Video evidencing and palmtop computer technology to support the formalisation of land rights

Abstract

Technology can be used to improve the legitimacy, accuracy and currency of land tenure information in urban informal settlements, site-and-service schemes and rural land restitution cases. Video images of landholders providing testimony as to their rights, interests and obligations regarding land, and palmtop computers using icon-based graphic interfaces, are two such technologies. Video imaging has the advantage that respondents can describe unusual situations in the tenure system on camera that might not normally be recorded in a written document, and thus improve the completeness of the record. Palmtop computers that can be used by community members to collect socio-economic data are one of many tools that enable a community to work in partnership with the land administration authorities to improve the quality of land records. This article describes pilot studies of how video images were integrated into a geographic information system with spatially referenced socio-economic data collected with a palmtop computer linked to a hand-held Garmin II Plus receiver. These studies were conducted as a part of a research programme in land tenure and cadastral systems in a rural community and an urban informal settlement.