C

Cadastre

This is an inventory which contains a graphic, alphanumeric and statistical description of property within a particular territory. It operates in the public interest and serves legal, economic, fiscal and administrative purposes and all those who determine the laws and regulations of a country.

Cadastral Maintenance

This is a series of technical, legal and administrative activities that are ongoing and necessary for amending spatial data and data referring to the cadastral titleholder, contained in the cadastral database. Cadastral maintenance is not simply the action of changing or amending data at the request of third parties or when circumstances require; it needs to be a planned research and inspection activity, aimed at ensuring that cadastral records are correct, up to date and real.

Cadastral Mapping

Cadastral formation or mapping, as it is also known in Guatemala and other Latin American countries, involves: a) identification or documentation of each property with its related physical and descriptive data, location and numbering on the site map or plan; b) completing the property form, which constitutes the property identification deed, duly signed and dated by the cadastral official. Cadastral mapping can also be described as focused mapping and mass mapping; focused mapping refers to cadastral mapping on demand or of specific small areas; mass mapping refers to cadastral surveying covering a greater geographical area (municipal districts, departments or region).

Cadastral Office / Land Registry Office

This is an office that forms part of the geographical information and territorial planning institutions. In Nicaragua, the Cadastral Office forms parts of geographical and territorial planning institutions. In other countries, it is an entity that operates in conjunction with the Registry, as in El Salvador and Honduras.

Cadastral Surveying

This is a technical process for identifying and recording each plot of freehold land within the administrative area of a cadastral unit. In some land administration programmes cadastral surveying is the process of the field collection of information on land ownership, the cadastral delineation of parcels and the topographical definition of the limits of parcels.

Cadastral Zone

This is a territory or part of a territory where a cadastral process is declared to have been established.

Cadastre Register Linking System

Reference to standards and procedures applied institutionally to link the main cadastral entities and the register of real rights, i.e. to denote the correlation between property managed by both institutions. It can range from a simple reference to integrated management. Generally, the linking system can be supported by computerized tools that can speed up management and improve compliance with the standards that govern such linking.

Clearing Tenure

The act of clearing tenure is carried out through a process of regularization, before or by the relevant authority, during which a real right is assigned and which describes the physical characteristics of the property and is entered in the land register.

 Clearing has two aspects:

1. Legal clearing
   Assigning a real right to a natural person or legal entity and entering their property in public registers.
2. Physical clearing
   This involves the physical identification of the property, determining its shape, dimensions, neighbouring properties and geographical location.

Control Group and Treatment Group

In a controlled experiment, persons or objects of statistical interest are known as experimental units. These are divided into at least one experimental group, from which it is hoped to receive information based on a known stimulus, and another “control” group, which does not receive the stimulus. The provision or withholding of the stimulus is defined as treatment.

Common Land

Common land consists of land that belongs to a local collective, generally occupied by agricultural land, pasture, stubble or woods, or kept under open herding. Common land is intended for individual use by the inhabitants of a locality (commune or municipal district), or for collective use, but under the control of local authorities (traditional authorities or the municipal council).

Cost Efficiency Analysis

This technique evaluates which programme, policy or technology will achieve the target results at a lower cost. It is used to measure the efficiency of a project compared with its costs. It is similar to a cost-benefit analysis in several aspects but no monetary value is attached to all the expected benefits resulting from the project or the alternatives considered. It is used when various alternatives which can achieve very similar results can be compared.

Counterfactual Scenario

What would have happened if the project had never been implemented or what would have happened normally without any intervention.

Customary Law

Traditional or customary land laws are the set of legal rules that constitute the traditions of a community or population. Customary law currently coexists with objective law and in the majority of Latin American countries it is subordinate to state-governed objective law and the State’s will for it to prevail. As far as land is concerned, customary law governs the land rights of the majority of indigenous populations and of some communal lands. The relationship to the land is not an autonomous social relationship, consequently traditional or customary law which administers it should be interpreted in the light of the combination of social relationships and the significance attributed to these.

