Tenure Security: Wishful Policy Thinking or Reality? A Case from Peri-Urban Ghana

2007 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janine M Ubink
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Policy ◽  
Tenure Security ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Customary Land ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractMany areas in Africa facing land shortage and competition witness increasingly restricted and insecure access to land for the poor majority. Mounting evidence of reduced tenure security shows that customary systems are often unable to evolve equitably. In contrast with this crisis in customary land administration, current international land policy is witnessing renewed interest in customary tenure systems. Ghana's current land policy resonates with this international trend. This article focuses on peri-urban Kumasi, Ghana, to acquire an insight into struggles and negotiations over customary land tenure in a rapidly urbanizing area. It then tries to explain why policymakers, in Ghana and in general, do not yet seem to have reflected the crisis in customary land management in their policies. The article concludes with some recommendations as to how policymakers could respond.

scholarly journals Land Tenure Reform in Three Former Settler Colonies in Southern Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-110
Author(s):  
Chizuko Sato
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Traditional Leaders ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
Traditional Leadership ◽  
Communal Areas ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Customary Land

AbstractThis study explores the challenges of land tenure reform for three former settler colonies in southern Africa–Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa. While land redistribution programmes have been the primary focus of land reform for these countries since independence, land tenure reform for the inhabitants of communal areas is an equally important and complex policy challenge. Before independence, the administration of these areas was more or less in the hands of traditional leaders, whose roles were sanctioned by the colonial and apartheid authorities. Therefore, one of the primary concerns with respect to reforming land tenure systems in communal areas is related to the power and authority of traditional leaders in the post-independence period. This study highlights striking similarities in the nations’ land tenure reform policies. All of them gave statutory recognition to traditional leaders and strengthened their roles in rural land administration. In understanding this ‘resurgence’ or tenacity of traditional leadership, the symbiotic relationship between the ruling parties and traditional leaders cannot be ignored and should be problematised. Nonetheless, this chapter also argues that this obsession with traditional leadership may result in the neglect of other important issues related to land tenure reform in communal areas, such as the role of customary land tenureas social security.

Land governance and gender: the tenure-gender nexus in land management and land policy

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Land Policy ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Reverse Migration ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
And Gender

Abstract This book delivers new conceptual and empirical studies surrounding the design and evaluation of land governance, focusing on land management approaches, land policy issues, advances in pro-poor land tenure and land-based gender concerns. It explores alternative approaches for land management and land tenure through international experiences. Themes include Islamic tenure, reverse migration, matriarchy/matrilineal systems, structural inequality, tenure-responsive planning, land-related instabilities and COVID-19, urban-rural land concerns, women's tenure bargaining, tenure-gender nexus concerns in developing and developed countries.

scholarly journals Relations between Land Tenure Security and Agricultural Productivity: Exploring the Effect of Land Registration

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uwacu Alban Singirankabo ◽  
Maurits Willem Ertsen
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Agricultural Productivity ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Tenure Security ◽  
Land Registration ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Information Updating ◽  
Management Institutions

This paper reviews the scholarly literature discussing the effect(s) of land registration on the relations between land tenure security and agricultural productivity. Using 85 studies, the paper focuses on the regular claim that land registration’s facilitation of formal documents-based land dealings leads to investment in a more productive agriculture. The paper shows that this claim is problematic for three reasons. First, most studies offer no empirical evidence to support the claim on the above-mentioned effect. Second, there are suggestions that land registration can actually threaten ‘de facto’ tenure security or even lead to insecurity of tenure. Third, the gendered realization of land registration and security may lead to uneven distribution of costs and benefits, but these effects are often ignored. Next to suggesting the importance of land information updating and the efficiency of local land management institutions, this paper also finds that more research with a combined locally-set approach is needed to better understand any relation(s) between land tenure security and agricultural productivity.

Fractured Governance and Local Frictions: The Exclusionary Nature of a Clandestine Land Market in Southern Zambia

Africa ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Sitko
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Land Market ◽  
Land Markets ◽  
Private Land ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
The Social ◽  
Customary Land ◽  
Rural Zambia

This article explores the ways in which efforts to expand private land tenure, coupled with the continued centrality of customary land administration in Zambia, produce a fractured system of land governance in which localized markets for land emerge but are forced to operate in a clandestine manner. Using ethnographic and archival data sources, I argue that despite the historical and contemporary relationship between land rights and economic ‘development’, the clandestine nature of land markets in rural Zambia tends to (re)produce many of the social ills that ‘development’ seeks to resolve. Using a case study of a clandestine market for land in a Tonga-speaking region of southern Zambia, this article shows how these markets undermine women's rights to land, while allowing for the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of a few.

scholarly journals Towards Responsible Consolidation of Customary Lands: A Research Synthesis

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwabena Asiama ◽  
Rohan Bennett ◽  
Jaap Zevenbergen
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Consolidation ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Land Fragmentation ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
Tenure System ◽  
Food Productivity ◽  
Land Tenure System ◽  
Land Reallocation ◽  
Customary Land

The use of land consolidation on customary lands has been limited, though land fragmentation persists. Land fragmentation on customary lands has two main causes—the nature of the customary land tenure system, and the somewhat linked agricultural system. Since attempts to increase food productivity on customary lands have involved fertilisation and mechanisation on the small and scattered farmlands, these approaches have fallen short of increasing food productivity. A study to develop a responsible approach to land consolidation on customary lands using a design research approach is undertaken and reported here. Based on a comparative study, it is found that three factors inhibit the development of a responsible land consolidation approach on customary lands—the coverage of a land administration system, a land valuation approach, and a land reallocation approach the fits the customary land tenure system. To fill these gaps, firstly, this study developed the participatory land administration that brought together traditional land administration approaches with emerging bottom-up approaches, as well as technological advances that drive these approaches together with the growing societal needs. Secondly, a valuation approach was developed to enable the comparison of the farmlands in rural areas that are without land markets. Finally, a land reallocation approach was developed based on the political, economic and social, as well as technical and legal characteristics of rural customary farmlands. This study concludes that though the land consolidation strategy developed is significantly able to reduce land fragmentation, both physical and land tenure, the local customs are an obstruction to the technical processes to achieve the best form of farmland structures.

