1. Cadastral Surveys: addressing territorial disputes in Somaliland
2. Turning Assets into Usable Capital
3. The Universal Address System Is Adopted in Somaliland
FEATURE
John Drysdale
(email:[email protected]) is director of
Somaliland Cadastral Surveys. For further
information, visit www.nacgeo.com/nacsite/
John Drysdale describes how Natural Area Codes and a Geographic Information System (GIS) database are enabling farmers in Somaliland to gain legal title to their land.
Abdi Hassan, a farmer in the Gabiley district of Somaliland, proudly holds out a laminated ID card to a visiting extension worker. The card is a land ownership certificate issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, and includes a headshot of Hassan, his name and a 10- digit code. `This code represents the exact location of my farm', Hassan explains.
`Every farmer in the area now has one. For generations, our farm land had not been formally surveyed, so there were no officially recognized boundaries. The authorities would not issue any land title deeds. The situation has been worse since the end of the civil war. When the farmers returned there were many disputes over land, which sometimes became violent. No more - our land boundaries are now indisputable'.
This transformation has been achieved through a major UNDP-supported initiative, implemented by a local NGO, Cadastral Surveys, in collaboration with a Canadian company, NAC Geographic Products Inc. (NACGEO). Together they have helped to bring peace to this troubled region by surveying, delineating and registering land boundaries on the basis of the Natural Area Coding System.
Natural area codes (NACs) are basically a simpler, more compact form of geographical coordinates than those used by other mapping methods such as the global positioning system (GPS).
NACGEO has developed a computer algorithm that shortens the long strings of longitude-latitude coordinates and replaces them with NACs, or digital addresses, that are as easy to remember as telephone numbers. A NAC consists of a string of up to ten alphanumeric characters - the longer the string, the smaller the area, and thus the greater the detail. Thus, a twocharacter NAC specifies an area of about 1000 square kilometres, six characters 1 square kilometre, and ten characters one square metre. In Somaliland, it was decided to use ten-character NACs, providing unique identifiers for every farm plot, building or even tree.
The NAC system
NACGEO has so far assigned NACs for 17 countries, of which Somaliland is the only one in the developing world. There were no existing map databases that could be easily converted to the NAC system - Cadastral Surveys therefore had to start the mapping process from scratch.
The NAC mapping process is a rather complex undertaking. Cadastral Surveys sends a team into the field equipped with a theodolite to survey, record and map the exact locations of fixed objects such as houses or physical landmarks, and farm boundaries.
Since neighbouring farmers must agree on the location of their shared boundaries before the surveying work can begin, they tend to resolve their disputes relatively quickly.
Later, concrete blocks are embedded in the ground at various points to mark the agreed boundaries.
The surveyors' measurements are recorded, and copies are sent to the Cadastral Surveys head office in Gabiley. There, the raw data are examined to correct any obvious errors and are entered into ArcView, a geographic information system (GIS) software package, to create a preliminary schematic map showing the location and area of each parcel of land. This basic map, or `ground layer', is then emailed to NACGEO in Toronto, where cartographers superimpose onto it a rectangular grid of NAC coordinates. Any point on the map can now be identified with a unique NAC.
The new two-layer map is emailed back to Cadastral Surveys, where it is fed into the GIS database. Further layers can then be added to indicate other relevant details such as the location of wells and rain gauges. The finished product is a wall map of the area showing all the surveyed property boundaries and their coordinates, which is displayed in government and UN agency offices for all to see.
`The surveyors then return to the field and paint the NACs onto the concrete `boundary blocks' embedded in the ground. The NACs are stored in a `master' database maintained by Cadastral Surveys, and at the Ministry of Agriculture. The Ministry uses the database to update land sale and inheritance records and, crucially, to issue laminated land registration certificates and freehold title deeds to individual farmers. The Ministry may also decide to use the database to manage the tax records for each farm.
Cadastral Surveys has so far surveyed and assigned Natural Area Codes to 3500 farms in Somaliland. Although Cadastral Surveys has been using GIS and the NAC system for less than a year, it has already seen a massive increase in its mapping productivity as the skills of local staff have improved. In the near future a new Institute of Land, Soil and Water Surveying will be established at the University of Hargeisa, where Somalis will be able to further develop their surveying and mapping skills. The current GIS maps will also be enhanced with additional topographical data and soil and water information, which will undoubtedly be of value in the future development of the region.
