Over the years Gavin Adlington has developed a unique breadth of knowledge and a deep understanding of all matters relating to land registration and cadastre systems, especially with regard to the successful implementation of projects involving mass systematic registration of title and the establishment of institutions that can successfully manage real estate registration and cadastres.

 

His early years included operational experience as a cadastral surveyor, the implementation of major programs for systematic registration and work as a Registrar in a Title Office and as the Adjudicator in a systematic registration of title program. From the early 1990's to the present day he has been advising various governments around the World on their programs for implementing such projects.

 

He has worked in 46 countries on projects in this sector and visited another 20 in order to assess their operations. Gavin sees himself as primarily a practical implementation person, rather than as an author, but decided it was time to document the experiences and lessons learned over a 40+ year career.

 

Many of the projects that Gavin advised on or led were in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region where major reforms were being implemented following the collapse of the socialist systems and change over to market economies in the early 1990's, but he covered many countries in other regions as well. He has worked primarily for the World Bank through the last 20+ years of his career, eventually becoming the global lead specialist for land and geospatial matters worldwide for the World Bank. He retired in 2015 but has since then continued to work as a consultant in the same sector.

 

In December 2013, Gavin received the Michael Barrett Award from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors of the United Kingdom “to the person whom in the opinion of the panel/ division has contributed most to the understanding of the subjects of land transfer, registration and administration, encroachments, cadastre and boundary issues, or the administration of the laws regarding them with the UK and overseas”. This is a prestigious award given once per year to one individual worldwide.

Following specialisation in property law at university, Tony began work as a legal officer at the New South Wales, Australia Land Titles in 1989 and was engaged in document registration, property litigation, drafting of new laws and regulations, and providing education and advice to the public and professions.

 

During that time, he completed a masters degree in dispute resolution and instituted a program for resolving contentious cases, including in relation to boundary disputes. In 1995, while still with the Land Titles Office, Tony began providing technical assistance, first in Laos and then a series of other countries. Since then, he has worked in over 30 countries worldwide, having left the government in 2005 to concentrate on consulting.

 

His work in Laos in the late 1990s formed the basis of a Master of Laws degree, for which he won the university medal. His work with the World Bank, UN FAO and other organisations over the years has formed the basis for a variety of publications, several of which are cited in this book. He also co-authored the zero version of the Voluntary Guidelines on Governance of Tenure.

Rumyana Tonchovska, a Bulgarian national, is a Senior Land Administration-Information Technology Officer of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) based in Rome
Rumyana holds a Master's Degree in Information Technology, and is a certified international IT Project Manager with practical experience in design, development and implementation of largescale
complex information systems for land tenure, indirect finance and building Spatial Data Infrastructure.

 

She has 26 years' work experience from over 23 countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. Under the FAO - World Bank Cooperative Program, 70% of her time is allocated to support the Bank-financed land administration projects.

 

Before joining the FAO in 2009, Rumyana worked as Information Technology consultant, UNISYS Senior Project Manager, IT Director at the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice, Head of the EU Funded Program Department at the Bulgarian Customs Agency (Ministry of Finance) and assistant professor at Technological University in Sofia.

 

Rumyana is leading various innovations to test new approaches and technologies, aiming at improving tenure governance, making best use of the available geospatial data and technologies, and building local capacity for evidence based policy making. She has been actively involved in the development of the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework and its implementation at country level.

Robin McLaren is director of Know Edge Ltd, a UK based, independent management consulting company formed in 1986, specialising in the application of geospatial information, and is a prominent consultant in land administration. He has been at the forefront of the GIS revolution and is recognised as an expert in Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Policy.

 

He works extensively with United Nations agencies, World Bank and EU on land policy / land reform / NSDI programmes and is on a mission to ensure that Land Professionals are delivering appropriate land administration services to the citizen. He was the lead consultant in formulating the UK Location Strategy.

 

The company has also supported Canada, Western Australia, Hungary, Romania and Albania in establishing their NSDI strategies. Robin is an Honorary Fellow at the School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh where he teaches. His research interests are focused on how crowdsourcing can be used to support land administration.

 

He has co-authored the GLTN publication on 'Fit For Purpose Land Administration: Guiding Principles for Country Implementation' and most recently drafted the 'Strategic Pathway 3 Finance' of the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework Implementation Guide, to be published by UN-GGIM in 2020.