Land Administration Mini-Retreat

November 19-20 2007

The World Bank

Day 2 – morning session; Working group discussions

Group 3: Rural-urban linkages (draft summary)

The group’s starting point was framing the debate in a combined urban/rural context, looking at the issue from a national aspect. There is a need for a dual understanding at country level, and to look at operational and analytical as well as conceptual issues, together with external partners. A way forward could be to create position papers based on existing work.

The group concluded that the World Bank should develop a road map to clearly outline their work on rural-urban issues. There are currently a number of units within the World Bank working on related issues; the Spatial and Local Economic Development Group, TG’s for land and for urban etc.

It was further suggested that a parallel road map for working with other partners i.e. through interagency coordination of analysis, looking at flagship reports (examples included the World Development Report (WDR) 2009 on Spatial Development, bi-annual UN-HABITAT’s State of the World’s Cities Report on Planning). Other activities could be country level, i.e. evaluations of land interventions (GLTN, DEC etc) and thematic level, incl. a post WDR dialogue on issues and identifying gaps for further research.Other areas of research that need to be looked at through the new, combined lens, include;

Urban fringe land market development etc
Land acquisition and compensation
Food security and city expansion
Urban/Regional Planning
Land administration

As regards the urban-rural paradigm the group discussed issues of integration and divergences. It was noted that the areas where differences between rural and urban areas could be found were in: the cost of service delivery; the political economy context; rural and urban land have different legal status and are often valued at different levels i.e. urban constituencies being more valued, higher parcel density in urban areas etc. However, the group noted that reality is integrated at several levels: land codes for urban and rural areas are the same, professionals are trained the same way irrespectively of whether they were to work in urban or rural areas, and they exist in the same national economy.

Next Steps

There is need for further research and discussion around separate and integrated issues and related approaches. The discussion above identified distinct opportunities. The 2009 WDR, as a start, needs to be taken advantage of as a vehicle to develop some issues.Others could include (? ) the GTLN supported country impact evaluations, and the Land Governance work currently supported by DEC. The Feb. 2008 ESSD Week can provide an opportunity and a platform to deepen this discussion.