The NAC system has benefited the farmers of Somaliland in many ways, not least in resolving conflicts over land and helping rebuild communities. With the boundaries clearly indicated on a map, on ID cards and in concrete in the ground, their land is now a valuable legal asset that they can use as collateral for loans and may pass on to their children.
Somaliland's NAC mapping process begins with land surveys (top) and culminates in land ownership certificates (below). Photos: Cadastral Surveys
High Level Session at UN Headquarters, New York on June 30th, 2004
Presentation by Cadastral Surveys Limited on Surveying and Mapping for Rural and Urban Cadastre in Somalia [Somaliland]
"With the indispensable, daily cooperation of the Somaliland Ministry of Agriculture, in the field and in the in-house work station, the shared success that the ministry and Cadastral Surveys have enjoyed with surveying and mapping hitherto non-existent farm boundaries in the Gabiley and Dilla Districts of South West Somaliland, during the last three years in particular, has in great measure been accomplished by the enduring partnership that happily persists between the United Nations Development Programme for Somalia, the grateful Somali farming community and the implementers of this unique endeavor to bring peace to the farmlands, where there was conflict; to bring absolute security of tenure through freehold title, and prospective collateral.
In this presentation, Cadastral Surveys Limited, a UK Non-Government Organisation operating in Somalia (Somaliland) under the title `Somaliland Cadastral Surveys', addresses some issues presented in an ECOSOC paper prepared by the International Land Coalition - Ifad Rome - for the High Level Session.
The ECOSOC paper makes the generalization that property owned by urban and rural poor in Africa and elsewhere is for the most part insecure and thus not fungible. The paper argues that informal property rights need to be formalized if assets are to be turned into usable capital.
Cadastral Surveys' five-year experience in addressing this problem in Somaliland, since 1999, has resulted so far in 24,700 Somali returnees from refugee camps in Ethiopia being peacefully resettled on 4,123 farms, each farm averaging 5 hectares or 12 acres. Until the Somaliland Ministry of Agriculture and Cadastral Surveys jointly demarcated with concrete blocks their respective farm boundaries, the farmers were at war with each other. Their boundaries (and farm ownership) to this day are identified by Ministry officials and plotted by Cadastral Surveys from converted theodolite measurements on maps (using GIS/Arcview and Mercator's coordinates) and entered on a 34-field database per farm. The database, which includes, inter alia, map coordinates of each boundary turning point, forms the bases of title deeds issued by the Minister of Agriculture. With a freehold title deed a farm-owner can theoretically (see below) seek collateral at 50 per cent of the value of his or her land.
The value of rain-fed agricultural land varies according to its proximity to roads and permanent wells for watering livestock; its average seasonal rainfall per year (400-600mm); soil water retention; soil fertility and regular crop rotation. The principal crops are maize and sorghum. In the case of much smaller fruit and vegetable farms, which are irrigated mechanically from shallow wells on the banks of dry water courses, the value of land per hectare is two or three times the value of rain-fed farms.
In cooperation with the Gabiley elected local government, Cadastral Surveys has also surveyed and mapped (using Mercator's coordinates) the town of Gabiley giving each street, and corresponding private and commercial properties, serialized, combined alphanumeric postal addresses. This is premature because in Somaliland, being a de facto Republic only, international postal services are forbidden. The database for Gabiley has 43 fields per property allowing for the daily entry on a computer of revenue and other transactions. With comprehensive laminated registration cards for each property, the Mayor's office can readily convert the data into freehold title deeds, if they so desire.
On both counts, rural and urban, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Gabiley local government, together with Cadastral Surveys and their joint partner, the United Nations Development Programme, have satisfied the criteria of converting informally held property into usable capital if only this, as yet internationally unrecognized country, were permitted (which it is not) to approach the World Bank for financial assistance. The government was about to introduce an agricultural credit bank three years ago but it was frustrated by Saudi Arabia's trade embargo on imports of Somaliland's livestock on the hoof, allegedly because of non-existent Rift Valley Fever. The adverse effect that this embargo had, and still has, on government export revenue, curtailed, inter alia, the introduction of a credit bank. Money-lenders, as such, do not exist in Somaliland.
