Seminar: Access to rural land in Colombia
The Universidad Externado de Colombia, the Embassy of the Netherlands in Colombia and Kadaster organised on August 16 the Seminar: Access to Rural Land in Colombia. Legal analysis of the Fit-for-Purpose approach.
The trigger for the seminar was a research on the legal barriers to property titles in rural areas, which was conducted by the Universidad Externado last year. During the event, key research findings were discussed. Alternative methods were presented in order to speed up processes. And suggestions were made for a better integration of the procedures of social rural planning and the formalisation of rural land.
Large variety of people
The hybrid seminar was attended by a large variety of professionals, institutional actors, stakeholders such as women farmers from communities waiting for regularised land, researchers, professors and students amongst others.
Students shared their experiences in training local grassroots surveyors for land measurement in the field, as they did in El Batán, Hobo.
With titles you can do business in the countryside
Betty Góngora and Aurora Martínez are community leaders of two villages in the municipality of Vista Hermosa, Meta, where participative land administration pilots took place. They called for speeding up the land titling processes: “Young people are organising themselves to seek fair prices and learning and teaching how to farm organically. With the titles, they can have more certainty and find out that they can actually do business in the countryside”.
Peace agreement goals
Recommendations were presented to legally facilitate participative methodologies related to the peace agreement goals. Representatives of the Agricultural Planning Unit (UPRA), the National Land Agency (ANT), the Colombian Cadastre Agency (IGAC), the Colombian Commission of Jurists and Kadaster, amongst others, reflected on possible actions in the sector.
Gustavo Marulanda, Director IGAC: “The cadastre is with the people, for the people”.
More information
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