WORLD EXPERIENCE OF LAND MANAGEMENT

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Author(s):  
Yelena Garazha
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Land Ownership ◽  
International Experience ◽  
Land Policy ◽  
Land Resources ◽  
Common Trends ◽  
Resources Management ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
The World ◽  
Land Administration Systems

The questions of land management were considered, the world experience and features were taking into account. Common trends in the construction of land administration systems around the world were identified. Character of the land resources use, forms of land ownership, land lease institutions were argumented. Based on the evaluation of the effectiveness of land resources management the prospects of international experience introduction in land policy of Ukraine were identified.

scholarly journals Whose security? Deepening social conflict over ‘customary’ land in the shadow of land tenure reform in Malawi

2007 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauline E. Peters ◽  
Daimon Kambewa
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Policy ◽  
Rural Populations ◽  
High Population Density ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Community Variability ◽  
Traditional Authorities ◽  
Customary Land

ABSTRACTMalawi, like other countries in Africa, has a new land policy designed to clarify and formalise customary tenure. The country is poor with a high population density, highly dependent on agriculture, and the research sites are matrilineal-matrilocal, and near urban centres. But the case raises issues relevant to land tenure reform elsewhere: the role of ‘traditional authorities’ or chiefs vis-à-vis the state and ‘community’; variability in types of ‘customary’ tenure; and deepening inequality within rural populations. Even before it is implemented, the pending land policy in Malawi is intensifying competition over land. We discuss this and the increase in rentals and sales; the effects of public debates about the new land policy; a new discourse about ‘original settlers’ and ‘strangers’; and political manoeuvring by chiefs.

scholarly journals Applying the FFP Approach to Wider Land Management Functions

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 723
Author(s):  
Kathrine Kelm ◽  
Sarah Antos ◽  
Robin McLaren
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Data Capture ◽  
Geospatial Data ◽  
Land Administration ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Management Functions

The initial focus of implementing the Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) methodology was to address the significant, global security of tenure divide. We argue that this land tenure methodology is proving successful in scaling up the provision of security of tenure for developing countries. The increasing adoption of the FFPLA methodology has also opened opportunities and provided flexibility for the innovative use of emerging technologies to accelerate the global roll out of security of tenure, such as the use of autonomous drones and machine learning techniques applied to image analysis. Despite wider adoption of participatory approaches to the recording of land tenure, similar FFP solutions for the other components of land administration services (land value, land use and land development) and land management functions are still evolving. This article therefore explores how the FFP approach can be applied to this wider set of land administration services and land management functions. A case study methodology, using three case studies, is used to determine if the case study approaches meet the FFP criteria. The focus is on the urban environment, drawing mostly from experiences and case studies in the Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience & Land Global Practice of the World Bank. These opportunities for the wider application of the FFP approach and associated principles are being triggered by the innovative use of emerging new data capture technology developments. The paper examines the innovative use of these emerging technologies to identify a common set of data capture techniques and geospatial data that can be shared across a range of urban land administration and management activities. Finally, the paper discusses how individual land projects could be integrated into a more holistic land administration and management program approach and deliver a significant set of socio-economic benefits more quickly. It is found that the FFP approach can be more widely adopted across land administration and land management and in many cases can share a common set of geospatial data. The authors argue that the wider adoption and integration of these new, innovative FFP urban management approaches will require a significant cultural, professional, and institutional change from all stakeholders. Future work will explore more deeply these institutional weaknesses, which will provide a basis for guidance to the World Bank and similar institutions.

Land governance and gender for a tenure-responsive future.

2021 ◽  
pp. 234-240
Author(s):  
Uchendu Eugene Chigbu
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Land Policy ◽  
Land Access ◽  
Gender Diverse ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

Abstract The application of land governance and gender at the local everyday level in countries around the world should mean making concrete changes in the tenure gender nexus in land management and land policy governance. This means that achieving sustainability by using land governance to enable gender equality in land management and land requires recognizing that women and gender diverse people are not in the same take-off position as men in land access and security of land tenure. Collectively, the chapters in this book point to the need to rethink theory and practice of land governance and gender, aligning the tenure gender nexus in land management and land policy to respond to the needs of people in their societies. On this basis, this book has generated academic and practical knowledge in various areas that are essential for achieving success, including: access to land; gender-based structural inequality; governance of land and natural resources in an era of instability; community-based tenureresponsive planning; tenure-responsive zoning regulations for gender equality; changing customary tenure and laws; balanced rural and urban development; Islamic land governance and gender equality; and pandemic liveability and reverse migration. The book raises awareness of some of these issues and stimulates new research from across disciplines and sectors.

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