Launching the Open Up Guide on Land Governance
The Land Portal and Open Data Charter are launching the Open Up Guide on Land Governance, the latest addition to a lauded series of practical guides for governments to address key policy changes. This launch comes as part of the Open Gov Week (OGW), an annual call-to-action to transform the way governments serve their citizens.
Governments rarely publish their primary land tenure, use, value, and development data in open and reusable formats. Yet land is a critical global asset, and land governance — the exercise of political, economic, and administrative authority over land — should include processes for citizens to participate.
Publishing open data on land governance has known barriers. In some cases, reliable, formal land tenure data does not exist at all or is not in digital form. Metadata is inadequate. Governments are hesitant to publish data that may include sensitive personal information.
This Open Up Guide on Land Governance is a practical resource to be used by governments to publish land-related data to improve data quality, availability, accessibility and use for improved citizen engagement, decision making and innovation. It sets out:
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Key datasets for land management accountability, and how they should be collected, stored, shared and published for improving land governance and transparency;
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Good data policies and frameworks;
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Existing gaps or challenges in the policies and frameworks; and
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Use cases from real-life examples to illustrate the potential impact and transformation this type of data can provide in local contexts.
