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Conflicts Geodetic Land

Abstract

Conflicts have always been around and many countries today are still in conflict, many are recovering and no doubt conflicts will continue to exist.

This dissertation seeks to highlight the following:

• The Causes of land related conflicts and

• The key features and problems faced during and after conflicts

• Suggesting guidelines for these resolving these guidelines

A substantial amount of this research will focus on the technical areas of conflict resolution namely; geodetic network infrastructure and the cadastre. Suggestions as to their needs will be identified as one of the elements in the peace process and in implementing land administration and management systems.

Further to this, publications and research papers will be reviewed and low cost technology for establishing geodetic networks and cadastral systems will be identified.

Chapter One

• Introduction

Conflicts are an inevitable fact of life, and amongst the many symptoms of this is the collapse of a countries economic prosperity. One of the ways this is done is by the destruction of a countries cadastre and in some cases all records and data of a geodetic nature are destroyed.

During conflicts people are killed or displaced, buildings and physical infrastructure are destroyed, legal frameworks are set aside, public registers of property rights are destroyed, State government institutions get caught in cross-fires and cease to be effective, markets cease to function, properties are taken and lands occupied by people without the permission of their owners. (Stanfield, 2005)

The state of this problem will be different for each country, for example a country might have all its cadastre destroyed completely as in the cases with Somalia, which leads to disputes and encroachments with land and property and the government will have difficulties in trying to restore the rights of people. Another example a country might have its entire geodetic infrastructure destroyed including data and physical monuments, although this isn't a much an urgent problem than the destruction of the cadastre but it also can cause difficulties and slow things down in development in other areas of economic development. I.e. infrastructure works.

Before suggesting ways to resolve conflicts, it needs to be understood that the relationship between land and conflict is a complex one, and in trying to address land issues requires a broad integrated and interdisciplinary approach, because of the fact that conflicts have many causes. Some of these causes of conflict will be identified to show appreciation of the complexness of land conflicts.

With these problems in mind the scope of this dissertation will look at the importance for re-establishing a geodetic network, how this can be achieved with modern day technology and techniques for furthering efforts in establishing a cadastre and real estate. The reason for focusing this to a cadastre context is because in most areas of conflicts, they are in dire need of secure access to land as a factor in the eradication of food insecurity and poverty, and in the settlement of displaced people and dispute resolutions as a means of instigating sustainable peace. The need to establish mechanisms to achieve these is a pressing need to sustaining everlasting peace in many parts of the world.

With the rapid advancement and ever advancing rate of technology, a lot of progress has been made in the positioning methodology and technology over the past 20 years in the surveying industry. Low cost technology will be identified for use in setting up a geodetic network, along with uses for GIS in a cadastral context.

1.2 Aims and Objectives

The Aim of my dissertation is to identify the importance and the need to establish a geodetic network infrastructure as a tool for which other tasks can be used in particular I will be focusing on the land and spatial administration aspect.

Through out the dissertation, I hope to suggest ways this can be achieved in terms of;

• and low cost technology available to use and

• the mechanisms and institutions that need to be in place to implement successful land administration systems

In the case studies, I hope to look at cases in Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Kosovo, some of the recent areas of conflict, I hope to look at are how these countries have achieved this and drawing from them their experiences and ultimately see if general guidelines can be derived for implementing such projects in other conflict situations.

1.3 Methodology

The methodology of the research will include, gathering information on the current efforts being made in this area of land surveying. Most of the research will be gathered from papers, research conducted by international organisations and proceedings from Conferences.

1.4 Literature Review

The literature review will primarily involve, reviewing past publications and research papers to get an idea of the situation in the past, looking at some of the recent progress made in the fields of geodetic network infrastructure and cadastre to bring myself up to date.

One of the papers reviewed is titled ‘Land and Geospatial Administrators' Professional Training after War- A Case Study of Somalia' by William KALANDE, Kenya.

This paper highlights one of the problems and causes of war and conflict as being a ‘hidden war for access to and control of landed productive resources' (Kalande, 2006). The author uses Somalia as a case study and highlights this being a core problem that it faces. He is correct in that he didn't limit this problem exclusively to Somalia but also to the whole African continents, and he describes the problem of fighting for landed as being the problem ‘behind the African continents current political crisis' (Kalande, 2006).

The solution to Somalia's case is rather complex and poses many difficult challenges because of its unstructured and vague land tenure system plus the added problem of displacement and return of Somalis to their land.

The paper mainly focuses on the efforts being made in Land Adjudication and administration; it also gives a broader sense of the actual problems faced in Somalia in terms of its history and developments to its present state, followed by the implementations of mechanisms put in place to deal with these problems.

Somalia's case is rather difficulty because in a sense they need to start from scratch with its building of its cadastre and in another sense they have a system in place or rather different systems in place but no official records exist. It faces difficult challenges in trying to consolidate all these different systems along with other challenges.

In giving an update on the efforts being made in trying to bring peace to Somalia, the author highlights challenges faced in training land geospatial administrators. He categorises these challenges into six areas and discusses each of them. The areas of division are as follows:

• Political Challenges

• Economical Challenges

• Institutional Challenges

• Social Challenges

• Technical & Technological Challenges

• Other- he identifies the challenges in this area as being ‘the narrow view of the geospatial discipline assumed by donors' in essence what he means is that the donors do not understand and appreciate the usefulness of the GIS and how it can be used to interpret and manage spatial data.

