1. The IMPORTANCE OF REGIONAL COOPERATION IN PROMOTING LAND GOVERNANCE IN THE ARAB WORLD Arab States Round Table World Bank Land and Poverty Conference 2017 Washington, 21 March Presenter: Prof. Dr. Dalal Alnaggar National Water Research Center-Egypt President of the ECSM Vice President of AUS

2. The Arab World Consists of 22 countries
Around 430 million inhabitants live on 14 million km2
Even though Arab countries are facing similar problems regarding land governance they remain one of the least integrated regions in the world.

3. Challenges Facing Land Governance In Arab Countries
Several problems face reaching the desirable standard:
Absence of land policy orientation.
Demographic problems.
Religious, Cultural, and Economical gender discrimination.
High illiteracy rates and strong abidance to outdated customs and traditions in rural areas.
Unstable governmental regimes.
Scarcity of accessible actual empirical land data.
Incomplete land database.

4. Challenges Facing Land Governance In Arab Countries (Cont’d)
Fragmentation of land ownership.
Climate change and its impact on land degradation and desertification, therefore decreasing productivity.
Unqualified management of public land across the Arab World.
Lack of strong and effective institutions that strengthen cooperation across borders.
Inconsistency between Governmental urbanization and actual urban growth.
Lack of coordination between concerned institutions.

5. Informal Urbanization
Thousands of Slums consist of immigrated labor from rural communities, bonded labor, pastoralists, informal workers, and are refuge for illegal acts and criminals.
35% of slum-dwellers are women and children. If they had proper access to land they wouldn’t be in slums!
Bad governance of slums leads us to insecure rights, poverty, and chaos!
Land governance and suitable urban planning, with correct modification of laws and legislations, will guarantee sustainable communities.

6. Aspects of Cooperation
Studying the actual socio-economic causes of ill land management.
Strengthening women’s access to land especially in rural areas.
Creating regional judicial platform to support countries in crises.
Developing curricula for capacity building in land governance policies.
Creating quick mechanisms for the protection of land tenure problems.
Initiating media campaigns to illustrate the relation of land governance and development

7. Aspects of Cooperation (Cont’d)
Integration between Governmental, Educational, Training, Private sector, and civil society to face the challenges for developing social, political, cultural, environmental and religious factors in the context of developing fair land tenure.
Spreading tailored awareness campaigns for women in rural areas.
Establishing regional communication and a stakeholder’s network to exchange experiences and information.
Developing an optimum scenario of cooperation with international organizations (GLTN, WB, FIG, GIZ, … etc.) to have executive solutions instead of scattered and overlapped efforts.

8. Cooperation Between Arab Countries
The Arab League has to be the entry point to:
Establish a common platform for regional cooperation and cross-border programs.
Initiate a panel from all countries, to define and follow the prescribed ideas and studies for the promotion of land governance in the Arab countries.
Promote applicable best practices and successful models.
Generate applicable executive strategies and action plans.
Establish under the umbrella of Arab League Land Governance Association with definite Terms of Reference.
Support concerned national committees such as the Egyptian Committee for Surveying and Mapping (ECSM) & regional organizations such as the Arab Union of Surveyors (AUS).

9. The Arab Union of Surveyors
Objectives of the AUS:
Achieve dynamic communication and cooperation among stakeholders.
Standardize regional surveying projects.
Encourage women to participate and increase their awareness of their rights.
Integrate applied studies among Arab States.
Exchange of experiences to upgrade surveying engineering education and training.
Drive the participation of all Arab Countries in the forums of international organizations.

10. The Way Forward Operational Approach Clear Vision Developed Strategy
Currently, we have plenty of written recommendations, hence need to define the starting point and prioritize the means of execution.
Operational Approach
Clear Vision
Real-time database creation for a regional partnership between existing institutions, networks, experts, and trainers. This will provide decision makers with a clear vision on the needed motions
Developed Strategy
Laid out executive short and long term work plans with clear land governance policies.
Executive Plan
Assigned responsibilities for each institution on the national and regional level for multi-sectorial approaches.

11. THANK YOU