In order to design and develop a questionnaire, it is always crucial to be aware of the final desired results in the first place. Based on the feedback from the pilot countries, the research team defined four basic key issues that the template should endeavour to cover. These key issues were:
- To get an indication of the order of magnitude of the basic tasks in a cadastral system: how many parcels there are to survey and to register?
- To get an indication of the magnitude and problems involved in the informal occupation of land
- To understand the role of the cadastre in SDI, and to get an appreciation of the completeness, comprehensiveness, use and usefulness of spatial cadastral data
- To get an understanding of the capacity building which is in place or which should be established to support the system
Fig 1 Homepage of the cadastral template project
Structure and Content of Template
The template has been structured in two main parts. The first part is mainly a textual description in the form of a country report, while the second part is a short questionnaire looking for the most basic key indicators. The textual descriptive format of part one was intentional in order to make it easier to fill out. For better comparison of the results, part one is structured into five main topics, each with two to five sub-topics:
Topic A ‘Country Context’ gives descriptions of the country or jurisdiction from geographical, historical, political and administrative perspectives. There are four sub-topics, which are the description of the Geographical Context, Historical Context, Current Political and Administrative Structures and a brief Historical Outline of Cadastre.
Topic B ‘Institutional Framework’ looks at the institutional and organisational issues of the cadastral system. The objective is to get descriptions of the institutions responsible for land administration, public-private partnerships, professional organisations, and licensing and capacity building arrangements. The five sub-topics are the descriptions of the Government Organisations, Private Sector Involvement, Professional Organisation, Licensing System and Education System.
Topic C ‘Cadastral System’ attempts to get an understanding of the basic principles of the cadastral system, i.e. the purpose, the different types, informal occupation of land, the actual cadastral concept with the main units and their registration. The four sub-topics are the Purpose of Cadastral System, Types of Cadastral System, Cadastral Concept and Content of Cadastral System. The issue of the cadastral concept seems to be an interesting issue in itself for the understanding of the different cadastral systems. During the development of the template, there was lengthy debate as to the meaning of the terms ‘parcel’ and ‘property’ and how they are dealt with in the different jurisdictions.
Fig 2 Web page example of country data
