A five-day joint regional workshop on improving land administration for economic benefits has ended in Accra.
It was organised by the Lands Commission in collaboration with the African Regional Institute of Geospatial Information Science and Technology (AFRIGIST), School for Land Administration Studies of the University of Twente (ITC) and the Netherlands Kadaster (Land Registry and Mapping Agency).
Participants included experts and professionals from land administration institutions and related agencies including land taxation agencies, city administrators responsible for land management, local governments, mapping agencies, and private developers among others from Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal.
Opening the workshop, Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Benito Owusu Bio, reiterated the importance of land reforms which tends to enhance security of tenure, encourage investment and promote economic growth.
Ghana, he said, has implemented land reforms with a focus on the legal regime, institutional structure, human capacity development and a modernised land administration system.
In the area of land conflict resolution, he explained that adjudication measures were given priority as a preferred option with recent statistics indicating that the measures were leading to effective disposal of land conflict cases.
Mr Bio urged the participants to unearth innovative ideas to bring both the poor and marginalised to an appreciable level of security in land tenure and administration that was just and equitable.
Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, Alhaji Sulemana Mahama, said the workshop was necessary to enable land administrators describe common and specific solutions and problems in current land administration projects.
He stated that participants would be trained on available technical, managerial and methodological tools to modernise land administration and link land administration outcomes to strengthen poverty alleviation, good governance and gender sensitisation endeavours.
Dr Adewale Akingbade, Executive Director of AFRIGIST, said recent problems in sub-Sahara Africa including land grabbing, land conflicts and rapid urbanisation required increasingly rapid, up-to-date and integrated land information.
He stated that an update in the recent understanding and application of land administration methods and approaches was necessary to achieve the interests and aims of governments, individual citizens and interest groups.
BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS
