Research

Frontiers: State of the art in remote sensing monitoring of carbon dynamics in African tropical forests 

This paper provides a comprehensive review of current methodologies for assessing carbon stocks and fluxes in Africa’s tropical forests using remote sensing technologies. It highlights the integration of satellite imagery, LiDAR, and other Earth observation tools to monitor forest degradation, regrowth, and carbon sequestration. The authors emphasize the importance of combining these technologies with ground-based data to enhance the accuracy of carbon dynamics assessments, which is crucial for climate change mitigation and sustainable land management strategies. Read Paper

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FIG: Re-Imagining Comparative Land Administration Data for the Next Decade | Written by: Charl-Thom BAYER, Francesca MARZATICO, Wambayi WABWIRE, and Laura MEGGIOLARO

This paper highlights the crucial role of access to land data in promoting good land governance, emphasizing the significance of the Cadastral Template (CT) as a key resource. It explores opportunities for partnerships to enhance the value and use of CT data, facilitating more transparent, accountable, and sustainable land administration systems. Read Paper

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FIG: Empowering Communities in the Global South With Geospatial Technology for Sustainable Development | Written by: Wambayi WABWIRE, Rudo KEMPER, Amy COUGHENOUR BETANCOURT

This paper highlights a transformative era where advancements in geospatial technologies, fit-for-purpose methodologies, and increased government engagement with communities are revolutionizing land administration and tenure rights. Through real-world examples in Uganda, Kenya, and India, the Cadasta Foundation demonstrates the potential of collaborative efforts to secure land tenure and empower marginalized communities worldwide. Read Paper

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FIG: Securing Community Land Rights using a Simplified Land Community Data Model: A Uganda Case Study | Written by: Juan Pablo SOLIZ, William KAMBUGU

This paper showcases Cadasta’s innovative approach in partnering with Uganda’s Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development to design and implement a Land Community Data Model. Demonstrating its effectiveness in documenting and formalizing customary land rights at the sub-country level, integrating social tenure principles, and supporting subsequent transactions, Cadasta’s solution offers a cost-effective, flexible, and participatory approach to improving land information systems and securing land rights in communities. Read Paper

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IFAD: Frontier Technologies for Securing Tenure: A Review of Concepts, Uses and Challenges | Written by: Simon Hull (University of Cape Town), Harold Liversage (IFAD), Vladimir Evtimov (FAO) and Maria Paola Rizzo (FAO)

This IFAD publication showcases Cadasta’s technology and approach among other technologies used in land tenure projects, highlighting their associated benefits and challenges. Read Paper

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USAID & Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Farmer-centric Data Governance: Towards a New Paradigm | Written by: Jonathan van Geuns, Annie Kilroy, Shruti Viswanathan, Rob Baker, and Aishwarya Mallavaram

This report, published by USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, showcases Cadasta’s data governance model, among others, highlighting the enabling factors needed for their implementation. Read Paper 

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One Earth: Farmer-centric Data Governance: Indigenous Peoples’ lands are threatened by industrial development; conversion risk assessment reveals need to support Indigenous stewardship | Written by: Christina M. Kennedy, Brandie Fariss, James R. Oakleaf, Stephen T. Garnett, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares, Julia E. Fa, Sharon Baruch-Mordo, Joseph Kiesecker

This paper underscores the urgent need to empower Indigenous governance and stewardship to mitigate the threat of industrial development on nearly 60% of Indigenous Peoples’ lands worldwide. Read Paper 

FIG: Fit-for-Purpose to Formality: An Analysis of Land Tenure Intervention Applying Fit-for-Purpose Approaches and Leading to Formally Recognized Land Rights | Written by: Antonio IGUANE, Diana KYALO, Frank PICHEL, Justus WAMBYI

This paper explores the transformative impact of Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration since its inception in 2014, showcasing real-world examples in Brazil, Uganda, and India where locally driven approaches have led to formal recognition of land rights, with a particular emphasis on the role of youth in supporting land governance processes. Read Paper

