Identifying regional best practice and developing common approaches to land consolidation legislation in countries of the Western Balkans are the focus of a three-day international LANDNET workshop opening here today.

The workshop is organized jointly by FAO and the UN Economic Commission for Europe Working Party on Land Administration, and is part of a wider cooperation on land consolidation with still other partners including the Dutch Cadastre and the Technical University of Munich. The workshop is also supported by the Macedonian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy and GIZ.

More than 140 land management professionals from over 30 European and Central Asian countries and organizations are convening in Skopje to discuss and validate the recommendations of an FAO regional study on land consolidation legislation. The aim is to assist FAO programme countries in developing national legal frameworks on land consolidation based on international best practices.

“FAO is working with countries to prepare them to introduce land consolidation and to develop fully operational national land consolidation programmes,” said FAO land tenure officer Morten Hartvigsen. 

“In Macedonia, through the ongoing European Union-funded MAINLAND project, FAO works to help agricultural landowners and rural communities address the problem of excessive land fragmentation, small farm sizes and insufficient agricultural infrastructure,” Hartvigsen said. “By bringing in expertise and strengthening the capacities of the Ministry, key public agencies and geodetic companies, the EU and FAO are supporting implementation of a first round of land consolidation projects under the national programme in Macedonia.”

To help create an agricultural landscape that favours small family farms – and improve farm competitiveness, productivity, and rural livelihoods in the process – FAO and the Ministry worked together to improve national legislation on land consolidation.

“The amendments to the Law on Consolidation of Agricultural Land, which were adopted by the Macedonian Parliament in early May this year, are a significant step towards efficient and transparent implementation of land consolidation activities on the ground, in line with internationally accepted land consolidation principles,” Hartvigsen said.

Macedonian Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy Ljupco Nikolovski opened the workshop, noting that the Ministry is pleased to be working with FAO and the European Union Delegation to implement a project that is so important for the country’s agricultural sector. He stressed that with a sound legal basis for land consolidation now established, implementation in the 12 recently selected project areas is of great importance.

LANDNET is a growing network of land professionals, from European and Central Asian countries. Working under an initiative of FAO, they have met regularly since 2002 to exchange developments and ideas on land consolidation, land banking and land market development.

Focus themes of this week’s LANDNET workshop, in addition to the legal framework, will include land registration problems as part of the land consolidation process, and gender principles and issues in land governance in the Western Balkans.

Confirmed participants come from Albania, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Uzbekistan.

GIZ and FAO currently are currently working on the advancement of Sustainable Development Goal target 5.a, which aims to reduce existing gender inequalities in access to ownership and control over agricultural land in Western Balkan countries. 

FAO is working on many related activities in the Europe and Central Asia region, under its Regional Initiative to Empowering Smallholders and Family Farms for Improved Rural Livelihoods and Poverty reduction.