ICIS had the honour of presenting its collaborative success story to a very interesting and distinguished group of people from Cambodia in June. 

 
As part of the Land Management and Administration Project - Canada (LMAP), funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), 22 Cambodian representatives were able to participate in a Canadian study tour organized by GeoSpatial/SALASAN Consulting Inc. to facilitate learning and capacity building.

CIDA recognizes the challenges facing Cambodia as "Cambodia has suffered from every modern malady that could afflict a developing country: war, terrorism, genocide, foreign occupation, poverty, environmental degradation, human rights abuses and landmines (four million estimated in an area of 181,000 square kilometres). A small, agricultural country nestled among Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, Cambodia has also been the site of one of the largest and most complex UN peacekeeping operations ever".(CIDA, 2007)

In its quest to recover and rebuild, Cambodia is endeavouring to control its land base and incorporate land assessment and land title systems as part of its essential infrastructure. Canada's part in assisting Cambodia in this specific area is the LMAP project that "helps to provide property rights for Cambodians through a modern and transparent Land Administration regime. This initiative represents Canada's contribution to the Government of Cambodia's Land Management and Administration Project, and is implemented by the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction".(CIDA, 2009)

British Columbia is seen as an exemplary authority in managing and assessing its land base. As part of the study, the group spent significant time in Victoria learning from the Crown Land Registry and GeoBC, BC Land Title and Survey Authority, the Association of BC Land Surveyors, the District of Saanich and others. On the final two days of the study tour, the group invested their time learning about land assessment from the best in the business; BC Assessment.

As a strong supporter of ICIS, BC Assessment knew that an understanding of ICIS' role in integrating and sharing cadastral data from disparate member organizations would be valuable to the study group and invited ICIS to present the ICIS vision to the Cambodian delegates.

Barry Logan, ICIS General Manager, spoke to the group as the final presentation on the second to last day. The delegates, who were understandably very tired and overloaded with terabytes of valuable information, graciously welcomed yet another speaker to the podium and listened attentively to the ICIS story of collaborative success and the positive results that are being achieved to integrate and share cadastral information.

The concept of ICIS succeeding through voluntary collaboration rather than legislation intrigued the Cambodian delegates who were very interactive and asked extremely detailed questions. The most poignant moment came when Barry Logan was asked by the delegation leader Dr. Ou Vuddy, Deputy General Permanent of GS/CLP, about what psychology ICIS uses to get members to share their data.  Barry's thoughtful, one word response was "trust": a response that was greeted with enthusiasm by Dr. Vuddy and the other delegates.

Dr. Vuddy recognized that building trust is a fundamental and essential component of ICIS' success. Sometimes, in this part of the world, achieving 'trust' might be taken for granted and seem easy. However, in Cambodia with its recent history of upheaval, gaining trust amongst disparate groups, though essential, is a complex and difficult task.

ICIS was extremely honoured to share whatever insights possible and wishes the delegates every success in their efforts to create positive change for Cambodia and apply the knowledge they have gained from their new friends and associates in British Columbia.
 
ICIS is a non-profit society created to collaboratively share and integrate spatial data for the economic and social benefit of British Columbia.
 
To learn more about ICIS, visit www.icisociety.ca or contact info@icisociety.ca for specifics.