Floss in Cadastre and Land Registration

Background

In the past FAO has supported the use of open-source software and has ac-

quired in-house knowledge in the development of FLOSS systems through the 

FAO-GeoNetwork project.

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 FAO has been involved in monitoring and evaluation 

of land administration projects and systems particularly in relation to cadastre and 

land registration in countries in all of the inhabited continents of the world for as 

long as information technology (IT) systems have been considered to aid land ad-

ministration. FAO is currently involved in dozens of land administration IT invest-

ments through World Bank and other cooperation programs. It is safe to say that 

FAO hosts one of the leading centres of excellence in the fields of security of 

 tenure, access to land and in land administration. FAO is therefore well positioned 

to address matters of low-cost land tenure security and to help member countries 

to innovate with new technology for the benefit of the security of tenure.

The on-going initiative to investigate affordable systems for land tenure secu-

rity started 2007. The initiative has, among others, promoted affordable IT systems 

that enable quick improvements in transparency and equity of governance. The 

 introduction of IT systems to land registration is one of the key ways to reduce 

 corrupt and non-transparent land administration and management practices. In 

fact, IT improves the structure and accessibility of records, facilitating knowledge 

based decision making and wider data dissemination. Open-source software is 

 increasingly seen as an alternative to proprietary software products, due to its re-

duced costs, accessibility and high adaptability. Open-source software is arguably 

in a situation of scarce resources, the more sustainable alternative to proprietary 

software products, due to the initially and annually saved costs, as well as the high 

adaptability ensured by the open-source code. An initial review screened available 

OSS options for land administration systems and found several of the available 

 database and GIS products to be of good value. However, in this field open-source 

software solutions have not been applied in any substantial way to real cases in 

developing countries. 

Initially FAO, the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) 

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 and the World 

Bank 

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 held an Expert Group Meeting on the use of open-source software in ca-

dastre and land registration systems, which led to further exploration of the idea 

and collaboration with a land records linkage system in Bosnia Herzegovina. In 

29

  The FAO GeoNetwork project GeoNetwork opensource is a standards based, Free and Open-Source catalog 

application to manage spatially referenced resources through the web. See: http://geonetwork-open-

source.org/

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  The Commission 7 (Cadastre and Land Management) of FIG.

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  The Thematic Group of Land Policy and Administration.

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May 2008, an International User Needs Conference was organized at the Univer-

sity of Otago, New Zealand to identify stakeholders’ needs and requirements for 

such systems. A year later, after the very promising prototype OSCAR 

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 work by 

the University of Otago team contracted by FAO, the time had become ripe for ap-

plying the researched approaches and tools to real life cases.