THE WORLD BANK AND SINGAPORE LAND AUTHORITY SIGN MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING (MOU) TO PROMOTE GREATER USE OF GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY FOR SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Director for the World Bank Singapore Hub Jyoti Shukla and Singapore Land Authority Chief Executive Tan Boon Khai signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) today to promote the greater use of geospatial information and technology in support of sustainable urban development in partner cities.

The MOU was signed in the presence of Singapore’s Senior Minister of State for Law and Health, Mr Edwin Tong and the World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva on the sidelines of the World Cities Summit 2018.

Under this MOU, the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) will provide its expertise in geospatial information and technology to the World Bank to facilitate the development of geospatial data infrastructures in the region for sustainable urban development. The collaborative areas would include the provision of deep-dive consultancy by SLA to the World Bank for its projects with partner cities, training workshops, advisory activities and mutual knowledge sharing. The World Bank will share its experiences in capacity building and urban development. Both parties will work together to promote the use of geospatial information and technology for better optimisation of land resources, land use planning and sustainable urban development.

“Singapore’s success in harnessing technology to overcome development challenges is an inspiration. The World Bank is pleased to partner with SLA in sharing expertise that will strengthen the planning and management of cities – the growth engines of the future,” said Jyoti Shukla, Director of the World Bank Singapore Hub for Infrastructure and Urban Development.

“SLA is driving geospatial transformation in Singapore, building geospatial competencies and capabilities to empower citizens in a geo-enabled city. Globally, we are also seeing increased geospatial interest, propelled by the greater need for locational intelligence in building smarter cities as well as improving urban and environmental management. This MOU will deepen our collaborative efforts to share our knowledge in harnessing the potential of geospatial information and technology for enhanced decision-making and analytics in various aspects of city planning and urban development in the region and beyond,” said SLA Chief Executive Tan Boon Khai.

SLA and the World Bank enjoy a strong partnership through the World Bank’s City Planning Lab initiative, a Technical Assistance programme in the Global Practice for Social, Urban Rural & Resilience for the East Asia Pacific Region.

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Issued by:

The Singapore Land Authority

The World Bank

9 July 2018

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About SLA

Singapore Land Authority (SLA) is a statutory board with the Ministry of Law. Its mission is to optimise land resources for the social and economic development of Singapore. SLA manages some 11,000 hectares of State land and about 5,000 State buildings, which have largely been tenanted out for a variety of uses. It also manages land sales, leases, acquisitions and allocation, developing and marketing land-related information, and maintaining the national land information database through digitised land information services. Being the national land registration authority for property transactions, SLA issues and guarantees land titles in Singapore. It also manages and maintains the national land survey system, where boundaries or legal limits of properties are defined, based on a coordinated cadastre survey system. The use of geospatial information is also spearheaded by SLA through a national collaborative environment where geospatial data, policies and technologies are established and defined, thereby fostering innovation, knowledge and value creation for the Government, enterprises and community.

For more details, visit www.sla.gov.sg or find us on Facebook and Instagram @SingaporeLandAuthority

About the World Bank

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) – commonly known as the World Bank – is a global development cooperative owned by 189-member countries. As the largest development bank in the world, it supports the World Bank Group’s mission by providing loans, guarantees, risk management products, and advisory services to middle-income and creditworthy low-income countries, as well as by coordinating responses to regional and global challenges.

Created in 1944 to help Europe rebuild after World War II, IBRD joins with IDA, our fund for the poorest countries, to form the World Bank. They work closely with all institutions of the World Bank Group and the public and private sectors in developing countries to reduce poverty and build shared prosperity. The Bank’s projects and operations are designed to support the investments of low-income and middle-income countries in, among others, education, health, public administration, infrastructure, financial and private sector development, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource management. Some of our projects are co-financed with governments, other multilateral institutions, commercial banks, export credit agencies, and private sector investors.

The World Bank Group Singapore Hub is the Bank Group’s largest office that co-locates the Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guaranteee Agency (MIGA), and serves client countries in both East Asia Pacific and South Asia, particularly investments for infrastructure and urban development.

For more information, visit www.worldbank.org/singapore

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