D

Data Spatial

These are data or attributes corresponding to the geographical characteristics of areas of freehold land described (location, dimensions, shape, perimeter). These data are represented by points, lines or areas. The information is captured in vector format by means of: digitizing tables, raster to vector converters, global geopositioning systems (GPS), alphanumeric data entry, etc.

Decentralization

The transfer of authority and responsibilities for exercising public functions from central government to intermediate or local government or organizations that are virtually independent of the government and/or private sector.

Direct Beneficiaries

This refers to i) those households whose tenure rights will be strengthened by LAPs through Regularization, Clearing and Titling processes (RCT), ii) users of LAI, and iii) professionals or qualified users who take part in these processes.

Double Difference Impact Evaluation

This is an evaluation that requires the measurement of variables at two time points (year 0 and year t) for which there is a population that has benefited from intervention by the Project (Treatment group) and one without intervention (Control Group). It is assumed that the value of the treatment variable (e.g. Titling) has value A before the project intervention and value B after its intervention. The value of the variable in the Control Group takes values C and D before and after the project, respectively. The first difference involves estimating the change between before and after for the treatment group (B – A) and the control group (D – C). The second difference consists in estimating the change in the control group compared with the change in the treatment group. The difference between the value of the variable observed for the Treatment Group (B) after the project can thus be identified with respect to an assumption of what would have happened without the project intervention (E).

Dividend Discount Model

This is a financial method of valuing an asset based on the present value of expected net income where a constant rate of growth exists in perpetuity. It is mainly used to value corporate shares based on expected dividends.

E

Ejido or Land owned under the Ejido system

The concept of ejido has different connotations and is used only in the Mesoamerican region. In Mexico, Ejido is a legal concept arising from the Mexican agricultural reform and established in the Mexican Constitution of 1917. As a result of this, groups of peasants formally known as population nuclei receive from the State the collective ownership of a particular piece of land, previously expropriated from estates extending beyond what was permitted by law. In Guatemala and other Central American countries, Ejido is land registered to a community (municipal Ejido) and which usually contains rural or urban human settlements. Persons who live in an ejido generally pay a form of rent to the community.

Eviction

The term eviction comes from the verb to evict (dislodge from, abandon a site), whose original meaning was to abandon the ownership of an immovable asset to avoid encumbrance. Eviction now involves removing the occupants of freehold land by administrative enforcement, considering that these persons have no right to be on the site. The place is generally vacated by force with the involvement of the judicial authority. In the legal system of some Latin American countries, it could also involve dispossession or eviction, noting that for these two actions the administrative or judicial authority is always involved.

Exhibitions or Public Viewing

This is the presentation to proprietors, owners and holders of a given area, of the plans, cadastral maps and other land ownership data resulting from cadastral mapping to give them the opportunity to express their agreement or disagreement with the information displayed. This activity is advertised in advance in written mass media or other means of communication to allow interested parties to attend at the times and in the places established for this activity to take place.

Experimental Evaluation

Experimental or random evaluation is considered the technically most robust evaluation design, which consists in the random selection of beneficiaries within an entirely defined universe of individuals. The process of the random allocation of programme interventions or services creates two statistically identical groups, one that takes part in the programme (treatment group, Tr = 1) and one that, while complying with all the conditions for participation, is outside it (control group, Co = 0).

Externalities

The term externality, also known in the economic literature as neighbourhood effect or spillover effect, refers to the effect that economic actions undertaken by various agents (producers or consumers) can have on the interests of third parties, not directly involved in the transaction. When the externality is advantageous (positive externality) it is also called external economy, and if it is disadvantageous (negative externality) it is known as external diseconomy.

Extrajudicial Conciliation

Extrajudicial Conciliation is a cheap, quick way of settling disputes with the help of a third party called a facilitator. Through dialogue, the facilitator facilitates communication between the parties, to overcome differences and reach agreements that satisfy all parties, based on which a record of settlement is entered into.

External Users

These are identified as:

Users on demand
These are citizens who individually correctly request a registration or cadastral proceeding to legalize or register a property through buying-selling, merger, mortgages, or cadastral or registration certificates, or who request titling of property that they own.

