How an effective spatial data infrastructure can support land administration in Vietnam?

Efficient land use and management plays an important role in maximizing the potential benefits of sustainable socio-economic development. To facilitate access to, delivery and sharing of spatial data and in particular land data, each nation has been establishing a spatial data infrastructure (SDI), which is an initiative for creating an environment in which all stakeholders can cooperate and improve the update and exchange of data in an efficient and cost-effective manner. However, the lack of a well-established framework for technical and institutional arrangements as well as an overall policy for the acquisition, management and distribution of spatial data information presents a common constraint to the SDI development in many developing countries. Vietnam is no exception to this global trend. Limitations in data coordination and sharing results in issues such as duplication of data collection and production, data incompleteness, non-standardized or poor quality data, and more importantly, inefficiency and low financial sustainability. The land information has not been disseminated effectively and the related land services are affected by limitations in the institutional framework and spatial data infrastructure. This paper addresses the problems and provides a literature review on how an effective spatial data infrastructure can support the land administration system in Vietnam.