Political challenges- the lack of government or existence of a weak and donor dependant government (Kalande, 2006) and within this problem is that almost all countries face that being of disputes between tribes and clans.

Economical challenges- lack of government and lack of recognition of status where they exist after war means that countries do not qualify for bilateral aid and leaves them only eligible for humanitarian assistance, economically incapacitating them. (Kalande, 2006)

Institutional challenges- in a stateless case, the international assistance are not channelled through government institutions but directly to the international and local NGO's. (Kalande, 2006)

Social challenges- conflict blunts, subsequently destroy years of hard won economic and social development, Somalia went to war at independence and have socially evolved from war. (Kalande, 2006)

Technical & Technological challenges- here the problem seems to be with the number and variety of equipment donated and the difficulty in training in their use and the problems of cost with these equipment. The technical challenges are mainly in the lack of primary and secondary education.

After having identified the challenges, pragmatic solutions to these challenges are proposed in particular in the geospatial and land administration focusing on education and training.

The paper highlights some of the reasons why Somalia's case represents a challenge and goes further to suggest other solutions to these challenges incorporating other areas by means of ‘Erecting a political framework', ‘Establishing mechanisms to be used by the government in registration of existing rights' and ‘Solving disputes' and ‘establishing a cadastral system'. (Kalande, 2006)

Chapter Two

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter we will establish that land is a conflict issue by looking at some of the areas of conflict and the reasons for being in conflict. Land is a very strategic socio-economic asset, particularly in poor societies where wealth and survival are measured by control of, and access to, land.

In addition to this, the nature of why conflicts start and causes of conflicts other than land will be looked at.

Furthermore, we will also look at some of the key features and problems that arise during and after conflicts. Resulting difficulties and associated problems will be identified, examples of which are destruction of properties, buildings, valuable cadastral data and displacement of persons etc…

2.2 Land Conflict Issue

A publication on ‘Rights over land; Categories and Controversies' by P. Shipton states"…nothing evokes deeper passions or gives rise to more bloodshed than do disagreements about territory, boundaries, or access to land resources." (1)

From this we can conclude that land in essence is a conflict issue, and to further demonstrate this one needs to only look at some of the recent conflicts around the world to come to this conclusion. We can further conclude that land is often a significant factor in the causes of widespread violence and yet on the other hand is also a critical element in peace-building and a significant factor in economic reconstruction in post-conflict situations.

2.3 Why do Conflicts start? Causes of Conflict

As mentioned above, land is a conflict issue, it's not surprising that conflicts and wars from a historical perspective, tell us that they are an intrinsic element in life. Virtually all wars are and have been fought over land and landed resources. The driving force for this being to seek dominion over land and its subjects, with the latter being a secondary matter, whether it is through colonisation or imposing a set of ideologies or a political system.

The causes of Land conflicts occur in many shapes and forms, in the form of border conflicts and disputes between countries and neighbours, ethnic groups and states, multiple sales of land, poor people settling illegally on state and private lands, land use conflicts between environmentalists and investors, between farmers and pastoralists and between urbanites and rural people.

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2.4 Problems following Conflict

The causes of conflicts and violence are many. For example ethnic envy, nationalistic

tendencies, opposing interests, class conflicts, disputed frontiers, acts of expansion or

economic interests. During such conflicts people are killed or disappear, buildings and

physical infrastructure is destroyed, legal frameworks are set aside, public registers are destroyed, markets cease to function, properties are taken and lands occupied. (FIG, Commission 7, Report).

A list of some of the problems that follow on from conflict situations relating to land and property and landed resources are:

• A need for immediate shelter where land is required for temporary occupation (e.g. returnees displaced by conflict).

• A need to rebuild houses which have been destroyed, or partially destroyed.

• The allocation of building permits to reconstruct destroyed houses, which permits need evidence of ownership of the land and agreement by the owner.

• Identification of abandoned houses/apartments and a management system to temporarily allocate these houses/apartments.

• Lack of Assistance to people evicted from their houses/land requiring evidence which shows their rights to the property

• Invasions of public land and property, which may be needed in the emergency and/or have symbolic value for the interim administration.

• Allocation of temporary land use rights for drawing water, harvesting etc.

• Allocation of temporary land use rights for peacekeeping/military interventions.

• Eviction of women, especially widows and children, by families from family property.

• Evictions and land/house invasions by one group against another group as part of the conflict.

• The informal and sometimes violent restitution of property taken during the conflict.

• Land information for the installation of services or the restoring of services.

• The theft and/or illegal alteration of land records describing users property rights.

• Emerging of previously unrecorded contracts and/or data, giving evidence of land rights, from parallel/informal structures.

• Minor warlords and/or gangs allocating land/properties -public or stolen from the rightful owners in terms of the registry records.

• People not having any security of tenure for one or other reason.

• A basic legal framework and administrative infrastructure to record disputes/claims, give information and/or assistance.

Some of the initial steps to help ease these problems as recommended by D. Lewis of UN-Habitat are as follows:

• The handling of immediate land/property issues, in particular establishing tenure where no disputes exist.

• Evictions, establishment of procedures and capacity to protect citizens from arbitrary eviction.

• Discrimination, establishment of protection measures for marginalised populations.

• The allocation of land use for temporary purposes, including housing and commercial enterprises.

