Land management is the issue of putting land resources into efficient use, meaning producing food, shelter and other products or preserving valuable resources for environmental or cultural reasons. Land administration is the governmental responsibility to provide security of tenure and information about tenure issues for property markets and governmental and private business activities. For this, information is necessary, which is to be provided by land information systems, sometimes called cadastre. In other words, the government at local and central levels needs to provide an institutional setup including policy and legislation, organisation for implementation of the policy and enforcement of the legislation and dissemination systems to make the information available in society, to benefit tenure security, property markets, land use planning and taxation and business in general.

Tools to support efficient land management and administration will include the establishment of efficient organisations, transparent procedures for decision-making and information technology for collecting, processing, archiving and dissemination of information. To be meaningful, the information needs a geographical component, which will include tools for surveying and mapping and geographical analyses (GIS). The system must be able to produce services to the general public at affordable costs, which means that land users, who will benefit must feel that the fees etc. they have to pay for the services are well worth the value the system is producing for them. This is particular important for pro-poor systems, if improved land administration should be able to contribute to eradication of poverty.

Organisations for land administration can be governmental, which however not disclose private participation in different types of work. The management of the organisation could be independent from the general public administration, e.g. the management can be able to control income and expenditure, staffing and salaries, within a certain frame given by government through a goal-and result-based management system. The responsible officers shall be able to make decisions, based on law without possibilities for political influence. The law should define certain criteria for decision-making, providing room for economic development and also protecting existing rights, whether formal or informal. They should give women and men equal opportunities and protection in owning property. The rules should promote efficient land management, and protect environmental and cultural values. Appeal against decisions shall be made to courts, which are specially designed for land administration. Is it possible to develop these kind of organisations? Questions for tool developers

1. In order to be available for the general public, organisations can be decentralised. On the other hand, resources are usually very limited and it is costly to build local organisations. Can internet replace decentralised offices also in developing countries?
2. Computers are very useful for land administration, if the systems are robust, can be maintained and efficiently managed. Data security and archiving issues must be arranged in a very careful manner. How can robust computer systems be developed without being obsolete within a few years?
3. New techniques for surveying and mapping open possibilities for faster and cheaper survey of land parcels with good quality. GPS makes the surveying procedure much easier but will instead create demands on the establishment of a geodetic framework in order to make coordinates from different systems compatible. Digital photogrammetry and remote sensing facilitate mapping. Is hand-held GPS the answer for cheap surveying technology, which will make it possible to provide land administration for squatter areas?
4. Land administration can contribute to reconciliation in post conflict areas by providing systems that meet the needs of the people for fairness and social justice. Tools will include new laws, new technology and the establishment of new independent organisations and human resource development. Is a new approach to land administration a necessity for reconciliation in post-conflict areas?

3a. Spatial units

The land parcel of the cadastre is the basic spatial unit used for land registration/recording. Conventionally cadastral systems have supplied spatial information for land administration, spatial planning, billing for cost recovery from services etc. Given that most developing countries have very little cadastral coverage, the emphasis should be on the generation of more appropriate forms of large scale spatial information, rather than on the production of a few accurate cadastral parcels. This is especially where people cannot afford registered rights. New approaches to spatial information are required to upgrade and manage.

It is not possible to use only cadastrally surveyed parcels as the only spatial unit for land management/administration for informal settlements because:-

1. The location of informal settlements on privately owned land does not always precisely match the cadastral parcels and is likely to cover many properties in one spatially contiguous unit.
2. Often informal settlement takes place on customary land and/or state land, which is generally not parcelled in developing countries;Often the boundaries of the informal settlers’ properties do not accord with the cadastral layout, and this can vary across the settlement and between settlements.

It is also impossible to use cadastrally surveyed parcels as the only spatial unit for land management/administration for rural areas with customary tenure because:-

1. The most commonly used geo-spatial references in the rural areas are the administrative units of the country. Agricultural census data, legal regulations, policy and centralized/provincial planning decisions are made in terms of the administrative unit
2. Land management decisions are more often taken by socio-territorial units, such as chiefships, clans or extended families, rather than by administrative units. Rarely do the boundaries of the administrative units and those of the socio-territorial areas coincide. Most of the time there is no information on the boundaries of the socio-territorial areas, even at the level of chiefships, as they have generally not been mapped

Often the socio-territorial areas overlap each other, for example there might not be agreement about clan boundaries.

