The GLTN Secretariat is facilitated by UN-HABITAT. For further information, and registration, visit the GLTN website at http://www.gltn.net 

Project Code: FS/FLO/07/SXXG051

• Advocacy – presentation of findings in range of forums.

• Expert Group Meetings (EGMs) and Regional workshops for the transfer of knowledge.

• Commissioning of key research and tool development.

• Interactive conferences via Internet and ongoing website development.

• Publications – recurrent and non recurrent.

• Management of knowledge (dissemination, data base development of contacts, filing, library etc).

• Building partnerships and research associates, including with grassroots organisations (NGOs, CBOs).

• Improvement of implementation methodologies especially in regard to grassroots and gender.  

Results:

GLTN has established a network of global and regional partners to improving land administration for poverty alleviation. There are currently 36 key global partners registered to the network and 58 member organisations and 626 individual members registered. Some key results include:  

Tool Development

• The Land Administration Doman (Or Domain?) Model, a land administration tool capable of documenting both customary and statutory land rights and claims has been presented to the International Standards Organisation (ISO). The Ethiopian Government is reviewing the possibility to test this approach using their current LIMS and certification processes. 

• GLTN grassroots mechanism to scale-up successful grassroots practices to operate at city-wide and national levels has been developed, including recommendations for capacity-building; 

• Gender Evaluation Criteria have been developed to facilitate the evaluation of land tools from a gender perspective;

Policy Guidelines and Support

• Supported the African land policy framework and the development of land indicators for security of tenure;

• Secure Land Rights for All – an overview of land policy issues (English, French and Spanish)

• Policy Makers Guide to Women’s Land, Property and Housing Rights (English, French and Spanish)

• Shared Tenure Options for Women (English and French)

• How to develop a Pro-poor Land Policy (English, Spanish and French)

• How to Establish an Effective Land Sector (English)

• Guidelines for Addressing Land Issues after Natural Disasters (English)

Training

• Transparency in Land Administration: regional trainings have been held in Ghana, Tanzania, Namibia and Senegal together with local training institutions and Universities and the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC). 

• Training in land issues has been organised for UN-HABITAT headquarters and regional office staff in Nairobi and China; 

• Training in Urban Land Markets was held in Nairobi in June 2008

Documentation and Research

• Global inventory of land related initiatives has been expanded to include 159 initiatives from Africa. In total there are 827 initiatives listed in the GLTN database.  This is currently being expanded to include initiatives from the Arab States. 

• Land Law and Islam an overview of concepts and issues in English and Arabic;

Country level support

In line with UN-HABITAT’S Medium Term Strategic and Institutional Plan, and its Enhanced Normative and Operational Framework, Shelter Branch is undertaking activities which link normative and operations together at country level, in collaboration with RTCD, Disaster Management Programme and Training and Capacity Building Branch in the following initiatives:

• Gender implications of the rural land certification process in Ethiopia;

• Rural land inventory in Botswana and its performance in peri-urban areas as well as the links between customary and statutory systems;

• City-wide planning in Haiti, situation analysis to be developed into a guideline for local and central governments;

• Research on the social and economic impacts of land titling programmes in urban and peri-urban areas in Senegal and South Africa;

• Scoping study and a series of seven case studies on specific natural disasters in Grenada, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Mozambique, Pakistan and the USA.

• A study of urban land markets in Mozambique;

• Harmonisation, Alignment and Coordination, Chairing the land sector in Kenya, for national land policy formulation and implementation.

• Identification of future activities for land governance in Liberia, and affordable land records and spatial infrastructure in Ethiopia.

GLTN Events: 2,324 people attended various GLTN events, including Internet Forums (1,552), Expert Group Meetings (626) and training events (146), with a 60/40 split in male/female participation.  Some of the reports available include:

• Improving Slum Conditions through Innovative Financing – FIG/UN-HABITAT seminar June 2008

• Expert Group Meeting on Post-Disaster Land Guidelines, Geneva, Switzerland

• Expert group meeting on Land for Sustainable Urbanisation in Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 

• UN Commission on Sustainable Development, CSD-16, NYC, USA 

• Land Professionals Workshop on Gendering Land Tools, Bagamoyo, Tanzania 

• Grassroots Mechanism, Nairobi, Kenya

Information on these and other activities is available at the GLTN website: http://www.gltn.net  Since April 2006, the site has had more than 38,000 visitors from 148 countries. 

Delivering through partnerships 

In terms of tool development at national level GLTN works through member states and partners to support the implementation of land policies. A key criteria for GLTN engagement is the potential to achieve systemic, pro-poor reform.  In this context, GLTN is identifying priority countries for focused engagement, though UN-HABITAT staff will still provide backstopping support to countries on a needs-driven basis and in line with UN-HABITAT’s Enhanced Normative and Operational Framework (ENOF). In-house agreements between divisions and branches have been put into operation to facilitate improved internal coordination and collaboration.