Automatic beneficiaries of land administration services
Referring to persons who take part in cadastral mapping and regularization, clearing and titling (RCT) through the corresponding LAI, without having explicitly applied to receive the service.

Qualified or specialist users
Who perform actions in the Register or Cadastre for the transfer, modification or encumbrance of property on behalf of interested parties. They are usually Notaries Public, financial consultants, administrators or surveyors.

F

Fiscal, Financial and Economic Analysis

Summary of information used for measurement, assessment and decision-making, resulting from the use of methodologies and techniques for collecting, processing and evaluating the data of a programme or project, which has impacts on the economic, social, financial and fiscal aspects of a population, its institutions and the system binding them together. These analyses seek to determine, during ex-ante evaluations, which options will maximize the return on an investment which will be made in the various areas of intervention of LAPs.

Freehold Land (Predio)

This concept refers to a continuous unit of delimited land surface, i.e. a finite area of land. The Spanish word predio comes from the Latin praedium which means inheritance or estate. Freehold land is defined by its location, limits and area. It is used in Latin American countries to refer to land belonging to one or more owners, whether in a rural or urban area. Freehold land is one of the basic components of the cadastre identifying, locating and recording the particular features of a finite area of land, and supporting and rendering the rights to it legally binding.

Full tenure

Raising to full tenure: activity of giving up possession, right to communal use or ejidal in favour of individual private ownership.

G

Geographic Information System (GIS)

A GIS is an organized, spatially referenced information tool. It incorporates a set of techniques and methods relating to data acquisition, such as: a) obtaining and coding; b) organization: data processing and database; c) analysis: rationale and models (Placeholder).

Governance

Defining governance as the process of making decisions and the way they are implemented specifically by governments in the management of social, economic and spatial resources.

Good governance is understood to mean political stability, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of LAI, harmony and commitments by State powers to approve legal and institutional reforms and to encourage citizen participation. Support from judicial and prejudicial mechanisms is required to resolve property disputes effectively.

H

Households

Group of individuals who share a dwelling on the same property, with dwelling being understood as the demarcated physical space where they spend the night and share costs for food and the joint use of a utility or service (water, light, etc.).

I

Indigenous Communities and Territories (ICT)

Indigenous collective or community, which should generally be understood as a group of families of Amerindian ancestry, who have no record of mixed ancestry, who share feelings of identification with their aboriginal past, who maintain aspects and intrinsic values from their traditional ancestral culture, as well as forms of government and internal social control, which distinguish them from other rural or peasant communities. They generally share a customary system of land ownership, which includes a series of rules established through custom, defining rights of access for persons in a specific social group to particular natural spaces and resources.

Incremental Net Flow (economic or financial)

This refers to the flow resulting from the mathematical difference between net benefit flows in the “without project” situation, i.e. the net benefit flow expected if investment was not carried out (the counterfactural scenario), and the “with project” situation, i.e. the net benefit flow expected as a result of investment.

Institutional Framework

The inter-related organizations and agencies that provide a base for the development and implementation of policies, programmes and projects in a particular field.

Internal Rate of Return

The Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is the rate of return on an investment adjusted to the times that receipts and expenditure occur. It is the discount rate that makes the net present value of an investment equal to zero.

Internal Users

These are civil servants and technical staff in the same or other institutions involved in the provision of input or products in the various processes conducted by LAPs.

L

Land Administration

The term was established by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in its Land Administration Guidelines adopted in 1996. In these guidelines the UNECE defines land administration as “the processes of determining, recording and disseminating information about ownership, value and use of land and its associated resources. These processes include the determination (sometimes called ‘adjudication’) of land rights and other attributes, surveying and describing these, their detailed documentation, and the provision of relevant information for supporting land markets”.

Land Administration Institution (LAI)

Land Administration Institutions are civil service institutions which provide management services for land or real estate ownership, the key ones being State Property Registries, national Cadastral Office and Land Registry Office Institutions, Regularization of Tenure Institutions and Institutions for Titleholders for Social Purposes. Institutions that develop and apply land policies, manage and administer Protected Areas, Municipal districts that administer ejidos, urban planning departments of cities and towns, collection of land tax and some institutions acting as land ownership titleholders are also considered. Finally they also include institutions specializing in ownership dispute resolution and those that administer Indigenous Community lands.