In these situations the parcel of land, i.e. the object on which the rights are exercised, should be defined in a manner other than accurate land surveys and geometrical measurements.

Modeling the relationships between people and land as a basis for land administration and/or land management is of a complex nature. Experiences from practice teach us that it should and can be done in both a computerized and paper based environment, and for formal rights as well as for social land tenure systems (customary, informal). In the development of the Core Cadastral Domain Model (CCDM) efforts have been made to include customary and informal tenures. When trying to answer the question on "who hold/owns what where" a domain model that can be used for a land administration system that can support all forms of land rights and claims, not only registered land rights, will be needed.

The development of a flexible standard for the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) is relevant because it can be used as a basis for data and process modeling for software to be used in customary area’s and informal settlement areas, or as guidelines for the development of a paper based system. A flexible standard means that it can be extendable and adaptable to local circumstances and it can support both cadastral and non-cadastral approaches. Non cadastral approaches include a move to land management, e.g. for slum upgrading, to manage conflicts or to allocate land to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees. This means that some level of (non parcel based) object identification has to be supported.

In STDM, a person can be a member of a group, a group can be member of a group of groups. A person (natural, non natural), a group of persons or a group of groups can have a one or more rights or socio-tenure-relationships associated, where each right concerns one or more polygons; polygons can overlap or can be identified with a label. A right or socio-tenure relationship is always in between persons and land. A right can be undocumented, in that case the source document is ‘no document’.

Questions for tool developers

1. Does the functionality provided in the CCDM really cover the social land tenure system requirements?
2. Could it support in the management of geo-information derived from multiple sources for the maintenance of people-land relationships?
3. Could it support the delivery of economic and social services to informal settlements and rural areas, including for pastoralists, where there are no cadastral parcels?
4. Could the CCDM be recommended to GIS and Database Management suppliers or to ‘open-source’ communities as a functional and technical tool to be supported by their software products?
5. Could it be used for the land management system representing land records with a minimal spatial component?
6. Could it be further specialized to a Social Tenure Domain ModelCan core data and a common infrastructure only be created by using high accuracy co-ordinates?
7. Are quick and dirty solutions useful over time and/or incrementally upgradeable?
8. How do you manage incrementally altered spatial units in different data bases, which are being changed to increase inter-operability?

4a. Regulatory framework for private sector

The regulatory framework for land administration, land information management, planning and building consists of laws, regulations, standards, norms, and administrative procedures relating to land development that seek to determine what developers, land-owners, communities and residents are entitled to do with and on that land. Unless specified, they should apply equally to all these groups, organisations or individuals seeking to acquire, develop or transfer urban and rural land. The regulatory framework determines also the rules, responsibilities and procedures regarding the collect and the processing of land information, and land administration.

There are a number of challenges in creating a pro poor regulatory framework such as, what should the fee structure be to the public, what should be the cost recovery policy and should there be cross subsidies to help the poor. Also, there is an ongoing debate in the world as to whether the state should supply the infrastructure as a public good to which the private sector, local government and private individuals can add value in order to address poverty alleviation, drive the economy and deliver economic and social services. In some countries the emphasis is on the private sector driving the development of the infrastructure as a business operation. In re-thinking these issues it has also been necessary to re-think the role of the public sector and the role of the private sector, as well as public-public partnerships and public-private partnerships. In undertaking this re-thinking also in regard to the land sector, it has been found that these PPPs, as they are known, are highly complex and require extensive capacity within the public sector to be properly managed. This in turn has become problematic in weak states. Finally, a key part of this PPP relationship relates to the copyright laws and the law on spatial information within a country. If the correct laws are not in place conflict can result, as well as non transparency, blocked data flows and an inability to plan and budget forwards. All of these affect the ability of countries to address security of tenure, land delivery and land management issues.

