Significantly, this was the first annual conference that dedicated a specific stream to spatial information. The full day workshop convened by the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) and the World Bank “Spatially Enabling Government and Societies (SEGS) for Sustainable Land Administration and Management” was an excellent complement to the overall conference theme on land governance.

Only 1.5bn of the estimated 6bn land parcels worldwide have land rights formally registered in land administration systems. Many of the 1.1bn slum dwellers and further billions living under social tenure systems wake up every morning to the threat of eviction. These people are the poor and most vulnerable and are excluded any form of security of tenure; they are trapped in poverty. Increasing global population and the rush to urbanisation is only going to turn this gap into a chasm.