Capacity Building in Land Management: implementing Land Policy Reforms in Malawi

There is a significant need for capacity building in the interdisciplinary area of land management especially in developing countries and countries in transition, to deal with the complex issues of building efficient land information systems and sustainable institutional infrastructures. Capacity building in land management is not only a question of establishing a sufficient technological level or sufficient economic resources. It is mainly a question of understanding the interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral nature of land administration systems, and understanding the need for human resource development in this area. Furthermore, capacity building should ensure that the focus is on building sound institutions and governance rather than just high-level IT-infrastructures.    This overall approach to capacity building in land management is used for implementing a new land policy reform in Malawi. The paper presents the new decentralized land policy developed as a response to the current land related problems in Malawi. The deficit in terms of qualified personnel is remarkable and calls for immediate action. An integrated curriculum is developed to provide the necessary skilled technicians and professionals for implementing the new land policy. The curriculum combines the diploma and the bachelor level and it combines the key areas of land surveying, land management and physical planning.