When applied to urban areas, empirical observations confirm that, in most cities, the control of urban growth by conventional planning norms and regulations is becoming less and less effective, and is tending to inhibit the implementation of initiatives designed to increase access to land.

On the one hand, established norms are often in conflict with the needs and interests of the population that live in informal settlements. The present land and building regulatory framework is not relevant to the needs of the majority. It usually serves the needs of minorities in the population, who are able to comply. On the other hand, rigid planning norms and standards and time-consuming procedures for land and housing development discourage private sector developers from investing in low- and medium-cost land or housing development projects.

The design and implementation of legal and regulatory tools to reduce homelessness, especially unrealistic legal restrictions on access to land, land use and tenure regularisation, need to be improved.

The objective is to reduce the production costs of serviced land for housing, to avoid rendering informal land and housing production processes illegal, and to reduce procedures which have discriminatory or segregationary effects. Questions for tool developers

1. What are the key issues that would have to be considered when creating a pro poor regulatory framework?
2. Why is cost recovery a problem and how can this be solved?
3. Should countries spend tax payers money on creating a basic land infrastructure which all people can benefit from?What would be the best methodology for reviewing land law and assessing the legislation that impacts on (i) the land development activities of the private sector, and (ii) the provision of land for low income groups?
4. How do we ensure that a reduction in norms and standards for the formal private sector, especially access to land and development rights, does not impact negatively on the low income groups (encroachment of formal private market on the informal market)?
5. How do we ensure a minimum set of norms or guidelines for planning standards with regard to land development, basic service provision and regularisation of informal settlements?

4b. Legal allocation of the assets of a deceased person (Estates administration, HIV/AIDS areas)

Administering an estate involves dealing with all the property, investments and other assets of the person who has died and settling all their debts and then distributing the estate between the beneficiaries entitled under the deceased's Will or the Intestacy Rules. If the person who has died has left a Will; this is proved by the Executors and a Grant of Probate is obtained. If there is no Will, the deceased is said to have died "Intestate" and his or her estate is distributed in accordance with statutory rules. The state has a key role in this, and for example sometimes a court process is involved and in some countries a magistrate can make an executive decision without the court process or the involvement of professionals.

The impact of HIV/AIDS on the right to land and housing in urban areas and on rural agricultural productivity needs to be documented further. Each phase of the disease (from asymptomatic to critical illness and death) is associated with a different impact, which has different implications for land issues. The link between HIV/AIDS affected people and the distribution of assets, especially the land, property and housing, has not been adequately documented.

Clear rights to land can contribute positively to households affected by the epidemic, as this can underpin livelihoods and economic development by removing uncertainty. HIV/AIDS follows the social fault lines in a society, with marginalized groups being disproportionately vulnerable.

Gender inequality is one of the driving forces behind the spread of HIV. Men frequently have greater access to resources, including land, credit, knowledge, training and technology, than women. With the death of her husband, a woman may lose the access she had gained through him or his clan and this immediately threatens her livelihood, and that of her children.

Policies that aggravate tenure insecurity and ignore the rights and/or interests of women and children are not addressing appropriately the impact of HIV/AIDS on poor urban households.

Gender issues, including the social status and vulnerability of women, their inheritance rights and access to resources, need to be specifically addressed. Questions for tool developers

1. What methodology and tools should be used as a basis for an assessment of pro-poor land administration in the context of HIV/AIDS?
2. What policies, tools and procedures are best adapted to protect the rights to land, property and housing of those affected by HIV/AIDS , especially widows and orphans?
3. What are the most appropriate procedures for administrating an estate, also in the case of intestacy, and which institutions should be involved?
4. How can the systems be made more pro poor and accessible?

4c. Expropriation, eviction and compensation

Current dynamics accompanying the liberalisation of land markets in many developing countries, and nationwide land titling programmes carried out in the name of economic development and poverty reduction, and infrastructure for development such as dams, are increasing market pressure on low-income settlements. Many of the evictions that result from these dynamics are not recorded as such, either because they do not require the use of force, or because some form of compensation is paid to the displaced households, regardless of how fair and equitable this compensation may be.

