Its4land-Challenges and Opportunities in Developing Innovative Geospatial Tools for Fit-For-Purpose Land Rights Mapping

Mila KOEVA; Sophie CROMMELINCK; Claudia STÖCKER; Joep CROMPVOETS; Serene HO; Ine BUNTINX; Angela SCHWERING; Malumbo CHIPOFYA; Sahib JAN; Tarek ZEIN; Christian TIMM; Kaspar KUNDERT; Placide NKERABIGWI; Berhanu ALEMIE; Robert WAYUMBA

Abstract

Mapping millions of unrecorded land rights in large parts of Sub-Saharan Africa remains a challenge. The results of many existing ICT-based approaches for recording these rights have often proven to be inappropriate; therefore, a new generation of tools needs to be developed to map land rights faster, cheaper, easier, and more responsible. This is the main goal of its4land, a European Commission Horizon 2020 project that aims to develop innovative tools that respond to the continuum of land rights, fit-for-purpose approach, and provide cadastral intelligence. To deliver innovative, scalable, and transferrable ICT solutions, the its4land project builds on strategic collaborations between the EU and East Africa. The innovation process incorporates a broad range of stakeholders and emergent geospatial technologies including smart sketch maps, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), automated feature extraction, as well as sharing and publishing through geocloud services. The aim is to combine these innovative approaches with the specific needs, market opportunities and readiness of end-users in the domain of land tenure information recording in East Africa. Moreover, the tools target both top-down and bottom-up approaches and thus support formal land registration processes, as well as informal community based land resource documentation. The project consists of a four-year work plan, €3.9M funding, and eight consortium partners collaborating with stakeholders from different case study locations in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda that cover different land uses such as urban, peri-urban, rural smallholder, and (former) pastoralists.