Land Administration Systems (LAS) are institutional frameworks complicated by the tasks they must perform, by national cultural, political and judicial settings, and by technology. This paper assists sharing LAS capacity among countries with diverse legal systems and institutional structures by identifying an ideal and historically neutral LAS model for : • servicing the needs of governments, business and the public, • utilising the latest technologies, • servicing rights, responsibilities, restrictions and risks in relation to land, and • delivering much broader information about sustainable development. Case studies of Denmark and Victoria are used to test existing systems against the model.

This Special Issue provides an insight, collated from 26 articles, focusing on various aspects of the Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) concept and its application. [...]

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The UN/FIG Bathurst Declaration (UN-FIG, 1999) established a strong linkage between land administration and sustainable development. This paper is based on one of the background papers (Enemark and Sevatdal, 1999) which is revised and amended to address the conference theme on spatial data and development for building a sustainable infrastructure. The paper presents a global model for understanding Land Administration Systems in support of sustainable development. The evolution of these systems is described as a respond to the dynamic relation between humankind and land. The Nordic evolution is described with a focus to understand that any land administration system is embedded in the cultural and judicial setting of the individual country/jurisdiction. The issue of Spatial Information Infrastructures is recognised as an increasingly important component for achieving sustainable development in developed as well as developing countries. The paper discusses the conceptual, political and economic mechanisms, and examples are given with regard to the Danish conceptual approach in this area. Finally, the paper deals with the issue of decentralisation and the impact of central vs local government in land management in support of sustainable development. It is argued that competencies should rest with the lowest possible level of jurisdiction so as to combine responsibility for decision-making with accountability for financial and environmental consequences.

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