In the case of formal settlement, expropriated owners are entitled to receive compensation corresponding to the market value of their property. Occupants in customary areas or informal settlements are in a different situation: their irregular situation regarding planning, development and/or construction norms, and their tenure status, including the use of natural resourcesmeans that they are not entitled to claim compensation. Yet this has a direct impact on their livelihoods.

In some cases, the terms of the negotiations between communities living in customary areas and informal settlements, and public authorities and landowners or developers can be considered as being fair.

In many cases, however, the households concerned are not paid compensation corresponding to the replacement cost of the dwelling unit in case of eviction or expropriation or the replacement cost of their land and the natural resources they require to maintain their livelihoods.

There is a need for a better understanding of the mechanisms and processes involved in market-driven and development driven displacements or evictions and the development of pro poor approaches. Questions for tool developers

1. What are the mechanisms involved in market-driven eviction processes?
2. How can we evaluate the amount of compensation awarded in the case of informal settlements and customary tenures, where occupants are, by definition, “evicted” and not “expropriated”?
3. What does “fair” compensation mean? Does it correspond to the replacement cost of the dwelling unit in a location that has similar advantages? To the land plus the natural resources under use on that piece of land and beyond that piece of land?

Land value taxation (LVT) is the practice of creating local and/or state revenue by charging each titleholder to land a portion (%) of the value of the site but not for buildings. LVT can be used to produce revenue for public purposes and for fostering more efficient use of land, including natural resources. The poor would benefits from LVT via i.e. cross subsidies regarding infrastructure etc.

Without land tax there is vast amount of speculation in land which is pushing the price of land sky high and making it unaffordable for the poor in cities. This is especially important for regions where political patronage is linked to land.

5a. Land tax for financial and land management

Looking first at the instrumental justifications, paying this fee encourages a landowner to develop vacant and under-utilized land to the full extent that its value warrants, or to make way for others who will. Sites are consequently used more efficiently, dilapidated inner-city areas are returned to good use, which reduces urban sprawl. LVT deters speculative land holding and enables a society to provide sustainable and wider access to the use of land. This allows women and men, poor and affluent, uneducated or well educated, all to gain access to land in more affordable manner. It enables secure land tenure by owners willing to pay for the land advantages they find important. This approach to revenue production stimulates new business and new employment, reducing the need for government assistance.

Economically LVT makes sense because, it does not distort market mechanisms or otherwise burden the economy the way most other taxes do. It is a cheap and efficient levy to administer because much less effort is required to track land ownership and value than to track income or sales transactions. Tax evasion on land is much more difficult than on financial wealth because land cannot be hidden, removed to a tax haven, or concealed in an electronic data system. Even in the poorest of communities the tools are readily available to implement this policy.

There are also compelling moral reasons for LVT. Land (unlike goods and services) has no cost of production. If an ample supply of land of equal desirability were available everywhere, there would be nothing to pay for its use. In reality land acquires a scarcity value owing to the competing needs of community members for living, working and leisure space. Thus land value owes nothing to individual effort and everything to the community at large. It belongs justly and uniquely to the community. Conversely, the reward for individual effort rightfully belongs to the one who earns it. Because of differences in location, fertility or natural resources, some places are more advantageous than others. Only demand for access to these advantages gives land its value.

Land values are created mainly by factors that are not the result of the landowner's own effort; for example, the creation of new infrastructure, new public transportation, or re-zoning. All can radically change the value of a piece of land. LVT provides a method of recouping windfall changes to land value that occur as a result of investment by the community, placing less of the burden on taxpayers who don't directly benefit. This allows reductions in existing taxes on labor (wages) and enterprise (sales). The LVT is progressive because the land tax cannot be passed on to a tenant; competitive markets, and not landlord overheads set rental prices.

The natural world is rightfully the common property of all persons, and therefore the LVT is not really a tax, but simply the collection of rent (a user fee) on behalf of the community. For eight thousand years worldwide, LVT has been the primary basis for producing public revenue and is easy for people to understand. LVT is the appropriate instrument for the urgent fight against global inequity and poverty.

