector (Matininkai Korporacija) concluded his intervention stating that the experience gained in the free market is now facing the need for advance education and training. The Seminar focused, during this Panel, on the increasing participation of experts in the CEEC in national and international professional associations. This was seen as an important step in having the established private companies provide assurance to governments, as well as private sector clients that they are able to meet international quality standards.
This was supported by a brief report by Dr. A Alexsiene who represented the newly re-established Lithuanian Association of Professional Property Valuers that had re-organised after a hiatus of 50+ years. The growth of professional organizations is seen as critical to the delivery of quality professional services.
Important experience of public and private cooperation
The Private sector has been involved in many activities that have traditionally been handled within the public sector, as Mr. Paul Sanderson, Chief Executive's Office, Valuation Office Agency (United Kingdom), pointed out during the Seminar. (The VOA has a comprehensive network of some 100 local and regional offices throughout England, Wales and Scotland. The VOA has over 4500 staff and is the largest employer of professionally qualified valuation surveyors in the world.)
Privatisation of public utilities in the UK has been a major change which has taken place over the last 15 years and movement from the public to the private sector continues through a variety of initiatives including further privatisation, the creation of executive agencies, compulsory competitive tendering, outsourcing, the private finance initiative and other measures designed to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
The representative of the Italian Ministry of Finance, Mr. De Santis, explained the progress that the Italian government has made in recent years in modernising the Italian cadastre.
The Italian cadastre system is currently administered from two offices (Catasto and Ufiicio del Registro). The Ministry of Finance is trying to unify the procedure for managing land tenure. Actually, this choice comes from the need to unify the Property Register, in order to allow the Cadastre to independently hold and issue both maps and property titles, to save personnel costs and to reduce as much as possible delays in registration, with a consequent improvement in property tax collection.
A very important contribution to the Seminar was delivered by the officers of the Government of Victoria, Australia. In 1992 the state implemented a programme aimed at improving the standard of services. An essential element of this programme was public sector reform, with a reduction in the cost of the government and a more efficient service delivery.
The Victoria Government Officers, described outsourcing as a the provision of goods and/or services by an external party which were previously supplied internally. Set out in a contractual agreement, an agreed level of service is provided for a pre-determined fee. Government is still accountable for the delivery of services. However, the actual work is undertaken by the private sector. The quality of the service is the most important aspect that government requires of the private contractor. Since its implementation, outsourcing has been a successful tool that has permitted government to provide a better service at a lower cost.
Aerial Images described a service available to the citizens of a number of communities in the United States by implementing an emergency service system on what is essentially a cadastral base plan. Through the Enhanced 9-1-1 technology it is possible to locate immediately the need for assistance (police, fire department, etc.) and to give important information to the emergency teams and to the drivers of vehicles.
In order to be efficient the E9-1-1 system must relay to a modernised cadastral mapping system. The high initial cost of the implementation of a GIS based cadastral mapping plan is financed by a nominal service fee added to the phone bill and through integrated data services offered to multiple use/user agencies.
Italeco illustrated the company's experience in the field of cadastral up-dating through the utilisation of digital orthophotos and satellite imagery as a base for setting up LIS and GIS applications. This is an example in how new technologies may be applied to reduce the expenses of a very costly product.
TERANET provided the participants of the Seminar with an excellent example of how private and public sectors can co-operate in creating a working LIS for land registration and land administration. The government of the Province of Ontario (Canada) realised that it needed to modernise its entire land registry as well as related data sources if it was to provide services demanded by rapid development. The Provincial government initiated a request for bids from the private sector for ideas on how to do this at the most cost effective and least disruptive fashion. A consortium of private contractors who produced a plan that the government deemed the most appropriate were then formed into a Provincial project called TERANET. TERANET is considered a great success and subsequently other Provinces in Canada are adopting the same approach.
Another important experience of private and public co-operation, was presented by ERVET, an Italian private company that is partially owned by the regional government of Emilia Romagna. ERVET is currently working on a project for a new information system using GIS. The project's name is TEMISIA (Territorial Multimedia Information System for Industrial Areas) and is co-financed by the European Union in the framework of the program INFO2000. It is under the responsibility of ERVET, the proposer and co-ordinator of the project, with the collaboration of three European partners (OIR, Austrian Institute for Territorial Planning; FORTH, Greek Institute for technological Research; WDA, Welsh Development Agency), with the technical and financial contribution of Emilia-Romagna Territorial Programming Assessorship (with the technical contribution of the Regional Cartographic Service) and the participation of CINECA (an interuniversity Centre skilled in telematics and a service provider for the Internet).
TEMISIA is a testbed for building an European standard model for gathering, organising, connecting and spreading information concerning industrial areas. The information service based on GIS technologies will be accessible on-line (by the Internet) in order to search and visualise data, maps, images and to perform different analytical functions for industrial areas and the communal territories concerned.
The information system will concern: geographic location, land characteristics, planning, existing land use, settled areas, enterprises, services, environmental data, access and transport, possible financial aid, etc. Industrial areas or sites are a key component throughout the EU, for urban and regional development programmes, management and environmental control. At the same time, industrial areas provide important opportunities for firms looking for the best location to establish new productive plants. However, information about industrial areas - planning status, ownership, infrastructures, amenities, accessibility, workforce, other companies already established, environmental status, and so on - is usually dispersed among a large number of sources. This is especially true for information not confined to a single local authority, but covering a whole region or a number of municipalities. This situation leads to very time consuming searches for information not only by potential investors, but also by the local development corporations, administrations and regional development agencies.