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FIG: Building Capacity for Tenure Security with the VCSP Wisdom Workshop | Written by: Israel TAIWO, David ELEGBEDE, Kamsin RAJU, Chethna BEN, Jordan PALK, Roshni SHARMA, Claire BUXTON

This paper offers a comprehensive report on the global events organized by the Wisdom Workshop of the Volunteer Community Surveyors Program, focusing on equipping participants with tools and modern approaches for sustainable solutions to land-based community problems, thus enhancing tenure security in the face of legal, institutional, and social challenges. Read Paper

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FIG: Making a Difference Through Volunteering: The experience of Deploying Young Surveyor Volunteers | Written by: David ELEGBEDE, Shristi PAUDEL, Sylion MURAMIRA, and Angela Omamuyovwi ETUONOVBE

This paper showcases the impactful collaboration between the Volunteer Community Surveyor Program (VCSP) and partners like Cadasta, highlighting the vital role of young surveyors in addressing global land tenure security challenges through humanitarian surveying efforts. Read Paper

Facebook’s Data for Good Annual Report: Data for Good | Written by: Facebook

Facebook’s Data for Good Annual Report features Cadasta’s work to halt the eviction of slum-dwelling communities in Nairobi as an example of how Facebook data has assisted in response efforts to the COVID-19 pandemic and other major crises in 2020. Read Paper

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FIG: Your Rights, Your Future: Scaling Fit-for-Purpose Land Tenure in a Post-COVID World | Written by: Amy Coughenour Betancourt

This paper examines the pressing global issue of tenure insecurity, exacerbated by factors such as weak land systems and the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the urgent need for fair and equitable land governance to secure the rights of vulnerable populations and advance sustainable development goals. Read Paper

Edith Brown Weiss as a Pathfinder: Strengthening Property Rights and Community-Based Resource Governance for Indigenous Peoples Worldwide | Written by: KIRK TALBOTT, SERA SONG, & JANIS ALCORN

This paper explores the role of Edith Brown Weiss’s scholarship in international environmental law with regard to property rights and resource governance, particularly for Indigenous Peoples. Edith Brown Weiss has helped pioneer creative strategies for governing our increasingly crowded, interconnected landscapes to avoid impending local and global ecological catastrophes. Her path-breaking concept of “Intergenerational Equity” addresses the depletion and degradation of resources and the discriminatory access to resources passed on from previous generations. Read Paper

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Surveying the Landscape of Land Rights Documentation Tools | Written by: Thomas Vaassen, Ana Garcia-Moran, Johannes Eberenz, Asaf Even-Paz, Frank and Eva-Maria Unger

With a significant portion of the world’s land being undocumented, it is widely understood that technology can play a key role in accelerating the pace of land rights documentation and formalisation. ‘Responsible land administration’ shifts the paradigms of land administration design and management, challenging conventional forms; and promotes innovation that integrates the understanding of ethical and social dimensions. Read Paper

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DIGITIZATION OF CADASTRAL MAPS AS PART OF THE CADASTRAL INDEX | Written by: Emmanuel Tembo, Joseph Minango, Kelvin Chibangula and Prosper Mulenga

The Government of the Republic of Zambia, with the support of the World Bank, is implementing the Zambia Integrated Forest Landscape Project (ZIFLP) in Eastern province of Zambia. Given that legally secure land rights are essential for sustainable land management and increases in productivity of land use, ZIFLP includes a land component towards the regularization of land and resource rights. This sub-component aims to provide analytical and Technical Assistance to carefully pilot, evaluate, and where necessary, expand past any on-going efforts to strengthen tenure security by documenting land rights in support of the National Land Titling Project (NLTP) and enhance title-based revenue collection. Read Paper

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Customary Land Mapping Utilizing Fit for Purpose Approach: Case Study from Buliisa District, Uganda | Written By: Miguel Sanjiles