Land Administration Programme (LAP)

These are projects or programmes organized by central governments with the support of international cooperation agencies which seek to increase the legal certainty and security of tenure through efficient, transparent, decentralized land administration services accessible to all. See the experience of LAPs in Latin America (module 1) for further information.

Land Administration System (LAS)

This is the state system, based within a legal framework, which administers property right policies and information management through its various institutions. It establishes the administrative and legal procedures for land transfer, the physical attributes of territory, uses, land valuation and tax burdens, which provide security and legal certainty about ownership.

Land owned under the ejido system

See Ejido

Land Ownership

Property or arrangements under which the rights to use land are exercised. The circumstances vary greatly from country to country, and range from land occupied by the owner, to communal or state ownership. There are different land ownership systems which allow individuals to use a property for various purposes. Some of the more usual land ownership systems in Latin America are: private ownership, leasing with option to purchase, share tenancy (colonato) and collective titling of land.

Land Register

The land register is where all land properties in a territorial locality are recorded by the registrar, stating their owners, and where changes and limits of the rights conferred by the said properties are entered. As regards land properties, the land register is a record of the status of the commercial rights to a property, generally organized and updated chronologically. According to the conservation regimen for land properties or land property book, the land register follows its own rules regarding form and authentication.

Land Tenure System

The land tenure system in a given jurisdiction comprises the set of possible bases under which land may be used. As such this range encompasses both rural and urban tenures and includes ownership, tenancy and other arrangements for the use of land. Land tenure regimen will be used here with the same meaning.

• Formal land tenure system. This refers to the legislation and state institutions that govern rights to land and natural resources within the borders of a State.
• Customary land tenure system. A series of rules established by custom which define the rights of access for persons in a specific social group to particular natural resources.
• Informal land tenure system. When neither formal nor customary legal frameworks are effective or suited to local conditions, discontented or defrauded social players may create ad hoc informal land tenure systems with their own rules, authorities and institutions. These systems are not recognized.

M

Monitoring and Evaluation

Monitoring is the ongoing collection of data on specific indicators for assessing the implementation of an intervention (project, programme, policies, etc.) in relation to physical and financial advances (performance) and to the overarching objectives.

Evaluation is the periodic assessment of the design, implementation, results and impacts of an intervention aimed at development. It should evaluate the relevance and scope of objectives, their implementation in terms of effectiveness and efficiency and the nature, distribution and sustainability of impacts.

Municipal District

Territory corresponding to the political and administrative division of national territory.

Municipal Government or Municipal Authority

Territorial body which is in charge of the municipal territory or district; it has political, fiscal and administrative autonomy within the limits fixed by the constitution and decentralization laws of each country. The key functions of the municipal Government are: a) To provide public services and to meet basic needs that are unmet as regards health, education, sanitation, drinking water, housing, recreation and sport; b) To organize and plan the economic, social and environmental development of its territory and to construct the facilities required by municipal progress; c) To ensure the appropriate management of renewable natural resources and of the environment; d) To encourage community participation and the social and cultural improvement of its inhabitants.

N

Net flow (economic or financial)

This is the difference (positive or negative) between the benefits and costs of investment over the analysis period.

Net Present Value

The Net Present Value (NPV) of a resource is the difference between receipts discounted at the present date and expenditure also discounted at the same date.

O

Outsourcing

This is passing economic activities involving raw material production or industrial production to the tertiary or service sector. These activities can include transport, communication, health or other services.

Overcrowding

This refers to excessive density of people inside the same dwelling or groups of people in an urban setting, which creates adverse conditions as regards mental and physical health (UN-HABITAT, 1992).