The introduction of financial services from the lively Somali private sector would not be impossible, as was the case (albeit government controlled) during the sovereignty of the Somali Democratic Republic (1969-81). But training and capital from external sources would now be required. Currently, farmers can secure small informal loans from the business community, on the basis of their title, for such services as fresh seed, fertilizer for irrigated farms, land clearing and halting erosion, hiring tractors instead of using their bullocks, camels or even donkeys for the initial, heavy seasonal ploughing, and the collective hiring of vehicles daily to transport milk to markets some 50 kilometres away. Somali farmers, being agro-pastoralists, also possess domestic livestock - oxen, lactating cows, burden camels, donkeys and ruminants - as part of their assets.
The country has no external debts which is due, in part, to their negligible borrowing capacity as an internationally unrecognized state, and, in part, to the not insubstantial invisible exports of incoming remittances from the vast Somali Diaspora employed overseas.
Recurrent costs in Somaliland of surveying and mapping six farms a day with two teams, amounting to an average of 30 hectares a day, or two kilometres of streets a day with corresponding houses, are around US$18,000 a month respectively, including comprehensive databases and registration certificates. In the last three years, these costs have been met by the implementers' partner, the United Nations Development Programme for Somalia as part of its comprehensive Capacity Building Programme. This has included provision, for example, for Cadastral Surveys to train all its field and in-house staff, including a field survey team from part of the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Urban surveying and mapping would be cheaper if up-to-date satellite images were used. Satellite images would have little merit in Somaliland's agricultural areas as there are no visible boundaries.
As for legal property systems, the lower house of Somaliland's parliament has passed two pertinent legislative bills both of which respectively regulate titles to real estate and agricultural land holdings. Both do away with former leasehold requirements, now substituted by freehold possession. Three principal effects of this have been lower administrative costs, real interest in collateral over an extended period, and greater care of the environment - a significant reduction in tree felling for example and more attention to gulley erosion.
Cadastral Surveys has an all-Somali workforce of thirty persons, other than the Director, who has dual nationality (British and Somaliland). The NGO has required no foreign consultants or technical assistance since its inception in 1999. Cadastral Surveys has written its own technical manual on surveying and mapping which is being used as a teaching aid by the University of Hargeisa Institute of Land, Soil and Water Surveying. With 30 students studying for a 12-month Diploma, the Institute is expected to provide future surveyors, cartographers and database construction staff. All the necessary teaching equipment, including Theodolites, Digitisation and GIS software, has been donated by De La Rue plc of London."
NAC Geographic Products Inc. MAC Site LAC Site International NAC Society, Inc. http://www.nacgeo.com/
The Universal Address System and the Natural Area Coding System are a revolutionary technology developed by NAC Geographic Products Inc. to unify addresses, postal codes, area codes, geographic coordinates and map grids in the world. The Natural Area Coding System generates standardized and highly efficient codes called Natural Area Codes (NAC) for all locations and areas in the world that can be used as geographic coordinates, Universal Addresses, Global Postal Codes, Universal Area Codes and the coordinates of Universal Map Grids in the world. A two-character NAC represents an area about 1000x700 km (like a province) anywhere in the world; a four-character NAC represents an area about 33x23 km (like a city); a six-character NAC represents an area about one square kilometer (like a street block); an eight-character NAC represents an area about 35x25 meters (like a building or house), and a ten-character NAC can specify any one square meter area in the world. An Eight or ten character NAC is called a Universal Address that can uniquely specify any building, house, door, gate, fire hydrant, tree, parking meter, electric wire pole, street light, bus stop, sewage exit, camping site, or any other fixed object in the world.
Because Universal Addresses are very short, people can easily remember and communicate Universal Addresses for their daily activities. Universal Addresses can perfectly fit the small spaces of business cards, GPS watches, GPS cellphones, parking tickets, yellow page listings, advertisements, etc. A Universal Address can be directly pinpointed on all maps with Universal Map Grids and navigated with GPS receivers. If all street signs are marked with local Universal Addresses, people can immediately figure out the distance and direction from the current street sign to any destination through the comparison of the Universal Addresses of the street sign and the destination. Universal Addresses can be used as Global Postal Codes to sort all domestic and international mail automatically and optimize its delivery routes. When Universal Addresses are used to specify locations and areas on location based services can:
- reduce 80% of input keys,
- avoid difficulties in inputting addresses with foreign characters,
- eliminate errors from address databases,
- extend services to all locations no matter whether there are addresses or not.
