Of Special Importance to Practitioners, Academics and Students

MALTA

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

This was held 4-7 May 2011

Of special importance to practitioners, academics and students

in both developed and developing countries

Organised by

The Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy (CASLE)

and

The European Council of Construction Economists (CEEC)

The conference was opened by The Hon. Dr de Marco, Parliamentary Secretary responsible for Tourism, Culture and the Environment in Malta.

In welcoming the delegates, Dr. de Marco suggested that the state of the environment, our society and the economy are inextricably linked to the way we use and relate our land and sea resources. He continued: “Without doubt, the key word in this relationship is sustainability. It is the sum total of all he different meanings we attach to this word, and in essence – the sum total of our long term social, economic and environmental aspirations ...... Through our national policies we are addressing some of the inherent sustainability challenges we face, but in our globalised world the challenges are no longer confined to national boundaries, and indeed problems such as climate change are a global, planetary nature. Sustainability at the national level is inconceivable without confronting, developing resilience and adapting to global change.”

“Confronting these global issues requires a vision. Take climate change for instance. In 1988 a young Maltese professor, David Attard, had a vision that transformed itself into a Government proposal to the United Nations. It was a proposal on the protection of global climate as a common heritage of humankind, which subsequently formed the basis of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. For instance it would not be possible to mitigate and build resilience to the effects of climate change unless we critically evaluate the way we plan our infrastructure, the way we administer our land, the way we construct our buildings, the way we account for ‘embedded carbon’ and the way we manage a multitude of our economic activities.

All this leads to the notion of governance, which is about consistent management, cohesive policies, guidance, processes and decision rights for a given area of responsibility. Governance is directly linked with sustainability, and there can be no sustainable land administration without sustainable governance. It is for this reason that Malta is currently focusing on modernising and reforming its institutions.

To better administer our land we have in the past year prepared and started implementing a reform process in the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. We are implementing a reform process that is based on four main prinmciples for environmental decisions and land administration. These are – consistency, efficiency, accountability and enforcement. These four principles are also at the core of Government’s vision for the environment. We believe that by being consistent in the decisions that we take, by being efficient and accountable in the implementation stages and by enforcing regulations, we will effectively address our local and global challenges in the environmental sector.

International professional associations such as CASLE also have an important role in the process of fostering good governance, not only in member countries, but on a regional and even international levels. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for inviting me to this conference. I wish you to have a productive event and to enjoy your stay in Malta. I have pleasure in declaring your conference open.”

The conference attracted delegates from 22 countries: Barbados, Czech Republic,Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Ireland, Japan, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tanzania, Trinidad & Tobago, Uganda, UK and USA.

Addressing Global Issues

The rapporteur was Professor Neil Ravenscroft of the University of Brighton and his summary of the proceedings appears below.

Introduction

This is the second joint conference of CASLE and CEEC, where we have been able to move beyond enquiry about what each association does and represents, to deeper questions, about what it is to be a property professional in contemporary society. As we have heard throughout the conference, our role increasingly involves addressing risk and uncertainty, bringing forward questions for us about how we respond to increasing complexity and begin to understand the part that we can play in addressing global issues through property.

This report cannot do justice to the many interesting and challenging papers at the conference. Rather than attempt to describe their content, therefore, the report seeks to understand and interpret the common themes that have emerged. It is, thus, very much a personal reflection on the formal presentations and the informal conversations that surrounded them. I am indebted to all the conference participants and hope that they each recognise at least a little of what I have tried to capture.

The Global context

A number of speakers made reference to the significance of the current global context. Recession has led to austerity measures being taken in many countries; it was commonly described as a melting pot of change, with severe challenges around maintaining funding programmes and the momentum of development. Land use pressure on urban and peri-urban land is increasing, with increasing competition to take land out of food production. As the case of China illustrates, this can have significant global impacts on food (in)security, and brings to the fore the global politics of sustainability and resilience.

We also heard a lot about the emergence of the risk society - and the different ways in which people interpret and articulate risk. As we were reminded, this personal approach to assessing risk means that we cannot impose solutions, but have to learn to work with communities to identify how their perceive risk and, consequently, what approaches to risk reduction they are likely to recognise and accept. This also reflects another major conference theme, about the need throughout the Commonwealth to improve institutional capacity, particularly with respect to governance and land administration. As we heard at the first joint CASLE/CEEC conference, we continue to face problems caused by a lack of common measurement and a common understanding of terms that are taken for granted locally.

As a result the global context for property is dominated by issues related to cost and value: there is an increasing need to understand full environmental costs and to take them into account in determining the sustainability of new developments. Green buildings may cost more initially, but what about their long term, life cycle costs? New concepts and associated terminologies are being developed to help us understand the issues (cradle to grave; cradle to cradle ...). Within this we also need to start considering the costs and benefits of environmental compliance and the role of corporate social responsibility.

Key themes

Four key themes emerged at the conference:

(1) Us – and our need for new competences

(2) New skills that we need to acquire

(3) The political (and risk) economy in which we work

(4) The part that our associations can play in helping us achieve (1), (2) and (3)

Theme 1: Us

This theme was informed by two papers that sought to reflect on the changing roles of land and quantity surveyors. While cautioning against portraying the changes as emblematic of paradigm shift, we were asked to reflect on how far our roles have changed – have we become spatial scientists, for example? And are the changes that we are experiencing really bound up in the possibilities offered by new technologies (are we thermometers or thermostats?)? History suggests not: as a paper on Rome argued, land, property, engineering and development are enduring themes; the tools and instruments can change, but this does not of itself imply a new role for the surveyor.