Ownership

The Civil Codes of Latin American countries define ownership in absolute terms as “the right to enjoy and have access to something with no limitations other than those established by law”. Ownership is recognized as a basic right, but it has been established that its social function will determine its content, according to the law. Along with the freedom of the holder, the limits of the exercise of rights must therefore also be stated in law, considering criteria separate from the particular benefit itself.

Ownership dispute resolution mechanisms

Conflict resolution mechanisms are mechanisms used to try to put an end to situations of tension and disputes between two or more players (individuals or groups) in relation to the use, enjoyment or ownership of land. They can be determined by the legal and social structures of each country. These mechanisms currently tend to be divided into formal, informal or alternate. Formal mechanisms are those provided by the legal system of the country, and informal mechanisms are derived from the social or religious organization to which individuals or groups can appeal.

P

Parcel

This is the technical unit in a cadastre consisting of a defined area of land delimited by a line or boundary which begins and returns to the same point or is identifiable and recognized by its ownership and property.

Parcel-based land registration system/Person-based land registration system

In the Parcel-based land registration system, the key component of publishing the registration of an immovable asset; all deeds subject to registration are recorded in a single book, in which the asset is allocated a perpetual number which identifies the property, the folio comprises entries (registration, cancellations and provisional filing) and these are numbered in succession. The Person-based land registration system publishes the key information in a single sheet: the object (estate), subject (registration holder) and right (type of real right). Parcel-based land registration system apply to private properties whose title has been checked against the cadastral information in an RCT process (FFEA).

Possessor

A person who has an asset in his/her possession.

Possession

Possession is the act of owning or having a physical object with the aim of keeping it for him-/herself or someone else. Possession exists when someone has something in his/her power, for him-/herself or for someone else, with the intention of subjecting it to the exercise of a property right

Property Right

This is a real right whereby a person has a legal right, in a given social setting and within a particular legal organization, to appropriate, by means of material or legal acts, all the utility inherent in a movable or immovable asset; the right to benefit from and access objects absolutely, on condition that they are not used in a manner prohibited by laws and rules; this is the right of the owner of an object to benefit from, use and access that object as deemed appropriate or desired by the owner.

Property Tax

This is an annual tax liability payable to municipal authorities, calculated from the value of property, taking into consideration freehold land or the parcel, and constructions or improvements made to it. The obligation to pay a tax arises from the right of the user to own freehold land with ownership interest, not necessarily from the property owned.

Project Development Objective

Terminology used by the World Bank to express the overarching objective that an investment project should have achieved at the end of its life cycle.

Property Planning

A series of actions that involve individuals and regulatory institutions, as regards the exercise of property rights, which aim to establish and record the origin, characteristics and scope of the rights of individuals and the property they own. The desired outcome is that all property and individuals who exercise ownership of such property have their rights to property ownership and absence of disputes with the rights of other owners established and guaranteed by relevant regulations.

Q

Quasi-Experimental Evaluations

Quasi-experimental evaluations in a project in which the participation of individuals is not by random selection, but occurs i) because it is the individuals themselves who choose to take part; ii) because an official agent takes this decision, or iii) both situations are combined. In quasi-experimental designs, the counterfactual scenario is defined by individuals who do not take part in the programme and who form a comparison group.

R

Real Right

Immediate and sole prerogative that an individual has to an object or property, which entitles him/her to dispose of its utilities in part or in full. It confers all the prerogatives that can be exercised in relation to an asset. Three prerogatives are traditionally distinguished: usus, abusus and fructus.

Registration

The term Registration refers to the process of entering properties in the Public Property Register, which shows that an entry, page or registration has been opened or created for a property, in accordance with legal requirements, and the registry issues it with a registration number correlating with the entry in the Registration Book of Real Rights; this is generally known as registration or registration page which establishes the subject, purpose and property right or other real rights whose details are taken from the title deed.

Register Entry

Formal expression by the registrar in accordance with the law, who records in the register a particular legal status referring to an asset. Any entry of a legal nature made in the registry offices is called a registry entry. Register entries are classified as: filing entry, register entry, provisional filing, cancellation and marginal note.

