Azerbaijan intends to resolve problem of land provision

/By AzerNews/

By Vusala Abbasova

The Azerbaijani government intends to resolve the problem related to the control of the use of land to raise the level of land provision of population.

Currently, the country can provide each citizen with only 0.2 hectares of arable land, making the country one of the lowest land provision per capita.

Armenian occupation [of Azerbaijani territory] becomes one of the main reasons of the low level of land provision in the country, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Economic Policy Ziyad Samedzadeh said at an international conference "Development of key registers in land administration in the UNECE region" in Baku on October 29.

He noted that Azerbaijan has suffered from the Armenian aggression since early 1990s, and as a result over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions was occupied by the aggressor.

This situation worsens land provision in Azerbaijan, as the solutions lead not only in the structural reorganization but also in the political aspects, Samedzadeh said.

Only 4.5 million hectares from more than 8.6 million hectares are agricultural lands in Azerbaijan, considering that irrigated land of the total area of farmland amounts to 1.3 million hectares. These lands produce 85 percent of the country's crop production, but 41.8 percent of lands are exposed to different degrees of erosion processes because of the complex physiographic conditions and anthropogenic impacts.

The index of land provision characterizes the area of agricultural lands per capita and the area of arable land per capita.

Work in the field of land management is a key factor in reducing poverty and ensuring food security in the world, addressing climate change issues and minimizing the risk of natural disasters, said the UN deputy secretary general, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Christian Fritz Bach.

He made the remarks in his appeal to participants of the international workshop “Development of key registers in land administration in the UNECE region” in Baku.
Conflicts in the ECE region often arise between those who want to cultivate the land and those who want to carry out constriction work on it, the message underlined.

That is why it is so important to discuss issues of land administration and land management, the document said. Proper land administration is a key factor for the prosperity of the world, according to the document.

The region of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is one of the most densely populated in the world, the appeal stressed.

Some 75 percent of the population here lives in cities, the document said. Urban expansion is a concern for the region, as it has an impact on land resources and leads to the need to develop mechanisms and instruments to achieve the optimum combination of possibilities of the land use based on available space, its cost and benefit, according to the document.

These issues are global in nature, as with the growth of population a powerful process of urbanization takes place, the dynamics of consumption and climate change, which puts additional pressure and influence on land resources, according to the document.

The message said that the recently adopted UN Sustainable Development Goals show the importance of land resources’ management.

The issues related to the land resources affect at least six of these goals, Bach believes.

He underlined that the governments of countries throughout the world now have primary responsibility in supervising and taking appropriate measures at national, regional and global level to achieve progress in fulfilling these goals.

The work of the structures dealing with land management plays a key role in promoting comprehensive and effective land policy and estate management in UNECE member states which will also allow to ensure equal access to land resources and reliable land ownership, according to Bach.

In this regard, the governments and public institutions should closely cooperate with local and regional authorities, international institutions, representatives of academic circles, charity funds, private sector and so on, according to the message.

Addressing the event, Senior Land Administration Officer – IT at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN Rumyana Tonchovska said that the effective use of modern technologies in the field of land administration is a critical factor necessary for survival in the future.

The world we live in is not perfect, she said. With each passing year, we get convinced that the world develops in the wrong direction: people en masse move from poor villages to big cities, unpredictable climate changes occur, and we expect even more natural disasters, demand for fuel and food is sharply rising, the chief expert said.

A lot of people move from the region of the Mediterranean to Europe, creating a crisis and causing disputes between EU member states, she said.

In her opinion, all these problems are political, social and economic in nature, they are directly related to land and property.

In such crisis situations, improved land administration becomes even more important, Tonchovska said. It is very hard work, especially now, when we expect an increasing number of natural disasters, which don’t recognize borders between countries, she stressed.

It is necessary to unite the efforts of all countries to solve this problem, after all, when disaster strikes, people forget about borders, Tonchovska added.

It is necessary to unite the efforts of all countries to solve this problem, after all, when disaster strikes, people forget about borders, she said.

The international conference dedicated to the role of sectored registries in the management of property held in Baku on October 29-30.

The event organized by the State Committee for Property Affairs of Azerbaijan and the United Nations attends the representatives of 56 countries, including U.S., Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Russia and others.