• Securing of the land records, (registry, cadastre, maps, possession lists, survey field records, text and graphic, digital backups, paper plans) and determining/scoping the scale of gaps/deficiencies in land records, and administrative institutions.

• Supplying remotely sensed imagery (aerial photography and/or satellite photography) for de-mining, servicing and management of the emergency.

• Supplying information to people who have lost their property rights, establishing mass media and information dissemination mechanisms (Lewis, 2004)

By way of addition to this list and as introducing a long term measure to avoid having multiple geodetic networks and datum of which the problems with this have been highlighted in chapter three.

• A common geodetic network infrastructure should be established.

The recommendations by Lewis can be categorized and addressed within the following Land administration tools;

• Land Registration

• Land Policy

• Land Adjudication

• Cadastre

Many of the armed conflicts of the past century have been linked to uncertainty and inequity in, and disputes over, land. All over the world, and in developing countries particularly, addressing land rights is therefore of vital importance. (Lewis, 2004)

It goes without saying that those without land and property rights will encounter insecurity, lack of income and access to some of the basic services that we all have and sadly relative human rights violations will be experienced.

Security of tenure and access to land is a central issue in disaster or crisis response. It is also crucial when developing programmes to minimise vulnerability of populations to future crises. (Lewis, 2004).

Chapter Three

3.1 Introduction

In this section we look at the needs for having a geodetic network infrastructure. By this I mean a geodetic network realised using modern techniques and technology. The Argument will be put forward that modern methods using satellite networks such as GPS and GLONASS far supersede traditional terrestrial methods in terms of time, cost and maintenance.

Following from this we will define a cadastre and shows its role in post conflict situations as a tool for use in implementing peace. The cadastre can be thought of a jigsaw puzzle.

Case studies will be looked at, seeing how conflict countries have and are implementing tools and mechanisms to aid land administration.

3.2 The need for Geodetic Network Infrastructure

The importance of surveying has been recognized in many areas such as in exploitation of mineral deposits, production of geological maps, Agriculture, Erosion control, Hydrology, topographical mapping, development of physical infrastructure and provision of social amenities, land administration and management, Army services. All of these activities require high quality coordinate information and this requirement forms one of the principals of cadastral modernisation, and so to facilitate this information geodetic networks will have to be established providing homogeneous survey control.

The quality of the network will allow for its use in referencing and coordinating activities for the following purposes;

• Determining land use

• Mapping Land parcels

• Planning and Development

• Installation and maintenance of services and utilities such as sewage, water, roads, electricity and many more.

The adoption of a common Geodetic Network will enable the production of homogeneous mapping data.

In most countries, they have more than one geodetic network which could have been realised at different times. To highlight this problem some of the problems with this is an example of a case in Senegal. The author NDIAYE on his paper on ‘Case studies in SDI components (geodetic datum, data transformation, cadastre and planning) writes that, ‘The main Objective is to resolve all the difficulties we meet today; we notice some discrepancies from: 106m to 332m in E and -16m to 138m in N; in other hand if I consider the map of Dakar area 1:50000 realized by IGN (Datum system 1974) and the adjacent region ties which the map was realised, at the same scale, by JICA project (Datum Yoff 200). Those two sheets can't match because the discrepancies are important. For that multiple reasons we want to move to the New System: World Geodetic System 84'

Again to re-iterate, this is problem that exists in most countries and the solution is of two types. Either check and adjust existing networks and datum's using modern survey techniques or a new network and datum should be realised preferably using modern GPS coordinate systems for example, the World Geodetic System also know as World Geodetic Network 1984 (WGS84) or linked to existing Networks depending on which continent the country belongs to. There is European Terrestrial Reference System 1989 (ETRS89) for Europe or The African Geodetic Reference Frame (AFREF) for Africa and (Sistema de Referencia Geocentrico para Las Americas) SIRGAS for South America.

Modern Cadastres require highly accurate and reliable surveying and the need for high quality coordinate information is one of the principles of this.

Currently the availability of maps in conflict areas ranges from non-existence, possibly due to destruction to existence of old mismatching and misaligned maps, produced at various scales using different projections and control networks. This could be due to non-updating of maps and lack of checking and adjusting geodetic control networks.

Maps are the base of cadastral and GIS systems, modern cadastres rely on high quality data. For cadastral mapping bands between the scales of 1:1000 to 1:25000, numerous techniques have been identified as low cost and cost effective. Amongst these techniques are satellite imagery, multi-spectral, thermal and hyper spectral scanning, microwave sensing using radar and finally the traditional photogrametry. Photogrametry still remains cost effective. It has been used in many conflict areas and developing countries. For example Kosovo which is a developing post conflict country has used aerial photography to map the entire country for cadastral, land administration and fiscal purposes. The guiding factor in the use of the appropriate technology is the use of the final map.

For implementing a geodetic network, satellite networks like GPS and GLONASS are the most cost effective technologies around, against traditional terrestrial methods.

3.3 Cadastre and its Role in Post Conflict situations

Providing secure access to land is never a simple task especially in conflict situations, adopting the correct approach can go directly to the matter of dispute resolution and thus achieving sustainable peace. Yet too often there are post-conflict situations where land issues have not been given serious attention, despite their critical importance in developing solutions to emergency humanitarian needs and to longer-term social and economic stability.

