Washington, 8 Apr 09

Figure Panel at the Closing Session: Joan Kagwanja, Economic Affairs Officer, UN-Economic Commission of Africa, chair of the closing session (left), Paul van der Molen, the Netherlands, Clarissa Augustinus, UN-HABITAT, Cheryl Morden, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Jolyne Sanjak, Helge Onsrud, Norway and Alain Durand-Lasserve, France and Paul Munro-Faure, Food and Agriculture Organisation.

From 5-13 March 2009, GLTN staff members participated in a series of activities in Washington DC. The mission’s objectives were four-fold: (i) Participate in GLTN-supported Impact Evaluation Workshop organized by World Bank; (ii) Participate in the International Federation of Surveyors -World Bank conference on “Land Governance and Achieving the Millennium Development Goals; (iii) Review Progress in the development of the Social Tenure Domain Model; (iv) Undertake various bilateral meetings.

The Impact Evaluation Workshop included training in impact evaluation, reviewing past and future evaluations by the World Bank. The workshop underscored the need for a new framework that can support the design, evaluation and comparison of land projects and program from the perspective of achieving impacts at scale.

The Land Governance Conference included many interesting papers and GLTN was well represented and positively profiled in many presentations. The deadline for the Food and Agriculture Organisation/UN-HABITAT publication on land governance was also agreed to enable it to be sent for peer review.

The Social Tenure Domain Model Workshop provided an opportunity to preset the status and way forward of the Social Tenure Domain Model project. Participants commented and contributed on various aspects including on key technical, software, and implementation issues, highlight potential links to other software-related initiatives and alternative solutions developed in other contexts. The review for further implementation of the concept in African countries was also discussed.
Other important outcomes from the mission include: An agreement with Cities Alliance to continue discussions over a land proposal to them; an agreement by the Ethiopian World Bank country office that they would fund a GLTN tool over the next year. Further information on the three events are available on the World Bank website http://go.worldbank.org/9M2LGYCHW0 and on International Federation of Surveyors website http://www.fig.net/wb2009/