II. Regional Meeting on Land Tenure Data
Budapest, Hungary
30 September - 1 October, 2004

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), through its Land Tenure Service, provides technical assistance to member countries in Central and Eastern Europe in their efforts to improve land tenure management and land administration in areas such as land markets, land taxation, land consolidation and land tenure databases. Assistance is being provided to countries to improve various aspects of land tenure and administration through:
ˇ Analysis and studies of issues;
ˇ Preparation of guidelines and manuals;
ˇ Development of strategies;
ˇ Technical projects through FAO’s Technical Cooperation Programme;
ˇ Knowledge management (networking, training programmes, syllabus development, workshops and seminars) for instance by assisting the Central European Land Knowledge Center (CELK).

To assist countries in CEEC and Balkan Countries, FAO’s Land Tenure Service is organizing the
II. Regional Meeting on Land Tenure Data for a small, selective group of Government officials who will be responsible for meeting EU requirements for the collection of land tenure data.

Background

The Land Tenure Service of the Food and Agriculture Organization has undertaken several activities in recent years to fulfill its Medium Term Plan target to develop data on land tenure. The idea is to support the Member Nations of the Organization in their analysis and understanding of the role of land tenure in rural development. Given that relatively few national agricultural censi and other appropriate data collection activities record much data on land tenure, this activity will support Member Nations considering inclusion of such data on what data may be useful and why.

During 2002-3, the Land Tenure Service assisted Member Nations in Central and Eastern Europe through the following:
ˇ An analytical paper that identified land tenure data that is currently collected in EU countries and the implications of EU accession on national policies for collecting tenure data.
ˇ National case studies on land tenure data in Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland.
ˇ Summary paper and synthesis on the latter three case studies.
ˇ A briefing leaflet explaining the benefits of maintaining national data on land tenure; the requirements of the EU, and the experience of countries currently within the EU; and held
ˇ Regional workshop on land tenure databases which was attended by 25 representatives from governments of 11 countries.

During 2004, activities concerning Europe will focus on:
a) Support to countries in Central and Eastern Europe through the second regional workshop on land tenure data, scheduled for September 2004. This forum will provide an opportunity for government representatives who responsible for land tenure statistics to develop their networks and learn from their counterparts in other countries
b) Specific support to countries in the Balkans. These countries are further behind other countries in the region in the development of land tenure data sets. Scheduled activities include:
ˇ Paper on land tenure statistics in Balkans in general, and with particular reference to conditions in Croatia and Albania.
ˇ Special session for the Balkan countries during the II. Regional Workshop on Land Tenure Data in September.

Data on land tenure are a vital component of statistics on agricultural and rural development because land tenure is fundamental to the rural economy. Good data sets on land tenure are important because policies based on sound information are more likely to succeed.

Countries in Central and Eastern Europe now have a unique chance to add value to their data sets.
The Regional Meeting aim to discuss:
ˇ The importance of land tenure data in policy making
ˇ Opportunities and challenges for countries in Central and Eastern Europe to improve their land tenure databases

Official language of the Workshop was English.