Working together on participatory land governance in Colombia
Colombia is a culturally and ethnically diverse country, with multiple ways of understanding and valuing territory. This presents a key challenge for land administration: bringing together the different motivations, knowledge systems and priorities of communities and public institutions. And aligning them toward common territorial goals.
A legal analysis
Within the LAND-at-scale Booster project, together with our local team we carried out a legal analysis based on research developed by Universidad Externado de Colombia. The study identified that the main challenges for participatory land administration in Colombia are no longer related to the conceptual or technical validation of the Fit-for-purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) approach. Rather it is the institutionalisation of FFPLA as public policy and its long-term sustainability.
Structural challenges
Several structural barriers remain. Participatory methods are not widely adopted within public agencies. Peasants, women, youth and ethnic communities are not always equally involved. Coordination between key land institutions such as ANT, IGAC and SNR is weak, which makes data integration difficult. In addition, the legal framework—such as Law 160 of 1994 and Decree Law 902 of 2017—limits flexibility in land formalization.
Ample opportunities
At the same time, implementation experiences have generated important lessons. Meaningful community participation in data collection and validation strengthens trust, legitimacy and local ownership. Differentiated approaches are essential to ensure inclusive engagement. And innovative methodologies such as FFPLA can enhance efficiency without compromising participatory standards.
4 areas for strategic improvement
Building on these findings, the document outlines opportunities focused on 4 priority areas:
- Institutionalizing community participation through national guidelines and quality assurance protocols.
- Strengthening institutional and territorial capacities to ensure sustainable implementation.
- Advancing toward a sustainable multipurpose cadaster model that includes maintenance mechanisms, clear role distribution and community-based reporting systems.
- And developing autonomous land administration systems for collective territories that respect principles of self-governance, interculturality and long-term sustainability.
Together, these strategic lines position participatory land governance not as a pilot experience, but as a scalable and coherent component of Colombia’s broader land administration policy framework.
Growing openness to explore new methodologies
Some recommendations addressed to the Geographic Institute Agustín Codazzi (IGAC) were incorporated into Colombia’s National Development Plan and through Law 2294 of 2023. This strengthened IGAC’s role as cadastral authority. The law has several positive effects:
- It reinforces the mandatory use of official data in formalization and cadastral processes (Art. 37).
- It formally recognizes IGAC’s authority to request and consolidate information within the national cadastral information system (SINIC) (Art. 43).
- It strengthens interoperability in multipurpose cadastre processes, including in ethnic territories (Art. 45).
- It designates the National Land Agency (ANT) as a cadastral manager under IGAC’s guidelines (Art. 50).
- And it establishes the Land Administration System (SAT) (Art. 53), integrating cadastre, land registry and territorial planning with the participation of ethnic and rural communities.
These developments reflect a growing openness within public institutions to explore new methodologies and strengthen collaboration.
A training programme for community surveyors
At the same time, Kadaster cooperated with Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas to design a training programme for community surveyors. The course equips members of Gobierno Mayor, belonging to different Indigenous communities, with essential tools, like the management of Fieldmaps app. In this way they can document and measure their own territories as a basis for strengthening land governance. This process was supported by technological expertise from our partner Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente. He contributed a session focused on the use of spatial data technologies and the opportunities and challenges of community-led data collection.
Systemic change in land administration
Together, these experiences demonstrate that systemic change in land administration requires coordinated action among public institutions, communities, academia and international development partners.
More information
- Read more about the LAND at scale project on our project page Colombia: Land at scale.
- Read more about our Land in peace project on our project page Colombia: Land in peace.