Registration Mobility Index

The Registration Mobility Index (RMI) expresses the quantity of transactions carried out over a given period in a registry office in relation to the number of existing registrations (the total number of properties registered at a given time). This index provides global information on the mean number of transactions carried out for each property during the study period.

Regular/Irregular Ownership

Ownership is defined as regular when the right to the property has been entered or registered with the corresponding registry offices and is in accord with the legal data concerning holders and their rights, and the physical data concerning the location, area or surface, boundaries and circumstances of ownership. Ownership is defined as irregular when at least some of the above characteristics have not been correctly defined, and it is then subject to clearing.

Regularization of Tenure/Regularization of Land

Regularization is the administrative process whose aim is the legal recognition of rights to land exercised by private individuals for several years. It can also involve the identification of rights to immovable assets in their legal or physical aspects, such as squatting and restoring boundaries after disputes. The aim of land regulation is to evaluate and adopt legal forms to speed up the handing over of urban public property or waste ground, which according to the law should be titled to those occupying such land.

S

Security and Legal Certainty about Tenure

Security refers to the perception of persons in relation to their rights and benefits concerning tenure. In this respect security refers to: i) the degree to which the owners of land feel they will not be arbitrarily deprived of their rights and the economic benefits thus generated; ii) the certainty that individual rights to land will be recognized by others and protected in the event of specific threats; iii) the right of all individuals, men, women and groups, to effective government protection against forced eviction.

Certainty refers to a more objective characteristic, i.e. how the form of tenure is legally recognized and supported by the institutions which constitute the corresponding Land Administration Systems (LAS).

Spillover Effect

See Externalities.

Subnational Entity

These are administrative bodies that form the territorial division of the State. They are generally political and administrative in nature, but they can also be created for legal, ecclesiastical or military purposes, for example municipalities, or indigenous and afrodescendant territories with some degree of autonomy or protected areas which have their own administrative bodies.

Sustainable Livelihoods (SL)

This term was first used by Robert Chambers in the mid-‘80s and can be defined as the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base. Livelihoods are therefore affected by external events which can increase their resilience and consequently reduce their vulnerability.

A livelihood is composed of the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. These capabilities and assets can be divided into five types of capital.

• Human capital Characterized among other things by good health, diet, education and knowledge.
• Social capital Networks and connections between individuals with shared interests, forms of social participation, and relationships based on trust and reciprocity.
• Natural capital The natural resources which benefit livelihood.\Physical capital The infrastructure and equipment that meet the basic, productive needs of the population.
• Financial capital The financial resources that populations use to achieve their livelihood aims.

Security and Legal Certainty about Tenure

Security refers to the perception of persons in relation to their rights and benefits concerning tenure. In this respect security refers to: i) the degree to which the owners of land feel they will not be arbitrarily deprived of their rights and the economic benefits thus generated; ii) the certainty that individual rights to land will be recognized by others and protected in the event of specific threats; iii) the right of all individuals, men, women and groups, to effective government protection against forced eviction.

Certainty refers to a more objective characteristic, i.e. how the form of tenure is legally recognized and supported by the institutions which constitute the corresponding Land Administration Systems (LAS).

T

Transaction Costs

These refer to costs and expenses generated by all the processes and operations that make mutually advantageous exchanges between two or more individuals possible; in the case of the user-institution relationship, these exchanges originate in the very nature of the institution as a service provider. They include the costs of negotiations between parties.

Territorial Planning

Territorial planning is defined as a State policy and planning tool which allows appropriate political and administrative organization and spatial projection of the social, economic, environmental and cultural policies of a society, thereby guaranteeing an appropriate standard of living for the population and environmental conservation.

Title Deed

The deed to a property comprises documents that prove ownership of land.3 As the parcel is transferred to other persons, the transfer document confers the title on the subsequent owner. In Latin America deeds are usually assigned by the State for social purposes, through mass processes or on request to regularize land ownership, or through recognition of ancestral rights of indigenous communities.

Territory Zoning

Zoning involves dividing a territory into zones intended for one or more purposes, for certain activities to be carried out, to ensure better living conditions for the inhabitants and for activities to be pursued as appropriate to achieve the proposed aim.