III Exchange of Experiences of Cadastre, Registration and Land Tenure - First impression

When the second of the three days involved in the day framed in the initiative of the South-South International Meeting takes place, in Granada, Nicaragua. Here are my preliminary observations.

Over the place

Undoubtedly, for those who are not from Nicaragua, the environmental experience is of high impact. The temperature and sweat gushing out of the A / C is insane, but the place is just stunning.

Granada was founded in 1524 by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba. It is the oldest city in Nicaragua and one of the first cities in continental America. Unlike other towns that assert the same thing, the city of Granada was not only the settlement of the conquest, but also a city registered in the official records of the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Castile in Spain.

The conditions of public safety, my respect. The few hours for nightlife, to lick your fingers. The romance for the historical and cultural value, as for a very particular poetic article in my Leisure category.

The methodology and day

Very practical and functional where possible. Although more depends on the skill and cunning of the moderator. Interesting about Open Spaces, where you can share specific topics with those who sign up for panels; although from the themes that I have seen I have the impression that they become repetitive with respect to the previous ones.

The form of presentations and forums is balanced, although somewhat tight to the times where there is not enough space for reflection or systematization - understandable. It is surely complemented by private conversations, since the experiences are more than valuable, with participants from Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Macedonia, the United States and possibly a couple more that I forget now.

The first day wears out in routine presentations and multiple welcome in a country that clearly is protocolary to the presidential arena.

Of the keynote talks; impeccable and graphically rich presentation by Diego Erba, “Importance of Cadastral Information in Regularization”; added to his good sense of humor, the conclusions he has given at the beginning are inspiring.

Victor Endo has shown the experience on regularization at a global level.

Darío Gómez the Interrelation between Registry and Cadastre

On the first day the thematic axis has been the Regularization approaches, on this second day the Modernization and integration of the Registry and the Cadastre and for tomorrow it will be the monitoring and evaluation of land administration programs. Here there will also be presentations such as Voluntary Guidelines on the Governance of Land Tenure in Latin America, by Javier Molina.

Apparent weaknesses

Despite the richness of presentations and exchange, after attending two previous events, I can identify the following aspects that could improve:

• A functional knowledge management is urgently needed.  Few have any idea of ​​where the systematization of all shared experiences ends, how to access them, how to replicate them and how to feed back this knowledge; obviously in these contexts the democratization of knowledge is incipient at the level of public institutions.
• There is still jealousy of knowledge.  Some of the presentations still seem to only share the positive experience, and more than one, making visible the particular success of the country, project or even private consultant. Although from the first one, there is an improvement in this aspect.
• Wealth of knowledge, poverty in decisions.  Navigation through the branches is still detected, in terms of technologies, procedures, possible magic recipes and that feeling that what worked for someone else can be useful to me "but your case is different". It is still questionable if the problem is really being understood at its origin. ALL registration issues in this context are the same, ALL cadastre issues in this context are the same; the variants are accessory, but the problem is the same. Of course, the solution is particular for each country and they have different levels of progress, but I do not see a conclusive vision in solution principles that are EXACTLY the same and do not require reinvention of the wheel.
• There is no final scenario model.  I see disparate visions of what the end product is. It seems to me that conclusive papers are lacking, many of them that could be taken from the forums at the end of the events. Aspects such as:
  -The registration, cadastre and its integration are not ends, they are only means to promote the development and welfare of the end user.
  -The most modern technologies are not urgent, the standardization of procedures (even paper) are.
  -Registration modernization can be done as a maquila and is relatively easy; The availability of a system and change of culture in the users for the continuous operation is the challenge in which it is necessary to invest.
  -The registry-cadastre integration may not require a change in legislation, not even a procedural one. But there are international trends that must be reconsidered or at least aggressively prepared, such as: The consolidation towards a regulatory entity as an umbrella, the collection of basic data by local governments, the updating by users in exchange incentives such as a discount in the payment of taxes, the integration of international standards for property rights management.

For our part, a recognition to the Supreme Court and Attorney General of the Republic of Commander Ortega, for the organization and warmth of the event. To the participants, congratulations for having been selected to arrive here, gratitude for having shared so much knowledge in the different spaces. To the World Bank and FAO, bravo! for promoting this step for sustainable knowledge management; but also the challenge for the following steps to avoid the simple formulation of new phases by continuing to do more of the same.