FELA and the art of sustainable land administration

The quality of the urban land administration system (LAS) is a key factor in any country’s performance on many levels. It’s no coincidence that the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are closely linked to the way LASs are organized and managed. Unfortunately, in many developing countries, urban LASs face various technological and societal challenges. It’s a situation that calls for reforms. To provide relevant countries with a baseline for such reforms, researchers investigated the status and challenges of urban LASs in Pakistan.

The FELA framework

The study was based on the UN’s Framework for Effective Land Administration (FELA), a set of policy guidelines on LASs. The FELA was designed to secure people-to-land relations and aims to enable UN member countries to achieve the SDGs related to LASs. The framework presents nine strategic pathways for assessing and modernizing LASs: (1) governance, institutes, and accountability; (2) policy and legal; (3) financial; (4) data; (5) innovation; (6) standards; (7) partnerships; (8) capacity and education; (9) advocacy and awareness. 

Why Pakistan?

In 2017, Pakistan’s urban population ratio was around 36 percent. By 2030, half of the country’s population is expected to be living in urban areas. The pace of urbanization is the fastest compared to other neighbouring South Asian countries. This development makes it imperative to evaluate and modernize existing LASs and underlying policies. The researchers chose the urban parts of the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi as their study area.

A mixed approach

The study method employed a mixed approach, including FELA-based questionnaires, group discussions, and desk reviews. A total of 525 urban LAS stakeholders participated, including owner-buyers, real estate agents, bankers, lawyers, and LAS organizations.

Results per pathway

1. Governance, institutes, and accountability

Urban LASs in Pakistan are characterized by manual processes, complexity, and fragmented management. Slow accountability and deep-rooted corruption contribute to delayed resolutions. More than 80 percent of respondents found it (very) difficult to verify seller records. Over 82 percent want to see land and property records online. 

2. Policy and legal

Legal frameworks in the area of land administration are complex. Land disputes and land grabbing are common due to poor governance and management, manipulation of manual land records, and misuse of authority. More than half of the respondents aren't satisfied with the laws and policies related to urban LASs. 

3. Financial

Due to the manual nature of property valuation in the country, there's a huge gap between the actual market value of property and the minimum value determined by government authorities. This assessment is sustained by most of the respondents. As a result of this gap, LASs don't achieve Pakistan’s enormous financial potential in terms of land and real estate. 

4. Data

The manual and outdated nature of land records creates complications - such as inaccuracies - and limited and slow retrieval and analysis of information. Less than one-third of respondents from organizations are using modern technologies like GIS, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), ICT, and 3D data for their urban LASs.

5. Innovation

The conventional urban LAS was introduced during the colonial era and has hardly changed since. In urban areas, few organizations have adopted the latest technologies to modernize their LASs. Innovation is required; 87% of all respondents agree that GIS and digital innovation could solve the problems of existing urban LASs. 

A glimpse of urban land record keeping at BoR, Sub-Registrar office in Rawalpindi

 6. Standards

For an efficient urban LAS, standardization is essential. In Pakistan, thousands of organizations manage and operate urban LASs in a pretty traditional and unorganized way. 92 percent of all respondents see the need for standards to streamline the manual urban LASs.

7. Partnerships

The land record in Pakistan serves as a base and key input for the operations of various organizations. However, there's little cooperation or exchange between these organizations. 90 percent of the respondents believe there's a need to build strong partnerships to increase the efficiency of the LASs and resolve their problems.

8. Capacity and education

LAS officials lack knowledge of modern cartography, geographic imformation systems (GIS), and up-to-date methods of electronic and satellite-based surveying. 89 percent of organizational respondents think that the efficiency of their organizations would improve if skills related to GIS and remote sensing were to be included in the workflows.

9. Advocacy and awareness

Around 16 percent of the urban population in Islamabad and Rawalpindi is illiterate. These people are unable to comprehend information from official LAS documents without help. In addition, the availability of LAS-related information through the Internet in Pakistan is very poor.

Conclusions and recommendations

The researchers concluded that the FELA is an important tool for getting insights into all aspects of urban LASs. The questionnaire now developed based can be employed in other UN member countries as well. In the specific case of Pakistan, the researchers recommended establishing a centralized land registry system, strengthening existing laws, and innovating, standardizing, and optimizing existing LASs. As stakeholders’ confidence in the existing LASs is low, transparency and accountability should be improved, and modern technologies should be adopted to avoid disputes and delays. In short, the system should be fundamentally reformed, if only in order to enable Pakistan’s existing LASs to achieve the LAS-related SDGs.

Further research

As to future studies, the researchers recommended more investigation into operational aspects of urban LASs and their standardization. Since vertical development is believed to be essential for sustainable urban development, the implementation of 3D technology to manage this process also merits further investigation.

This article is a teaser of the journal article “Assessing the Status and Challenges of Urban Land Administration Systems Using Framework for Effective Land Administration (FELA): A Case Study in Pakistan”.