Abstract
The well-recognized and extensive task of mapping unrecorded land rights across sub-Saharan Africa demands innovative solutions. In response, the consortia of “its4land”, a European Commission Horizon 2020 project, developed, adapted, and tested innovative geospatial tools including (1) software underpinned by the smart Sketch maps concept, called SmartSkeMa; (2) a workflow for applying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV); and (3) a boundary delineator tool based on the UAV images. Additionally, the consortium developed (4) a platform called Publish and Share (PaS), enabling integration of all the outputs of tool sharing and publishing of land information through geocloud web services. The individual tools were developed, tested, and demonstrated based on requirements from Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Zanzibar. The platform was further tested by key informants and experts in a workshop in Rwanda after the AfricaGIS conference in 2019. With the project concluding in 2020, this paper seeks to undertake an assessment of the tools and the PaS platform against the elements of fit-for-purpose land administration. The results show that while the tools can function and deliver outputs independently and reliably, PaS enables interoperability by allowing them to be combined and integrated into land administration workflows. This feature is useful for tailoring approaches for specific country contexts. In this regard, developers of technical approaches tackling land administration issues are further encouraged to include interoperability and the use of recognized standards in designs.
Highlights
Land tenure security supports orderly land dealings, poverty reduction, dispute minimization, and overall sustainable development
Tools
This paper aimed to contribute to the broad challenge of mapping unrecorded land rights across sub-Saharan Africa
Summary
Land tenure security supports orderly land dealings, poverty reduction, dispute minimization, and overall sustainable development. Delivering “tenure security for all” is one of the implied objectives of the sustainable development goals (SDGs)—target 1.4—set by the United Nations (UN) [1]. It can influence household income, food security, and equality [2,3]. Millions of people-to-land relationships are still not recorded and remain unknown to governments [4]. This situation, is a fact in Sub-Saharan African countries [5]. With conventional cadastral surveying and mapping approaches, full completion would take decades, if not centuries [6].
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