Capacity Building for Developing Sustainable Land Administration Infrastructures

Abstract

Capacity building is increasingly seen as a key component of land administration projects in developing or transition countries undertaken by the World Bank and individual country development assistance agencies. However, the capacity building concept is often used within a narrow meaning such as focusing on staff development through formal education and training programmes to meet the lack of qualified personnel in the short term. In fact, capacity building is often used as a synonym for human resource development. This paper argues that even if the key focus may be on education and training to meet short and medium term needs, capacity building measures should be addressed in the wider context of developing institutional infrastructures for implementing land policies in a sustainable way. Capacity building measures must be addressed at three levels: the societal level (policies, legal frameworks and accountability), the organisational level (institutional infrastructures and organisational effectiveness), and individual level (technical and professional competencies and responsibilities). Capacity building should be seen as a comprehensive methodology aiming to provide a sustainable outcome through assessing and addressing a whole range of relevant issues and their interrelationships. This paper aims to develop the capacity building concept to provide some guidance in the area of introducing sustainable land administration infrastructures. The paper also analyses the complex and interdisciplinary nature of the land administration paradigm in order to identify the key issues to be addressed. The paper then discusses the future directions towards developing methodological guidelines for capacity building in land administration