IALTA’s New International Partnership with UINL Formed

A strategic partnership between the International Alliance on Land Tenure and Administration (IALTA) and the International Union of Notaries (UINL) gained momentum on 6 October 2010. Prof. Leon Verstappen, Director of Groningen Centre for Law and Governance (GCL) of the University of Groningen and Dr. Eduardo Gallino, President of the UINL signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the UINL’s 25th International Congress on that day in Morocco.

The UINL is a non-profit organization based in Rome, Italy with a mandate to promote, coordinate and develop the duties of notaries to ensure the optimum service to its members and the wider public. The MoU is a milestone achievement of the two international organizations working together towards sustainable land governance in both developed and developing countries.

This partnership represents UINL’s strong commitment to supporting IALTA to attain its strategic goals, objectives and outcomes. Specifically, UINL will contribute to the IALTA’s international expert meetings, international conferences and promote IALTA among its members through diverse means of communication. It will also contribute to the publication of relevant data, articles, reports and papers concerning land tenure and administration through IALTA’s global communication channel, the Land Portal Partnership (LPP) hosted by the International Land Coalition (ILC) where IALTA is a major steering committee member. The LPP is a global initiative that facilitates land users and other stakeholders’ access to land-related information to be organized by its key members with view to enhancing more coordinated collaboration among the members and thus contributing to improved land governance in the developing countries. IALTA is responsible for building up the land researchers’ network of the LPP, and is gathering information in collaborating with its potential 800 members worldwide. UINL will assist IALTA in establishing the legal structure of LPP. Moreover, IALTA and UINL will work closely to initiate and conduct research programmes in their common interests, and thus foster lessons-learning on international best practices in land reform.

IALTA is a strategic international partnership between the GCL and its Dutch and international partners with common objective of attaining more visible and influential land-related research outputs to inform land law and policy in countries with a need to addressing poor land governance, inequality and poverty. IALTA is preparing its second international land expert meeting to be held at the Technical University of Munich, Germany on 25 October 2010. At this meeting, around 20 Dutch and international land experts and scholars will join forces to discuss IALTA’s new-year plan and to prepare its first international conference envisaged to take place in South Africa in 2011. Moreover, the meeting will finalize IALTA’s strategic research agenda and form a number of thematic groups to coordinate and initiate research programmes in the coming years. Led by Prof Verstappen who is teamed with Prof Wilbert Kolkman, Dr. Yongjun Zhao, and Mr. Eelke van der Ree, IALTA is striving to work more closely with its members in initiating innovative research programmes, training of land experts, contributing to postgraduate teaching as well as international high-quality publications, all of which will substantially contribute to the internationalization agenda of the Faculty of Law of University of Groningen.

For detailed information, please contact Prof. Leon Verstappen