In Agricultural societies such as Cambodia and in many African countries issues pertaining to land have crucial impacts on most people's life. The issues of access to land and secure tenure may not any longer be matters of peace and war, but of stability in life and in survival because of poverty. Some form of land registration and cadastre is needed as a provider of secure property rights, as a facilitator for the land and land-credit market and as an information source for various public tasks like planning, taxation, land reform and the management of natural resources.

The International Federation of Surveyors Statement on the Cadastre highlights the importance of the Cadastre as a land information system for social and economic development from an international perspective. The statement does not recommend a uniform Cadastre for every country or jurisdiction, but gives a range of options in establishing and managing a Cadastre. (FIG)

Effective land management requires land information e.g. information about land resource capacity, land tenure and land use. The Cadastre is the primary means of providing information about land.

A conceptual definition of a Cadastre is defined to compromise the subsystems of adjudication, boundary definition and demarcation, surveying, registration and dispute resolution. (Barry, 2002)

The Role of the cadastre will be highlighted throughout the case studies; the case studies will show how the implementation of a cadastre has helped to provide security of tenure and access to land, two essential ingredients in land management and land administration. The task of implementing such a system is a mammoth and depending on the state the land administration systems are found and the size of the country, such projects can take tens of years to fully establish.

3.4 Case Studies looking at how conflict situations have implemented land and spatial administration systems as a means of implementing peace and part of the peace process

Examples of how other countries in post conflict conditions have overcome such problems and continue to do so with efforts in this respect are looked at.

In some countries Cadastral systems exist in rudimentary forms. An example of this is Somaliland. A research paper by M Barry and F Bruyas titled ‘Land administration strategy formulation in post conflict situations: the case study of Hargeisa, Somaliland' presented at the FIG Working week, May 2007 in Honk Kong, China states this to be the situation from interviews conducted in Somaliland. The paper also tells us how the surveyors' carryout surveys on land parcels using only tape measurers and as a consequence of this a number of streets are misaligned in newly developed areas of Hargeisa.

The example above, demonstrates more the lack of skills and training of the surveyors rather than the absence of a cadastre, but it also demonstrates the non-existence of any geodetic infrastructure where by poor positioning of spatial data has led to problems in infrastructure works, i.e. of transport.

Somaliland is in a post conflict situation and has been for many years. The land administration development has been slow but recent efforts have seen much activity in this area. A land administration strategy has been formulated and efforts are being made in identifying areas for improvement, especially in the area of geospatial training.

In Kosovo- one of the main priorities for the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) was in re-establishing efficient mechanisms of governance in Kosovo is the re-introduction of a land and property management system. A functional cadastral system is a pre-requisite for implementing reconstruction activities, upholding the rule of law, promoting economic development, and resolving long-standing conflicts and uncertainties. (FIG, 1995)

An inventory of the situation of land management and administration in Kosovo was carried and the “Blom Report” outlined a three-year action programme to support the reestablishment of the cadastre system in Kosovo. The following recommendations for improvements were assessed along with recommendations for cure the problems.

• Property possetion list and registries were partially destroyed from Serbs government forces

• Property boundary markers, survey control points and associated documentation were also destroyed or removed to Serbia;

• Geodetic surveying equipment and computers had been destroyed or removed to Serbia;

• Discriminatory legislation applied over more than a decade and lack of effective control over property registration and taxation had deterred people from recording property transfers;

• Restrictions in the recruitment of personnel for public sector positions and the displacement of people after the conflict left many municipal cadastral offices without qualified staff.

Initial proposals for rebuilding the cadastral system defined the following areas of action suggested:

· Inventory and secure existing cadastral information;

· Rebuild and integral geographical information base;

· Restore the geodetic network;

· Design the framework for a modern cadastre and land registration

system;

· Attend immediate demands of the municipal cadastral offices and

· Establishment of a central coordinating facility to guide this task.

(FIG, 1995)

In the efforts of Geodetic network infrastructures- Kosovo's network has never been adjusted as a whole and it was believed to have irregularities due to scale differences and azimuth changes. In addition many of the points had been partially destroyed or not within reach because of land mines. There was also little documentation available about the quality of the network and no inventory of its present condition.

The decision was taken to establish a new network based on the existing Gauss-Krüger projection (7^th zone) included the scale reduction at the central meridian by 0.0001 (scale factor 0.9999). But this time the system should be based on the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) spheroid GRS80 (Geodetic Reference System of 1980) as used in the European Terrestrial Reference System ETRS89 and connected to the EUREF Permanent Network (EPN).

The Method of establishing involved 32 stations measured with Leica GPS receivers SR520 and SR530 in static mode with duration of up to 9 hours. 23 of the new GPS stations were linked to the existing levelling network of Yugoslavia.