Main targets of the project may be summarised as follows:
The Russian Federation since the beginning of the 90's has paid increasing attention to the problem of land reform to accomplish the need of access to land property. A series of new laws were adopted and as a result 12 million people in the rural areas received private property and 300 thousand private family farms were established. Furthermore, considering the entire population in the urban and rural context, more than 40 million citizen were granted land parcels that averaged between 0,06 and 3 hectares.
The Russian Federation State Committee for Land Resources and Land Management (GOSCOMZEM) is the government agency responsible for redistribution of land, maintenance of the State Land Cadastre and registration of land ownership rights.
The new social group of "land owners" was established in Russia but it became immediately evident that Goscomzen had to organise itself in a county that is large, has severe climatic conditions and an undeveloped infrastructure. There is also a lack of an historical tradition of private land ownership and, finally, a lack of legislation regulating land issues.
To solve this problem the Goscomzen experts have developed the two stage model of real estate formation and registration. The first stage, or the primary registration, includes general registration of all land properties using modern photogrametric means. The cadastral map development from this procedure serves as the basis for issuing land title certificates accompanied by a parcel map plan completed with established graphic accuracy. The second stage involves accurate description of parcel boundaries and is carried out on as needed basis or only when property rights are transferred from one person to another. In this case, the parcel has to be surveyed by conventional land survey means. The use of the two stage approach has allowed the Goscomzen to issue more than 40 million land titles certificates in five years.
The representatives from Ukraine informed the Seminar that land reform started in 1991 after the adoption of the Land Code Law. Starting in 1994 there has been an increasing attention paid to the problem of ownership of land and today land reform is considered an important part of economic and agrarian development.
The main orientation of land reform in Ukraine is toward the ownership of the land by peasant farmers and the restructuring of non-state enterprises. In order to accomplish these goals new structures have been created, such as the institution of the private land ownership, and private land use. In the near future it is expected that the transformation of more than 700 state-owned farm land into private ownership and the transfer of land to those who work on it will take place.
Working groups, outstanding needs and recommendations
The background documentation, case studies and the panels were the basis for the discussion among the participants during the working group activities. The objective was to respond to the general question: the role of the private sector in national land tenure development. Three main topics were chosen by the participants: 1) the legal and administrative field, 2) market development and 3) technological applications.
A) Legal and administrative issues
The knowledge of the legal and administrative issues in land tenure development
are subjects not easy to understand for the average citizen in any jurisdiction,
but are especially so during the transition phase. On the other side, there
is a lack of co-ordinated actions among the agencies that are responsible,
both public as well as private sector service providers, in promoting a
common integrated approach to land tenure development.
Clear policy guidelines should be developed by improving the legal and administrative machinery to access ownership and land use data, and to ensure data security and integrity. In addition the working group cited the urgent need to modernise and implement land valuation and taxation systems. Finally, there was unanimous agreement that governments must develop and apply modern systems of cost recovery for land information and land transaction services through broadening the use of national LIS technology. This is necessary to reduce the transaction and opportunity costs of those who want to use land for productive purposes.
It is recommended that an international co-operation action should formed with the aim to:
One of the ways suggested was to share information in the future not only between the different countries, but also between the agencies within a single country through a more extensive utilisation of Internet, bulletins and journals.
C) Technology issues
The discussion was oriented to deepen our understanding of the major constraints
related to the development of a certified methodology for Land Tenure Systems
modernisation. It was ascertained that many cadastral authorities are still
using out-of-date, or non-standard methodologies to update and/or set-up
property registration systems. A possible solution would be change the orientation
to a land registration system (i.e. Cadastre) based on market requirements
rather than on historical models.
Another topic that received much attention is the need to compare different land information systems based on centralised or decentralised technology and administration and to improve quality control and data maintenance procedures as well as data security, land tenure modelling and cartographic standards.
The implementation and standardisation of the cadastral LIS should be carried out by organising training and the recruiting qualified personnel together with the use of information distribution systems like the Internet as a support to enhance public access to land tenure information. A cadastral pilot project, based on Western experience, finally, could be a useful tool to identify concrete solutions for the whole land registration process (from cartography to title release).
This is a process of shared responsibility, the Seminar concluded. The responsible parties are the Government, the citizen and the LIS professional. The Government cannot abandon its responsibility to provide a predictable, secure and understandable (i.e., clear) environment for all its citizens to enjoy the fruits of their labour and property. The citizen must also accept the responsibilities of liberal political and economic institutions. This means active participation in social, political and economic reform. And finally, the LIS professional, be it the property lawyer, the mortgage banker, the land surveyor, and so forth, must instil in the public the assurance of a quality job done for a fair price.
The Seminar aimed to share experiences and to show that in various countries there is an important role for the private sector. It is the creativity and the dynamism of the private sector, filtered through the lens of public and professional responsibility, that forms the fundamental basis for a modernisation of an LIS that is designed for land users and their needs. At the same time the participants agreed that the policy makers must be aware of the experiences that have taken place and of the potential that exists among the private companies to meet public goals.
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