Santiago, 15 October 2022 - "We are interested in directly supporting the issue of land governance in our region and moving forward together with neighbouring countries by making available some of the solutions adopted in Brazil. In addition, we have a great willingness to learn and to improve our internal processes”, said Celso Menezes, Acting Director of Land Governance of the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) of Brazil, during the opening of the II Cycle of Exchange of Experiences in Technological Solutions for Land Administration. The director highlighted the strategic importance of trilateral South-South cooperation on the issue of land tenure administration.

The first virtual session of the II Cycle of Exchanges took place on 28 September and was attended by around 150 people, including officials from land institutes in the region and other public institutions linked to land and natural resource governance, representatives of non-governmental organizations, civil society, indigenous and farmers’ organisations, research centres and universities linked to land governance, and international organisations.

The activity was carried out in the framework of the project “Support for the strengthening of responsible governance of tenure in Latin America and the Caribbean”, of the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation Programme. The second session will take place on 3 November. The project is jointly implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Brazilian Cooperation Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ABC/MRE) and INCRA. 

Pedro Boareto, coordinator of the project, stressed that the objective of the second cycle is to continue dialoguing and identifying issues of interest to guide a work agenda that will advance the modernization of land administration systems in the region.

Plínio Pereira, Deputy Head of Trilateral South-South Cooperation with International Organizations at ABC/MRE, said that the issue of technological solutions for the regularization and distribution of rural and agricultural land is a priority for economic and social development, as well as to promote access to land.

In addition, the Senior Policy Officer of the FAO Regional Office, Luiz Beduschi, stated that "Brazilian cooperation, and in particular this project with INCRA, plays a fundamental role in building and strengthening policy dialogue and initiatives towards the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land". He also highlighted the “great commitment” of FAO and Brazil in generating opportunities to foster dialogue and the exchange of best practices.

During the session, the Land Tenure and Natural Resources Officer of the FAO Regional Office, Amparo Cerrato, presented a brief summary of the first edition of the cycle of exchanges, which took place in 2021, highlighting the variety of experiences and reflections that were presented on issues of cadastre and land registration. "We are living in an unprecedented moment for advancing the digitization of land administration. Today’s technological advances provide unparalleled opportunities to create cheaper, more efficient and more transparent systems," she noted.

Free software

Alejandra Vega, Christian Castañeda and Leonardo Rodríguez from the FAO Representation in Colombia shared their experience in the development of free software tools to optimize the collection of land information in the large-scale interventions of the Rural Property Social Management (RPSM) processes and the multipurpose cadastre.

The RPSM organises the occupation and use of rural land through participatory governance. The multipurpose cadastre seeks to create an inventory of the country’s real estate that contains physical, economic and legal descriptions. It is a fundamental input in the formulation and implementation of various public policies.

Platform

The Territorial Governance Platform created by INCRA, Brazil, was presented by Jose Dumont Pereira, General Coordinator of Cartography, who highlighted that the institution is advancing in the digitization process. Pereira gave a practical demonstration of how the platform works, highlighting the advances in interoperability and automation of land regularization processes. The system provides the rural population with a series of services, such as requesting land regularization and validating documents, among others.