For the second order network there are altogether 137 stations established and measured and another 44 stations has been prepared for measurement. All the former second order network stations (1500 points) will be transformed using the 7 transformation parameters found between the old and the new coordinate system. (Llabjani, 2002)

The programme strategy involved: developing support programmes to address needs at municipal levels in terms of urban governance, land-use and spatial planning; central level in terms of developing more modern land administration mechanisms; and, ‘externalised support' developing impartial mechanisms to address residential property disputes. (Lewis, 2004)

Afghanistan embarked on a comprehensive program of nation building. A key part of this program was rebuilding an effective land administration institutional system which can provide a framework in which people can live and work, and which will attract or motivate people to invest. A consultation was setup to discuss the following:

• Proposals for improvement of land administration

• Land laws and policies

• Proposal for improving government land and public land management

• Proposal for institutional land administration reform

• Capacity building

• Land administration

The Administration adopted in 2002 a National Development Framework that revealed the following ambitions with respect to land: ‘…Access to land is regulated through Islamic and customary law. There is a need for a program to produce nationwide land registry and to settle disputes between individuals and groups on land. Such a registry would allow for the use of land as collateral for entrepreneurial activities' Afghanistan's situation is different to that of Kosovo's, because cadastral documentation does exist, and the efforts in Afghanistan at the moment are to digitise all existing cadastral documentation and to implement established modern cadastre and land administration and management systems. Where as Kosovo had its cadastre confiscated which lead them to start their land management and land administration almost from scratch, although a few copies of the old cadastre still are with Kosovo but vast amounts are with the Serbian authorities. Kosovo has also implemented digitisation of its old documentation and they are working towards the modern cadastre as is evident from the renewal of their geodetic network.

In all of the above cases, land ownership documents were taken, sometimes for ‘ransom', sometimes for safety, and sometimes to be destroyed. In all cases, land administration documents once recovered, were incomplete, inaccurate, or obviously altered. Again, in all cases above, new conflict has emerged as displaced populations return to find their land or houses occupied, businesses taken over, and possessions lost. And with damaged, destroyed or simply missing documentation, the potential for ‘informal' justice is high. (Lewis, 2004)

In both cases, substantial components of the restorative process consisted of the

Re- introduction of secure land tenure, mechanisms of resolution of land conflicts, land allocation, restitution, land use planning, land taxation and the like.

In many crisis prone countries, for example, customary and statutory laws operate side by side, ownership data and boundary identification is based on oral tradition and memory. Boundaries are defined according to physical land marks, often somewhat elastic, but usually well understood by the traditional leaders and communities themselves. This social equilibrium is always disturbed by conflicts. Post-conflict regularization, mapping and surveying of boundaries could therefore easily fuel further struggle over land ownership.

Property regularisation should promote transparency. Rebuilding the property registration system has a direct impact on the local economy through restoring confidence in the property market. But the regularization of the property market will only succeed when all legal property owners, or occupancy rights holders, are recorded in the property register. This requires investigation, and confirmation of occupancy rights - sometimes confirming deeds/titles going back over years and years of informal trading and transfer of property. This type of exercise is never untroubled, especially when many property transactions were often informal as a means of avoiding taxes, and regularization is a one true mean to re-introduce tax collection including in some cases retroactive tax collection.

Further, regularization is a key element to encourage an orderly return process of refugees and IDPs, thus facilitating sustainable peace process. The ability of all community members to freely exercise their property rights is essential in the process.

Chapter Four

4.1 Introduction

This chapter will comment on the recent technological advancements in ICT and surveying. It will also show how such advancements in technology can be employed in aiding land administration tools and procedures.

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) will be identified for its application in cadastral activities against traditional cadastral methods.

A review of low cost technology that can be employed for cadastral purposes and geodetic network infrastructure realisation will be identified.

4.2 Advances in Technology and Information Communication Technology

Recent advances in technology and ICT can push land administration and cadastral systems into updating manual procedures, fashioning new procedures and towards finding new solutions to meeting its objectives with efficiency and lower costs.

Although ICT and technology can make significant improvements towards land administration and cadastre, it's been noted that requirements for adequate services infrastructure is essential. Services such as, constant supply of electricity. Another requirement is the competence of users of this technology and so equipping users with the necessary skills and training in use of this is also essential.

With the absence of or lack of these infrastructures, the implementation of ICT can be counter productive in the following ways;

• Providing that adequate services are in place and there is a lack of staff or staff cannot be retained for whatever reasons, the investments in ICT will rapidly decay

• If processes and procedures of using ICT are not established properly then new routines and procedures will need to be re-designed and re-established which is costly.

Many countries with existing manual cadastral procedures and cadastral data and paper maps are going through a digitisation process whereby all paper maps and documents are scanned and registered. It's been realised that one of the benefits of digitising documents is that multiple permanent copies can be held. This has another benefit in that in future conflicts the complete destruction of such data will be reduced.

4.3 Low cost technology in setting up Geodetic Networks

The introduction of the Satellite positioning systems, such as the America system the Global Positioning System (GPS) and the Russian system GLONASS have revolutionised surveying techniques. The establishment of one unique coherent geodetic network is achievable; with accuracy and reliability of survey results much better than terrestrial methods. Research is being carried out to further develop the system in reducing time and costs, and with more new advanced satellites being launched to replace the old ones and new systems such as the European systems GALILEO being launched to complement existing systems, all these benefits are eminent.

4.4 GIS and Cadastre

In the past the creation, managing and maintenance of a cadastre had been time consuming and costly because of its manual procedures and implementation difficulties. Some of the problems identified with existing systems of manual record keeping include the followings:

• Multiple allocations of plots

• Forgeries of Land Documents

• Unauthorised Bodies involved in Land Allocation

• Land Use Abuses

• Encroachments on road corridors, road reservations, sewer lines and water mains reservations

• Multiple Surveys

• Inefficient revenue generation and out right lost of revenue

• Proliferation of Unplanned/Squatter Settlements

• Lack of current topographical base maps

• Obsolete Survey Equipment

• Rampant subdivision and redesign of plots

• Requirement for physical storage (Jibril, 2006)

In recent years, with the introduction of Geographical Information Systems, combined with cadastral systems, have developed from manual inconsistent systems into automated systems that highly benefit from the advancements in the Geo-Information and Communication Technology (Geo-ICT).