Peter van derPijl summed it in his opening address: the world is changing and we must adapt – through research, innovation and developing people rather than nations. He went on to make a profound observation, that our professions give us the capacity to work on higher plains. This is highly reminiscent of Rudolf Steiner’s work on knowing the higher worlds.

Several speakers observed that no amount of expert knowledge can replace local lay knowledges and practices. Allied to our need to work on a higher level, this suggests that we require three new competences:

High quality skills that make good use of new technologies;

A reflexive and innovative approach to our work – looking for the zero or low cost solution;

A culturally appropriate way of working that recognises local knowledges and the contribution that everyone can make to addressing global property issues.

Theme 2: New skills

Many speakers highlighted both the need that we have for new skills, and the advances that are being made in identifying them. Examples include:

Recognition of the need for standardisation in cost planning – against an acknowledged background in which all comparisons are tough;

Developing pro-poor and multi-purpose cadastral systems. We heard a number of excellent papers on the ways in which new technologies (such as GPS) can be deployed to achieve more equitable land allocation. The skills required here are not only associated with the technologies, but also with the recognition that land administration can be a force for change;

Developing community asset management. When allied to pro-poor land policy, asset management work with communities can help locate power and control over land closer to those who are affected by local land administration decisions;

New valuation frameworks;

Carbon accounting in life cycle costing;

Developing the potential of GIS & GPS;

Theme 3: the political economy

Dr de Marco, our guest of honour at the opening ceremony, set the scene: environmental sustainability is a global issue – and it needs new competences such as counting carbon – and an understanding that a building is for life. Building resilience is a function of good governance, in terms of creating sound governance structures and training people to act effectively within these structures. This understanding dates back to the Romans and beyond: good organisation builds the capacity to promote vision and action to foster resilience.

In contrast to the siren call for good governance, a common theme in many of the papers has been that inadequate land administration has been a function of a poorly articulated political philosophy. This has restricted development and underpinned the divide between wealth and poverty. Land registration is crucial, but it is also controversial and has the capacity to provoke conflict.

Despite the problems in many countries, changes are happening:

The development of sustainable land administration systems, a land information bank and stakeholder consultation in Ghana;

Innovative ideas about the development of social cadastre in Tanzania;

Large scale data capture in China;

Understanding client needs in Sri Lanka;

New approaches to community development in India;

Pro-poor cadastral improvements to address informal settlements in Tanzania;

Affordable housing solutions in Barbados;

Life cycle costing of buildings

These developments suggest that two key initiatives are underway:

1. The recognition of local people. For too long inappropriate political and property solutions have been imposed on countries from outside. This is being challenged, with success. Community asset management suggests a new approach in which the property profession becomes a facilitator to support local people develop and implement local arrangements to address local problems.

2. The recognition of the role of property in promoting democracy. It is a major step forward to recognise that technical tools, such as cadastre, are political, and that pro-poor approaches to cadastre can have an impact, by registering small plots of land so that farmers have certainty of title and can raise loans to finance their businesses.

Theme 4: Our associations

We heard from several speakers about the purposes of our associations, and about the power that we have collectively, in terms of our influence throughout Europe and the Commonwealth. We were also reminded that we can usefully work at the boundaries of these territories, by engaging with countries such as Japan, China and the Americas. However, to realise our potential we need to break away from developed/developing nations dichotomy to understand that our associations must support the development of individuals – through supporting the development of surveyors. Our associations should lead the drive for sustainability – in policy terms by recognising it as a Western problem of cost, and in practical terms by supporting green building and other such initiatives.

The challenge:

The conference has highlighted that the surveying professions are shifting rapidly from narrow professional interest and expertise to a much broader and complex view of what we do. To support this requires our associations to continue to identify and communicate our relevance to the global issues that we all face. This is about encouraging us all, as individuals and ambassadors for our associations, to accept our responsibility to make what, for many, is no less than a paradigm shift in their working practice:

To learn and implement higher skills

To be reflexive in all we do

To be culturally relevant in the way that we work

Research agenda

There is research work to be done – arguably more than ever, and without the rigid divides of the past between practitioners and academics. The new research agenda must be inclusive, working from the ground up and involving all those affected. Examples of the work that is required includes:

The changing role of the surveyor – a possible comparative CASLE/CEEC project?

Life cycle costing including embodied carbon.

Community engagement with land and property.

Land tenure throughout the Commonwealth – and beyond – how do we understand crucial concepts, such as boundaries, riparian rights, minerals?

Forging links with third countries to extend our reach.

Land tenure in and after conflict – maybe even provoking conflict.

Conclusion

We – and our associations – need to reposition ourselves, not as scientific experts who can assert their knowledge on others, but as engaged professionals who can use their expertise to work with anyone and everyone in achieving innovative and effective solutions to the global issues that we all face. We need to renew our commitment to enquiry and research – and to reach beyond Europe and the Commonwealth.

As Marcus Aurelius taught us: we should perform every action as if it were our last, and we should do well to remember that actions speak louder than words.