Around 50 representatives from CSOs, academic institutions, government, national, regional and international organizations from Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, and Sri Lanka met last 18-19 October 2015 in Jakarta for the Asia Regional Forum on Land Administration and Management in Rural and Urban Areas.

ANGOC and Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), hosted by the UN-Habitat, Land Watch Asia (LWA), International Land Coalition (ILC-Asia) and the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA) organized the forum to generate knowledge and identify policy and implementation gaps in land administration and management projects.

Through the workshop, participants were able to (1) analyze policy and implementation challenges and opportunities in ensuring rural and urban poor’s tenurial security through land administration and management projects; (2) share existing tools and approaches in addressing such challenges; and (3) plan strategically at the regional level on how to address these issues and how to continue the process of dialogues.

Danilo Antonio of GLTN emphasized the duality of land administration’s capability to facilitate or deter land reform and agrarian justice, and the importance for CSOs to capitalize on the knowledge of this duality in fulfilling their goals. The forum concluded with Nathaniel Don Marquez of ANGOC enumerating the challenges faced by this regional platform particularly in bringing and expanding synergy among CSOs, government, academe and private sectors.

Next steps include three areas of work agreed upon by the participants: i) policy work, ii) tooling and iii) information networking.