These advantages have been demonstrated by the world most efficient and comprehensive location based services: Mobile Location Based Services Network (http://mlbs.net/) for wireless devices, and TravelGIS Driving Directions Service (http://www.travelgis.com/directions/) for desktop and notebook computers.
Most importantly, the Natural Area Coding System can make all the geographic information (all addresses in the world as shown on business cards, mail, advertisements, yellow pages, etc, all kinds of maps in different scales and projections, all GPS watches, GPS cellphones, handheld GPS receivers, etc, all wired and wireless driving directions services, map services, location based searching service, etc, all postal, courier, delivery and taxi services, all emergency services, all kinds of geographic information systems such as management systems of public works, natural resources, agriculture, environment protection, etc, and all other location related technologies, products and services) directly related and highly efficient. It will remove all the gaps between all these technologies, products and services as currently shown everywhere in the world. "This (the Universal Address System) is an elegant solution that seems to supply something that is becoming necessary as the world becomes more globalized." - Matt Ball, editor of GeoWorld magazine. For more information about the Universal Address System and the Natural Area Coding System, please check http://www.nacgeo.com/nacsite/.
Tasks where the Universal Address System is being successfully practiced include a unique method of bringing farmers, warring over privately-owned territorial rights, to peaceful coexistence. That country is in the Horn of Africa, known as Somaliland (south of the Gulf of Aden).
"UNDP (United Nations Development Program) is supporting a land survey (cadastral) that seeks to meet the need for land and collateral, and employs a process that is conflict resolving in character. The process is transparent and participatory and based on the resolution of existing and potential claim disputes. It has traditional, local level, consensus building and mediation techniques to ensure a fair process of land tenure and titling, involving demarcation, on maps and on the ground, of the boundaries of private farms.� - United Nations Secretary-General's Report to the Security Council on the situation in Somalia, June 27, 2002 (No. 5/2002/709).
Cadastral Surveys, an officially registered Non Government Organization in Somaliland and the United Kingdom, is establishing farm boundaries which are mutually agreed by neighboring farmers. Universal Addresses at each of the farms' polygon turning points and polygon center in the District of Gabiley are included on Farmers� ID cards thanks to the short strings of Universal Addresses. The Universal Addresses are also marked on the ground by embedded concrete blocks, and repeated in databases.
Farmers now have legal title deeds from Somaliland's Ministry of Agriculture. Outbreaks of violence over territorial rights have ceased in surveyed areas. 2,600 farms, averaging 12 acres each, have been surveyed and mapped. Each farm owner is in possession of a technical laminated ID card.
Farmers in that country are now enjoying peace because of security of tenure where they had none before, even in colonial times. This was because their rain-fed farms, between 8 and 50 acres each, growing maize and sorghum, had no boundaries for generations and therefore no title deeds.
"When I was growing up, there were many land problems. No one knew the boundaries before these surveys. It was dangerous - some people were killed.I plan to pass my farm on to my children's children," said Mohamed Hassan Obsiye, a 66-year-old sorghum farmer. Somaliland now wisely gives farmers land ownership in perpetuity (freehold) after surveying, when maps and databases have been completed to the satisfaction of the Ministry of Agriculture.
"This project involves farmers, their neighbors, as well as local and municipal authorities, all of whom agree on this process. You can see that what the United Nations Development Program is doing here is helping to build peace, one farm at a time" said Maxwell Gaylard, UNDP Resident Representative for Somalia. "When we were in need, farmers coming back from refugee camps, UNDP helped. By securing their property and farming again, farmers can improve their livelihoods." - Hassan Yusuf Roble, Mayor of Gabiley
Figure 1. Natural Area Codes are used as farm identifier and control points
Cadastral Surveys also maps, with databases and ID cards, urban, privately-owned properties in Somaliland. Streets are given NAC coding; likewise buildings with eight alphanumeric characters representing universal postal addresses. House-owners in Somaliland have not before had postal addresses. These can be superimposed electronically with NAC coding on satellite images of urban properties. The codes, identifying any object, large or small, on the ground, are there forever. They cannot be changed.