Questions for tool developers

1. Where has LVT been implemented?
2. How difficult is it to assess land values?
3. How would you implement LVT in a small community with limited resources and what are the barriers?
4. Is it fair to tax existing landowners who have not been taxed in the past?
5. Is it fair to tax the poor?
6. What if there is no valuation profession in place in the country?

6 Cross cutting issues

6a. Modernising of land agencies budget approach.

Developing countries have problems to establish efficient government organisations. The inefficient taxation systems, demands on downsizing of the governmental sector, privatisation and other measures make it difficult to develop governmental organisations. Managers of governmental organisations are not able to control economy, investments, staffing policy etc. but are depending on decisions by other ministries, like Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Public Administration etc. Decisions become often highly politicised

Several developing countries have experiences of establishing parastatal organisations more or less independent from the State Treasury. The experiences of these are mixed.

Globally, land agencies are becoming more and more dependent, not on governmental funding, but on funding from the customers through different kinds of service fees. When real property markets develop, the possibilities to finance land agencies from user fees will increase. This will not only improve financing for the agency, but also make the organisation more dependent on its customer relations and on the need to deliver good services in order to receive income.

A goal and result-based management system for a governmental agency with an independent budget can e.g. include:

1. - Goals decided by government for the organisation in annual budget dialogue
2. - Freedom for the management of the organisation to decide on investments, staffing, salaries etc. within the given goals
3. - Reporting by end of the year to the government on the obtained results.
4. - The government may decide the fee levels in order to be able to put pressure on the organisation on improvements of efficiency.

To be able to contribute to poverty eradication, land administration must be able to deliver its services to poor people at affordable costs. Cost for registration of property rights can be reduced significantly by use of modern technology for surveying and mapping, especially remote sensing from aircraft-born sensors, the production of orthophoto maps and the use of GPS in different ways. The demand on the quality on registration services, the degree of accuracy needed, especially for the graphical component can be adjusted to the most important needs of the community, e.g from numbering of houses, survey of the peripheral of the community, to survey of each individual parcel, if legal boundaries (agreed among the users) the are defined. If no legal boundaries are defined on the ground, there is perhaps not any need for survey.

Cost can also be reduced by proper management systems, use of computer technology in a cost-efficient manner and organisational development, including decentralisation of responsibilities to local levels.

It can also be considered to subsidise registration fees for poor people by funds from the State budget or through fees from more wealthy parts of the land parcels. Active support and awareness campaigns to explain the benefits of land registration for poor people and especially to strengthen women´s rights to property can be example of subsidised activities motivated by the political will to implement the millennium goals.

Questions for tool developers

1. Are developing countries able to develop management systems that will make more independent funding of land agencies possible?
2. How can the budgets of land agencies be modernised?
3. How can the products and/or activities of land agencies be better costed?

6b. Measuring tenure security for the MDGs

Target 11 of the MDG is “to improve substantially the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020, while providing adequate alternatives to new slum formation”.

Achieving these objectives requires nationwide upgrading programmes in existing slums or informal settlements, and preventive actions through the provision of serviced land for housing the urban poor. One of the main prerequisites for any intervention is security of tenure.

An accurate enumeration of conditions for tenure security is a prerequisite to (i) evaluating various levels of insecurity and corresponding risks of eviction, (ii) providing a normative foundation for promoting secure tenure and guidelines for statutory recognition of secure tenure, (iii) identifying and developing global norms for secure tenure, and (iv) producing appropriate composite indicators for monitoring and assessing the impact of tenure security policies at national, city, and settlement levels. Questions for tool developers

1. What should be the content of a global and comprehensive tool for characterising tenure status and corresponding security of tenure? For example, based on four sets of interrelated parameters, namely: (i) primary tenure rights on land, (ii) land tenure, (iii) occupancy status of the dwelling unit, (iv) type of development.
2. What are or might be the components of a global indicator of security of tenure? For example, (i) national provisions against forced eviction; (ii) effective protection against forced eviction; (iii) administrative practices regarding security of tenure; (iv) appropriate record of land rights; (v) women’s equal right to secure tenure; (vi) perception of secure tenure at settlement level; (vii) market pressure at settlement level; (viii) people affected by, or under threat of, forced eviction.