Substantial resources have been mobilized to capture and formally register land in Uganda; however, as across most of Africa, registered land in Uganda amounts for less than 20 percent of plots across the country. Following the successful implementation of the National Land Information System (NLIS) with the support of World Bank funding, the next phase of support to the Ugandan land sector is now in the advanced stages of design, with a focus on exploring ways to build the capacity of district and sub county level institutions to locally capture and integrate customary land into the NLIS. Read Paper

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Strategic Partnership to Improve Geospatial Information on Community Lands | Written by: Harold Liversage, Amy Coughenour Betancourt, Peter Veit, and Ward Anseeuw

Through a partnership between IFAD, the Secretariat of the International Land Coalition (ILC) and two of its members, Cadasta Foundation, and World Resources Institute, this initiative explores innovative approaches to improving GIS data on local communities’ lands in three countries—Tanzania, India, and DRC—and to foster their inclusion through a data platform called LandMark. Read Paper

Chicoco Maps Our Cities | Written by: Anne Girardin

480,000 people live on the waterfront in Port Harcourt, Nigeria and face the threat of demolition by the government. Forced evictions and demolitions in 2009 by security forces led to relocations and death of community members. No plans exist to compensate or relocate residents of informal settlements and the mass demolition of these neighborhoods is impractical. Cadasta’s Anne Girardin discusses how these communities move from evictions to partnership-based development? Read Paper

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Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands: Why Innovation in Community Land Data Collection Matters

Written by: Amy Coughenour Betancourt & Frank Pichel

This paper addresses practical, on-the-ground solutions to bridging the gap between government land systems and undocumented or informally documented communities through case studies of how communities are using community-driven, digital data collection to analyze data for decision-making, advocate for land rights and tenure recognition, and access public services and private sector offerings, such as loans, insurance, and other goods and services. Read Paper | Read Presentation

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The Odisha Liveable Habitat Mission: The process and tools behind the world’s largest slum titling project

This paper explains the context of the land tenure situation in Odisha, the approach from the Odisha government, a local philanthropy – Tata Trust and the Cadasta Foundation to map and create an official data set of slum dwellings in Odisha and the project impacts including a new property documentation system and land policy. Read Paper | Read Presentation  

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Mapping for Peace and Prosperity: Applying participatory mapping in conflict-affected settings.

This paper engages with innovative ways to apply participatory mapping techniques and the latest technological tools in fragile, conflict-affected settings to contribute to sustainable land use. In this paper, the authors describe in detail the process and purpose of a participatory mapping project in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and elaborate on the lessons learned so far. Read Paper | Read Presentation

Strengthening Land Tenure in Informal Settings: A Fit-For-Purpose Approach | Written by: Frank Pichel & Madaleine Weber
A functioning land administration sector is the foundation for economic growth. Unfortunately, effective land registry and cadastral systems with national coverage exist in only a fraction of the world’s countries. Learn More

Mapping as Empowerment – Lessons from a Year of Participatory Community Mapping | Written by: Marena Brinhurst, Frank Pichel, Hillary Ogina
Cadasta worked with Namati on community mapping projects in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, presented at the World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, we share our learnings.
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Thinking Local: Can Local Land Administration Systems Avoid the Pitfalls of National Land Systems | Written by: Maria Lodin, Kent Nilsson & Frank Pichel
In this paper, presented at the World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, Cadasta explores the benefits of local, fit for purpose land administrations systems.
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Towards a More Open Future: Increasing Accountability and Transparency through Open Land Data | Written by: Lindsay Ferris, Frank Pichel & Neil SorensenThis paper identifies the potential and observed benefits of open data, successful examples and best practices, and examined potential and observed negative impact of opening land information.
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Colored Coins: Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Land Administration | Written by: Aanchal Anand, Matthew McKibbin & Frank Pichel
Simply put, the blockchain is an economic layer for the internet. It provides a protocol for tokens of value to be transferred on a peer-to-peer basis without central actors being necessary. Learn More

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10 Reasons to Open Land and Resource Rights RecordsAn estimated 70 percent of the land in emerging economies is currently not registered. Property records that do exist are often out of date or inaccessible. Documenting land and resource rights and opening these records is critical.
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