Such advancements led to the emergence of ArcCadastre, which is internationally unique software for collecting, maintaining, processing and presenting geographic and cadastral information. (2)

Since ArcCadastre was launched in December 2002, it was implemented in both Egypt and Qatar, which represent the fist ArcCadastre implementations in the Middle East.

4.4.1What is Cadastre and why it is important?

A Cadastre (also spelled cadastre) is a comprehensive register of the real property of a country, and commonly includes details of the ownership, the tenure, the precise location, the dimensions and area, the cultivations if rural and the value of individual parcels of land.

Land is the most important resource in the world. Individuals and organizations interested in development within their own capacity will therefore require clear guidelines on all land issues to help them in their planning and investment decisions as they relate to land acquisition and development.

Reliable and up to date cadastral and land records are essential elements to uses of a cadastre because it:

• Allows efficient control

• Allows for Administration and

• Management of landmass

• It allows quick response to emergencies

• It allows the decision making processes on matters pertaining to land considerably much easier and many more…

4.4.2 Geographical Information System

GIS is a computerised system that relates and displays data collected from a geographic entity in the form of a map. The ability of GIS to overlay existing data with new information and display it in colour on a computer screen is used primarily to conduct analyses and make decisions related to geology, ecology, land use, demographics, transportation, and other domains, most of which relate to the human use of the physical environment. (Britannica Concise Encyclopaedia)

The main advantage of using GIS is its ability to access and analyse spatially distributed data with respect to its actual spatial location overlaid on a base map of the area of coverage that allows analysis not possible with the other database management systems.

The main benefit of using the GIS is not merely the user-friendly visual access and display, but also the spatial analysis capability and the applicability to apply standard GIS functionalities such as thematic mapping, charting, network-level analysis, simultaneous access to several layers of data and the overlayment of same, as well as the ability to interface with external programs and software for decision support, data management, and user-specific functions. (Fiatornu, 2006)

The uses of Geographic information systems have expanded into many domains, amongst them include:

• Implementing Land administration tools for example cadastre

• Transport Infrastructure

• Utilities and Services management

• Construction and Development

• Resource management

• Asset management

• Environmental impact assessment

• Rural and Urban planning

• Cartography- alternative to analogue paper mapping

• Logistics-

Geographical Information Systems have come along way since their inception, with advancements in technology and there is no doubt that it is an efficient and effective tool in Infrastructure Planning. If GIS technology is exploited to its fullest extent, it will completely revolutionise the decision making processes in many infrastructure industries.

Chapter Five

5.1 Introduction

In this chapter we will look at land conflict resolution and prevention methods employed in post conflict situations. A brief update on the current research on land and spatial administration will be appraised.

Finally general guidelines derived as a result of this research will be identified followed by concluding remarks.

5.2 Land Conflict Resolution and Prevention

The UN-Habitat has vast amounts of experience in conflicts from various societies including recent conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq. A report presented by D. Lewis of UN-Habitat titled ‘Challenges to Sustainable Peace: Land Disputes Following Conflict' at the Symposium on Land Administration in Post Conflict Areas, April 2004, Geneva. States that, in developing immediate responses and strategies in support of countries and communities emerging from conflict, it is critical that due attention is paid to sources of new or ongoing conflict. One of these is the resolution of land and property disputes arising either from displaced populations returning, or from internecine struggles for primacy over land and property rights.

Just as causes of land conflicts have many dimensions, conflict resolution has many dimensions as well. As highlighted earlier in the table ‘Causes of urban and peri-urban land conflicts' in Chapter Two. The resolution procedure must as initial steps to resolving disputes, identify where the causes lie in. Although more attention has been given to the technical causes and their solutions identified, there is another dimension of conflict resolution that is needed and in some cases not given much thought and justice.

Wehrmann (2006) states that ‘Once it is acknowledged that land conflict resolution and prevention does not only need technical solutions to improve the institutional (legal, administrative and technical) frame but also needs psychotherapeutical approaches. He argues that a ‘more holistic approach to (land) conflict resolution can be applied which is more suitable to heal old sores which often date back to colonial and post colonial times.

The establishment of functional land management systems are a vital element in dispute resolution, settlement of displaced persons and secure access and tenure.

Experiences from those working in conflict resolution indicate that in the long term, land conflicts can only be resolved and avoided if addressed with an integral and system-oriented approach. For further reading on this, reference should be made to a paper presented by C. Augustinus of UNHABITAT and Michael Barry of the University of Calgary, titled ‘Strategic Action Planning in Post Conflict Societies'.

Two principal elements of conflict resolution and prevention are the establishment of a state under the rule of law and the implementation of good governance to minimise the abuse of power and corruption. Beyond this, trauma counselling and a review of historic injustices should be implemented by integrating psychotherapeutic methods that are required to restore trust in these systems. Tools and approaches to avoid and resolve disputes can be categorised into preventive and curative measures.

The preventive measures focus on the institutional frame conditions such as:

• The establishment and strengthening of the constitutive institutions (rule-of-law, secured land tenure and land registration/cadastre),

• The establishment and strengthening of the regulative institutions (spatial planning, land market monitoring, proportional tax benefits for the state as land value increases and

• The establishment and control of an accessible and transparent capital market.