6c. Capacity building for sustainability

Land administration organisations need access to competent staff in order to manage the organisation, develop methodology, and be able to make decisions based on law in a transparent manner. They also need to be accessible, among others through decentralisation to local offices. There is a considerable demand on qualified staff for the development of the land administration system and for its sustainability.

Staff can be provided through training at training institutes in different topics within land administration, such as land use planning, surveying and mapping, land registration, land valuation etc. But is there any meaning in educating people, if the land agency does not have the funds to employ the trained staff? In other words, capacity building must be integrated with institutional development

Capacity building of land administration organisations for poverty eradication will among others call for:

1. - Assessment of existing training capacities, demand for training, of new officers (formal training) and life-time competence development of existing staff
2. - Assessment of demands on training due to new approaches to the integration of formal and informal land tenure system, customary rights, gender awareness etc.
3. - The development of a balanced approach to decentralisation between demand for trained staff, the quality of the training, the affordability for local government to employ staff of certain quality, and the most urgent needs for improvement of land administration
4. - Forms of training, formal through institutions, more sandwich approaches, longer and shorter programmes, seminars, workshops, e-studies etc.

1. Decentralisation programmes call for the employment of land administration officers at local level e.g. registrars, valuers, planners and surveyors, which cannot be afforded by local communities. Is the training in these different topics suitable or is there also a need of a training programme for a land officer, who can handle all upcoming land administration tasks in the local administration?
2. Land administration organisations need to adapt to new demands on services in society. This call for change of methods and attitudes in the organisation will affect employees at all levels. In other words, land administration organisations need to develop into learning organisations, adapting strategies for change. One important tool for change within an organisation is competence development among its members. How can possibilities for continued competence development be increased for land administration organisations?

6d. Land access/land reform

Land reform is the process of examining and changing laws, regulations and customs relating to land ownership and land tenure. The most frequent types of land reform are government-initiated transfers of ownership, with or without consent of and compensation to the original owners. These mainly concern agricultural land.

In urban areas, redistributive land policies through conventional land reforms, as initiated in the 1970s and 1980s, have achieved limited results, likewise attempts to limit access to land, such as putting a ceiling on property laws. During the last two decades, land reforms in former socialist countries and in most Sub-Saharan African countries have emphasised land privatisation. New Land Codes and Land Laws have put an end to the State monopoly on land and introduced private property, with the objective of stimulating private investment and enabling housing markets to work. Nationwide titling programmes to integrate informal tenures within the formal market usually accompany these reforms. Their impact on access to land for the poor is debatable, and has not as yet been properly assessed.

With a rather different perspective, other countries – such as Brazil – have adopted and implemented de facto land reforms based on a series of ground-breaking constitutional, legal and regulatory measures, aiming to improve access to land for the urban poor through urban land policies, special use concession procedures, expropriation through progressive taxation, and special adverse possession rights.

Those countries that have undertaken large scale rural land reform and redistribution, such as Japan, have been able to lift their GDP in the medium to long term. Many countries such as India have not succeeded in implementing ambitious rural land reform policies and this has affected the GDP of the country by at least 1 percent. Rural land reform has failed in South Africa and new measures are being implemented to speed up land redistribution. Questions for tool developers

1. What are the most appropriate legal tools for ensuring speedy, fair and equitable access to land for the poor?
2. What is the impact of land reforms based upon privatisation and systematic land rights registration on access to land by the poor?
3. What methodology should be used to assess and evaluate the social and economic impact of land reforms?

6e. Key characteristics of a gendered tool

The role of nurturing homes and families demand a stable and secure land and housing, and women are at the centre of these processes. Historically, women in the midst of deprivation or abundance, during peaceful times or violent periods, have faced these roles as a matter of their daily challenge which society has assigned to them.

In the last twenty years or so, grassroots women have organised in the neighbourhood, village, city and district and also both at the national and international levels to push for the recognition and support for their contributions to land and settlements development.

For instance the coalitions and federations in various parts of the world working with the Huairou Commission, which was established after the Istanbul II in 1996 to monitor the implementation of the gender agenda in the recent UN World Summits, have gathered at Grassroots Women International Academy (GWIA) to share and examine their efforts on how women organize, negotiate, produce and network with diverse stakeholders with the aim of securing land ,shelter, livelihood etc. for themselves, their families and communities.

