National Land Agency applies FFP in two areas of Colombia

Land in peace aims to support the Colombian state in formalizing and registering land ownership in post-conflict rural areas through an innovative, fast and transparent methodology. In the course of more than seven years of work, the FFP methodology has been put into practice in different areas of the country, which has allowed Kadaster to know the needs to improving the processes for Land Administration in Colombia.

During this year the National Land Agency (ANT) has used an adaptation of the FFP methodology in Ciénaga (Magdalena) and Pradera (Valle del Cauca), supported by FAO. This adaptation has been focused on their missional work and needs.

According to Harvin Jordan, ANT's operation leader for the implementation of rural property social management plans in Colombia, "the FFP methodology allows an agile and cost-efficient collection of land information”. In the case of ANT the FFP methodology is used for the survey of property information (including the app and equipment). For the ANT is the fastest and most economical option when the terrain is predominantly forested and does not allow a correct identification of polygons and boundaries through satellite images.

The ANT team pre-loads satellite images to visit the properties accompanied by farmers who know the terrain. There, they draw the polygon in the field on the preloaded information with integral recognizers, delimiting the polygons and boundaries. With the community manager and the owner of the property, they gather the necessary information to fill out the multipurpose cadastral survey form.

Although the pilots with the adapted FFP methodology have not been completed, Jordan identifies FFP as a highly replicable and useful method for the fulfillment of ANT's institutional commitments in specific contexts.