The curative measures include a much broader range of activities.

• Conflict resolution, including moderation, mediation and arbitration and adjudication. This can be implemented different levels; and can be applied within formal as well as informal sectors.

• Land management, including different ways to clarify land rights and secure tenure, surveying and land registration, land consolidation, land readjustment, land sharing, land pooling, land use planning, investments into the housing market

• Psychotherapeutical approaches, Land conflicts as any other type of conflict often end up in vicious circles when the conflicting parties stick to their positions and unconsciously force each other to represent increasingly extreme positions. Such a situation is rather complex and would require some form of counselling.

Wehrmann (2006) states that ‘Land conflicts can only be minimized if all approaches are combined as required by the specific land conflict and adopted to the specific situation, respecting existing rules, organisational structures and the overall cultural, political, legal, economic and social frame conditions.'

5.4 Update on current efforts on Land and Spatial Administration in Conflict areas

The federation of International Surveyors (FIG) Commission 7 in 1995 setup a working group called ‘Cadastre 2014'. Its aim being to study the role of the cadastre in the future and its impact, by redefining and combining traditional institutions of ‘cadastre' and ‘land registration' into a comprehensive land recording system.

Since its commissioning in 1995 the working group has had several meetings, the most recent being in 2004. At this meeting assessment in developments in the cadastral field since 1998, such as for example Internet/web, spatial data infrastructures (SDI); public-private-partnerships (PPP) and their implementation in practice were reviewed. Most of the papers presented at these meetings on cadastral and land administration tools, and the most recent publications and conference proceedings have been as a result of the working group in Commission 7.

At this present moment, the combined land recording system cadastre model is under development within a Geographical Information System. It would be interesting to see the final development of this model and its adoption and implementation in the developing countries.

The UNHABITAT are in the process of developing a GIS, primarily as a fiscal cadastre, as part of forming strategic land administrations systems for the improvements of land management. (Barry and Bruya, 2007)

5.5 General guidelines

It is most likely that differing approaches in implementing land administration and management would be needed in different post conflict situations, due to the simple fact that no two conflicts are the same, apart from the fact that countries differed in history, culture and attitude, and the post-conflict situations may themselves differ, for example one country might have all its land administration and management systems in collapse requiring a completely new establishment of these systems or another country might only have partial problems of a more technical state requiring a specific policy; land registration concepts to be put in place. It's important that the correct approach is adopted avoiding in unconventional approaches.

Every Situation requires a different approach because no two conflicts are the same. By way of general guidelines derived from this research, policies on housing, land and property rights need to be adopted based on international human rights principals or existing religious and customary principals. This is to avoid the implementation of foreign principals on existing policies which could lead to further exasperation of conflicts and secondary conflicts. Secondly a governmental body, be it central or at the municipal level should be established to implement and coordinate these policies.

What can governments do in the area of land administration to stop conflicts?

The healing process following conflicts is always complex. But in one way or another repair has to be done, including the repair of the natural environment and of wounded people, but also the repair of basic social institutions, one of which is “land administration”. (Stanfield, 2005)

In post conflict situations, the establishment and implementation of land administration and land management systems are vital elements in the peace processes. We established that land is a conflict issue and so it should not be surprising that the tools needed to resolve conflicts are land administration and management tools. Definitions of these tools will be given.

Land Management- is defined as ‘a system embodying the policy development and strategic planning process related to land' (Barry, 1999)

Land Administration (defined by the UN/ECE as the process of determining, recording and disseminating information about ownership, value and use of land) includes processes of land registration, cadastre, taxation, and land use development and control.

Land Redistribution- most conflict situations contain redistribution of land as a key element in the peace process. This usually has political and economical impacts and so it's important to identify whether such redistribution is a temporary and transitory or permanent settlement. Redistribution could be required for many reasons;

• To settle internally displaced persons temporarily whilst a more permanent settlement can be arranged

• To deal with emergency refugees

• To deal with settling returning displaced persons

Land Adjudication- land adjudication entails a series of legal and technical processes intended to bring about the individualization and formulization of land and property rights, this is an important element in dispute resolution.

Land Registration- is a process of official recording of rights on land through deeds or title on properties. It means that there is an official record (land register of rights on land or of deeds concerning changes in the legal situation of defined units of land. It gives answers to the questions who and how. (Hensen, 1995)

In terms of establishing or re-establishing the technical aspects of functional land administration post conflict areas. The findings from the case studies looked at in chapter Three indicate that efforts in this regard should pass through an inventory or survey of the following stages, and it goes without saying that for every situation there will be a different state of their problems and establishing land administration systems should be based on addressing these findings.

• Analyses of existing cadastre situation,The importance of land issues to post-conflict development is often not recognized early enough, and, even when it is recognized, it is often politically or practically unfeasible to effectively address those issues in the immediate post-conflict period.

• Cadastral and geodetic documents collection,Information about land issues must be collected as early as possible through reconnaissance missions, conflict assessments, or other appropriate studies.

• Acquiring of Geodetic instrumentation

• Acquiring of other equipment for geodesic needs

• Checking of competency of existing staff, this is again another important aspect in implementing because as mentioned in chapter Four, and in the case study of Somaliland, problems in this can be counter productive.

