The history of land rights in Colombia is a centuries-old tale of colonialism, highly concentrated land ownership and unsuccessful agrarian reforms. Fifty years of civil strife have left vast sections of the country’s land undocumented, vulnerable to land record manipulation and outright lawlessness.

Many of today’s increasingly complex development challenges, from rapid urban expansion to climate change, disaster resilience, and social inclusion, are intimately tied to land and the way it is used. Addressing these challenges while also ensuring individuals and communities are able to make full use of their land depends on consistent, reliable, and accessible identification of land rights.

Those of you who have visited Dubai in recent years may relate to what I am going to say: Dubai is in the middle of the desert, and its land, not that long ago, was really worth nothing. Now it is one of the most vibrant international cities in the world. All this happened in a relatively short time span.

By Jamal Browne

Since the adoption of the global indicator framework by the UN Statistical Commission (UNSC) back in March 2016, significant progress has been made on a set of tenure-related indicators – familiarly referred to as the ‘land indicators’ – primarily through the efforts of the Global Land Indicators Initiative (GLII).

By Nghia Le Trung, Chairman of the Advisory Council, National Center for Research and Development of Open Technologies (RDOT), Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam