Paul van der Molen (1950) joined ITC in 2001 as a visiting professor in cadastre and land administration. Until 2010 his main job was in the Netherlands' Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency ('Kadaster'), being director of the international branch. The combination of both professional and scientific work is beneficial for the advance of land administration, as these systems need to develop according to scientific concepts, principles and methods on one hand, and need to be sustainably maintained according to practical knowledge of strategy development, management and operations, on the other hand. Paul holds an MSc degree in Geodesy from Delft University of Technology (1973) and enjoyed various professional training courses in -for example- finance and control, marketing and ICT strategy development. Being a practitioner himself, he did not acquire a PhD but developed a certain reputation to write papers and articles, and to deliver presentations on many conferences. During 2002-2006 he organised -together with the Worldbank, UN/Habitat, UN/FAO a series of about 8 expert seminars regarding innovative aspects of land administration systems, under auspices of the International Federation of Surveyors. After 2006 Paul organised another 2 conferences on land policy and land administration for the United Nations University (UNU). In 2009 he organised -together with the Worldbank- a conference on 'land governance for the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's)'. The purpose of these kinds of meetings is to change the way politicians, decision makers, academics and bureaucrats think about land administration systems, in favour of poverty reduction and economic growth. Since Paul left the Dutch Kadaster, his main activity is at ITC.
Activities in education
In 2004 Paul established -on request of ITC- the School for Land Administration Studies (a cooperation between ITC and Kadaster) as a UNU School. The School, which is part of the PGM Department of ITC, delivers short courses worldwide on land policy, land management and land administration. At ITC, one of the MSc courses concerns 'land administration' with the aim of developing the students' capacity on design and development of land administration systems, in a context of politics (political aspects of 'property'), social science ('property' as a social relation), economics ('land and credit markets', 'land taxation', 'land use planning', 'land reform'), and law ('land law and registration', 'cadastres'). In the MSc programme, Paul deals with these contextual aspects and with advanced subjects such as on property rights in a human rights perspective, institutional change, governance, rule of law, corruption and professional ethics.
Activities in research
Paul has a special interest in (a) what kind of land administration systems do we need for the developing world, (b) what kind of technology is appropriate, and (c) how to give evidence to society of return on investments. Many of the papers in the list hereafter are one way or another related to this approach.