Dialogue among grassroots women, as well as with other sectors concerned with land and shelter issues such as local and national governments, housing finance institutions, technical professionals and social scientists also provided said grassroots movements to sharpen and strengthen their local as well as national organizing and advocacies to put gender perspective in governance.

These processes continue to expand the reach and impact of grassroots womens’ contribution to securing land tenure, improving shelter and other aspects of a sustainable settlement development.

Thus, the establishment of the GLTN is certainly a welcome opportunity for pushing for the recognition of women’s work in land and settlements issues. The GLTN is likewise a platform to better understand not just the distinct features of women’s contributions to land tenure tools, but equally important to analyse, how such tools address the issues of marginalization, inequality, discrimination, violence and other forms of subordination that women and girls experience in land and housing processes.

Thus, the discussion aims to generate sharing and exchange, examination and also affirmation of common principles, tools for securing land tenure arising from a continuum of economic and political, cultural landscape that organised women and their communities have identified, agreed upon and struggled and negotiated for, or for some, sacrificed their lives.

Questions involving organising, consensus building, identifying and developing tools benefiting girls and women, whether in urban or rural, from legislation, to capacity building, to advocating for neighbourhood/district plans, to actual housing production as cooperative enterprise, or developing credit and financial access, developing local, sustainable environmental/agricultural technologies to increase household incomes and local economic development are among the possible issues that will be covered by the online discussion. Questions for tool developers

1. Are gendered tools creating a more equitable division of labour not only between men and women, but also among the different stakeholders?
2. What are the current strategic opportunities as well as challenges in both urban and rural politics that grassroots women organisations/movements are faced with to push gendered tools?
3. What are the challenges to creating gendered tools at scale?

6f. Grassroots methodology for tool development at scale

Ensuring genuine grassroots participation within the Global Land Tool Network enhances the prospects that high quality and useful land tools will be designed, disseminated and used in practice. Grassroots participation has been defined as ‘a planned process whereby local groups are clarifying and expressing their own needs and objectives and taking collective action to meet them.’ The grassroots should ordinarily be seen as those groups who are the intended beneficiaries of the relevant pro-poor land tools. In urban areas this would include women residents of informal settlements, low-income tenants, low-income owners in slum conditions and marginalised groups affected by urbanisation such as indigenous peoples and small farmers. In rural areas, the categories would cover small farmers (tenants, freehold, informal) small and nomadic pastoralists, landless labourers, Indigenous peoples, informal settlements, refugees/IDPs. Within each of the listed categories of persons, the majority tend to be women, so ensuring that grassroots tools are gendered is crucial.

Entry points for participation

The grassroots methodology could allow for participation at a number juncture points within the GLTN framework of action which should facilitate a virtual feedback loop between research and action:

1. - Documentation of existing tools developed by the grassroots.
2. - Participation in the development and review of new or updated land tools.
3. - Dissemination of land tools.
4. - Testing of land tools.
5. - Ongoing transfer of knowledge of land issues.

Possible models of participation

The model for permitting grassroots participation at these levels issues may vary according to context but could include the following:

1. - Use of existing grassroots networks that have contact with GLTN international and regional partners.
2. - Focus groups with community representatives in selected countries.
3. - Internet forums on particular issues (e.g. digital divide problem).
4. - Participation of grassroots representatives in national, regional and international multi-stakeholder GLTN workshops for tool development.
5. - Pilot projects for testing of tools.

1. Are there other grassroots participation models that should be considered? Or should GLTN only choose one model?
2. The number and diversity of grassroots groups is significant. How will GLTN address the non-homogeneity and size of such groups within its limited capacity?
3. How do we ensure that lessons learned at the grassroots level can be scaled up into useful multi-stakeholder tools? Or should separate tools be developed for the different stakeholders such as grassroots groups, local authorities, national authorities etc.
4. Should a separate land tool be developed on grassroots participation, so that stakeholders are aware of how grassroots participation can be achieved with all tools?