Figure 2. Universal Addresses are used as addresses and property identifiers
The automation in generating Universal Addresses has saved huge amounts of work, time and money normally required in manually assigning addresses, postal codes and property identifiers in this kind of projects. Universal Addresses used as property identifiers have given the government the most efficient and low-cost approach to establish computerized management systems for recording major financial processes such as revenue collections and records of all land transfers. These greatly accelerate the property registration process and avoided many conflicts arising from the land disputes.
The automatically generated digital addresses are short, accurate, universal and of multiple uses. They are always well aligned and systematic no matter when and where they are generated, and will never be used up no matter how dense the population will be, which guarantees long term consistency and efficiency in assigning addresses, unlike the postal codes in other countries that have faced serious shortages and chaos due to continuous redevelopment, and become more and more expensive and difficult to maintain. "This (the Universal Address System) is very impressive," said Henrik Jespersen, Counselor of Royal Danish Embassy at Nairobi, Republic of Kenya.
The timely implementation of the Universal Address System has also made Somaliland the world�s first country with universal digital addresses. People in Somaliland will soon enjoy the great benefits brought by the Universal Address System. They will be able to directly pinpoint all addresses on maps without the need to waste time in looking up street indexes. They will be able to use street signs to figure out the distance and direction to any destination. They will be able to directly navigate to any locations with GPS watches, GPS cellphones or other GPS receivers. They will be able to use wireless or wired location based services more efficiently and reliably than in any other country in the world. They will get the fastest and most reliable emergency services. The will have their mail sorted automatically from world level to the final mailboxes. They will be able to use Universal Addresses to identify, manage and navigate to all buildings, houses, gates, doors, fire hydrants, sewage exits, electric wire poles, street lights, trees, parking meters, bus stops, camping sites, fishing spots, rescue points, etc. They will be able to use the most efficient universal area codes - Natural Area Codes to retrieve maps and manage lands, natural resources, environment, transportation, etc in all geographic information systems. They will be able to use Universal Addresses to record accurate locations of accidents, crimes, discoveries and events to eliminate legal disputes arising from ambiguous location descriptions. Tourists will never get lost in Somaliland. Somaliland will become the world most advanced country in location technologies, thanks to the implementation of the Natural Area Coding System that makes all the geographic information connected, exchangeable and highly efficient.
"This pioneer project has first rooted and deployed the Universal Address System in the real world," said Dr. Xinhang Shen, President of NAC Geographic Products Inc., " and we are very grateful to Mr. Jim Karygiannis, Member of Parliament of Canada, for his initiation of this historical project."
About NAC Geographic Products Inc: Founded in 1995, NAC Geographic Products Inc. (http://www.nacgeo.com/) is a world leading developer in GIS, GPS, Internet and wireless technologies, based in Toronto, Canada. The company provides a variety of innovative spatial solutions, software products and location based services.
About Cadastral Surveys: Cadastral Surveys (http://www.undp.org/dpa/choices/) is a Non-Government Organization registered in Somaliland (South of the Gulf of Aden) and the United Kingdom in 1999 for the purpose of bringing to an end, through cadastral surveying, violent land disputes between Somali refugees who had returned to Somaliland from Ethiopian refugee camps to restore their former farming 'rights' that had no boundaries. Later, Cadastral Surveys surveyed and mapped the Somaliland towns of Gabiley, Lughaya and Tog Wajaale. Cadastral Surveys has been supported by UNOPS, The Danish Refugee Council, and UNDP.
Media Contact Lixin Zhou
PR Manager
NAC Geographic Products Inc.
1608-45 Huntingdale Blvd. Toronto, ON M1W 2N8, Canada
Phone: 1 416 496 6110
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.nacgeo.com John Drysdale
Director, Cadastral Surveys
Gabiley, Somaliland
C/O Wake Smith
Solicitors
68, Clarkehouse Road, Sheffield S10 2LJ, UK
Phone: 00 252 2 426 563 or 00 252 2 623 241
Email: [email protected]
http://www.wake-smith.com
http://www.somalilandsurveys.info
http://www.undp.org/dpa/choices