• Professional training of the local staff, ethical and professionalism should be part of this training because conflicts are times of desperation and so people do will do certain things out of desperation. Such meddling with data they are entrusted with, forgeries etc…

• Project Management, careful internal and intra-institutional coordination to avoid slowdowns or unproductive delays is another important aspect

• Analyses of existing land Laws

• Re establishment of cadastre

• Acquiring equipment, software and computers for implementation of Cadastre

• Drafting of new laws regarding cadastre, measurement and property registration.

Further summarised recommendations include:

• Laws and policies should be drafted on the following:

• Land administration

• Land tenure

• Land distribution

• Land Adjudication (Dispute resolution)

• Land Registration

• Training of professionals in land and spatial administration.

• licensing of professionals

• setting up of a regulatory body to control training standards, issue licenses to land and spatial professionals and issuing guidelines

• Setup a dispute resolution board to resolve disputes over land and resources.

4) Setup a government department/ministry that coordinates issues relating land, and spatial administration including construction.

5.6 Conclusion-

The Aim of this dissertation was to identify the importance of having a geodetic network infrastructure and identifying the needs for this because renewal and improvement of high quality coordinate information is an important part of cadastre modernisation and so to facilitate this information geodetic networks have to be established providing homogenous surveying controls. Particular attention has been given to the land and spatial administration.

Low cost technologies available for use in setting up geodetic networks have been identified for reviews and appraisals.

Effective Land management and administration tools have been identified and defined for implementation in conflict situations. The case studies looked at provided me with a wealth of knowledge in experiences gained by individuals and organisations working in post conflict situations.

Further understanding was gained in classifying conflicts and their causes, and the most important thing learnt during this research is that Land is both a multi-faceted and complex issue, as is land management and administration coupled with the multi dimensions of conflicts. Land management and land administration systems have numerous variables that have to be taken into account when formulating strategy and prioritizing activities.

References

• Michael Barry and Florian Bruyas (2007) Land Administration Strategy Formulation in Post Conflict Situations: The Case of Hargeisa, Somaliland. Proceedings in Strategic Integration of Surveying Services FIG Working Week 2007 Hong Kong SAR, China, 13-17 May 2007.

• Clarissa Augustinus and Michael Barry (2004) ‘strategic action planning in post Conflict societies, UNHABITAT, University of Calgary, Canada.

• Stephen Yao Fiatornu (2006) GIS a Tool for Transportation Infrastructure Planning in Ghana: A Case Study to the Department of Feeder Roads, Proceedings in Promoting Land Administration and Good Governance 5th FIG Regional Conference Accra, Ghana, March 8-11, 2006.

• Barry M B (2002). Evaluating cadastral systems in uncertain situations: A conceptual framework based on soft systems theory, International Journal of Geographical Information Science: 16(1):23-40.

• Volker Schwieger and Andreas Gläser(2005) Possibilities of Low Cost GPS Technology for Precise Geodetic Applications, Proceedings in GNSS I, From Pharaohs to Geoinformatics, FIG Working Week 2005 and GSDI-8 Cairo, Egypt April 16-21, 2005.

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• Hensen J (1995) Basic principals of the main cadastral systems in the world, Proceedings in of the one day seminar held during the annual meeting of commission 7, Cadastral and rural land management of the FIG, May 16, Delft, The Netherlands.

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• Eugene H. Silayo (2005) Searching for an Affordable and Acceptable Cadastral Survey Method. Proceedings in Boundary Surveying. From Pharaohs to Geoinformatics FIG Working Week 2005 and GSDI-8, Cairo, Egypt April 16-21, 2005.

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• Dan J. E. Schnurr (2005) Cost Effective Survey Technology for Developing Countries - The Development of a FIG Survey Specification, From Pharaohs to Geoinformatics, FIG Working Week 2005 and GSDI-8 Cairo, Egypt April 16-21, 2005.

• Liz ALDEN WILY (2004) Putting Rural Land Registration in Perspective: The Afghanistan Case, Symposium on Land Administration in Post-Conflict Areas April 29-30, 2004, Geneva.

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• Wehrmann, B. (2005): Landkonflikte im urbanen und peri-urbanen Raum von Großstädten in Entwicklungsländern - mit Beispielen aus Accra und Phnom Penh. Urban and Peri-urbanLand Conflicts in Developing Countries. Berlin 2005.

• FIG Commission 7 (2004), Symposium Background Report, Symposium on Land Administration in Post Conflict Areas Co-organised by The Kosovo Cadastral Agency KCA and UN-Habitat, Geneva, 29 - 30 April 2004.

• FIG Commission 7 (2004) Symposium Report ‘Cadastre and Land Management', Symposium on ‘Land Administration in Post-conflict Areas' in the ‘Palais des Nations', Geneva, Switzerland from 29th to 30th April 2004.

• FIG (1995): The FIG Statement on the Cadastre. International Federation of Surveyors, FIG Bureau, Canberra, Australia.

• Tor Valstad, Ole Jorgen Haugholt and Hyzri Llabjani (2002) The Rebuilding of the Cadastre in Kosovo, Proceedings in Solutions in a Challenging environment, FIG XX11 International Congress, Washington, DC ,USA, April 19-26 2002.

Internet (Web References)

(1) http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.an.23.100194.002023?journalCode=anthro Date accessed 10/05/2008

(2)

http://www.arccadastre.com/ Date Accessed 02/05/2008

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