Research institute focuses on making land available for housing

 THE National Research Institute will focus on making land available for more housing and other development projects this year.

Institute director Dr Thomas Webster said the focus for 2013 would be on land research, provincial and district profile and development monitoring, and public policy collection.

This comes after Prime Minister Peter O’Neill called on government departments and agencies earlier this year to identify three key impact projects for emphasis in 2013.

He said the main emphasis on land research would be to assist customary landowners to release land for urban and agricultural projects.

“A team has been directed to give priority to assisting selected customary landowners to register their ILGs and their land as per new amended legislations and identify land for development.

“This includes working with relevant agencies of government that need to facilitate legal and statutory requirements,” Webster said.

Under the provincial and district profile and development monitoring, the NRI will continue with the project which started in 2010 to develop a provincial and district performance reporting system on key development indicators such as health and education.

Webster said the institute would work on district and local level government profiles with the department of rural development outlining the organisational data in each area.

The other is the universal basic education plan which has a set of indicators that can be used to track progress by province and by district so that officials can gauge where they stand compared to the others.