The Second Arab Land Conference
The Organisers
The second Arab Land Conference was held on 22 – 24 February 2021 in Cairo, Egypt, under the patronage of the Egyptian Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities. The Conference was organized by UN-Habitat, the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), the World Bank, the Housing and Building National Research Centre represented by the Urban Training and Studies Institute (UTI), in partnership with the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), GIZ, the Dubai Land Department, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the Network of Excellence of Land Governance in Africa (NELGA) and the Land Portal.
The Topics
During the three-days event, several land-related issues and challenges facing the Arab region were tackled, including themes such as land and conflict (including land disputes resolution, displacement, etc.); fit-for-purpose land administration; women’s access to land; management of public land; land management for sustainable and inclusive investments and real estate development; land degradation; climate change; knowledge creation and sharing; capacity development; and increased collaboration among stakeholders.
The Event
The conference was structured into high level sessions presenting the main issues per topic, followed by technical sessions gaving detailed insight on the sessions along with roundtable that brought together the different expertise to discuss issues on land. On the third day, the conference was followed by masterclasses where different agencies presented their work, key terminologies and best practices.
The Conference successfully dealt with the critical challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic by giving the possibility to all presenters and participants to attend the event safely through a hybrid in- person/virtual format which complied with the local COVID-19 restrictions while allowing for a broader participation. The Conference counted 871 registered attendees (164 in-person and 707 virtual) and over 5.000 connections directly through the Zoom platform. Registered attendees participated and connected from 63 different countries, with the highest number of participants from Egypt.