Land Property Rights: An Introduction

3 The Case for Land Rights

>1 Billion Rural Poor are Defined by Their Relationship to Land

Occupy land but with tenuous rights

Those with no access or rights

to land Completely lacking in legal or

customary rights to land. Typically poorest of the poor; highly

vulnerable to chronic poverty.

Poor families who have some claim over land they occupy or use, but

lack legal rights. Highly vulnerable to land takings; lack incentives to

invest; restricted access to credit and government services; lower

land values. “Dead capital.”


What’s Preventing >1 Billion People from Having Secure Land Property Rights?

Inadequate policy, legal

& inst’l framework

Lack of expertise, capacity or

will to implement an existing framework


Land Property Rights & Poverty

Landlessness is often the best predictor of poverty

In rural India,17 million extremely poor families are

landless

Traditional poverty alleviation efforts

(micro-credit, education) largely bypass landless

poor


Land Property Rights & Economic Growth

Control over the land one farms/uses leads to economic opportunity

Secure land rights increase

investment, credit access, and productivity

Macro economic growth tied to secure and

broadly distributed land rights


Land Property Rights & Women’s Economic Empowerment

Women can be empowered through land rights

Women produce a majority of food in

the developing world, yet rarely

own land

When women have land rights, good things happen

(productivity, health, education, security)


Land Property Rights & Conflict

Many large-scale conflicts tied to lack of clarity around land rights

20th century revolutions rooted

in land rights issues

Getting land rights “right” a key

issue in post-conflict settings


Land Property Rights & Democracy

Close links between property rights and democracy

Property rights a “precondition” for

democracy

Democracy enhances

property rights protection


Land Property Rights & Environmental Stewardship

Secure land tenure provides long-term planning horizon and incentive to steward natural

resources

Land and forest degradation often rooted in insecure

land rights

If PES to work, land rights must be defined and

secure


Land Property Rights & Investment

Weak land rights create a poor investment climate

Without clearly defined and protected land rights, investors face substantial

risks


Land Property Rights & “Land Grabs”

Weak land rights facilitate “land grabs”

Without legal rights, poor rural families are at risk for land grabbing

and displacement, making them more vulnerable to extreme poverty

and malnourishment.


Macro Example: China

In the past 30 years the greatest poverty reduction success in human history has occurred in China.

What was key driver? Rural land rights reform in early 1980s.

300 million rural Chinese pulled themselves out of poverty in first six years after land rights reform.

Story continues


What Effective Land Rights Look Like

• Legally and socially recognized

• Well-defined

• Enforceable

• Long-term

• Transferrable

• Withstand changes in the structure of families and communities

• Equal for women and men


40 Years. 40 Countries. 400 Million People Benefited. Landesa’s Work


Example of a Land Rights Tool: Microplots

Background • A microplot is a plot of land often the

size of a tennis court owned by a family

• Through decades of research, Landesa determined that 1/10th of an acre important base for livelihoods.

• Landesa and its partners have successfully promoted this approach in:

India Pakistan Russia Ukraine

Advantages of a smaller size Scalable: Government can purchase and

distribute land to more families


Benefits of microplots • Sustainable model • Improved nutrition • Supplemental income • Asset against shocks • Status • Access to public services,

especially education • Better environmental

stewardship • Scalable

Microplot given to Naleswar and Mamata of Dorko Village in West Bengal, India.

Example of Land Rights Tool: Microplots

example from

INDIA

Community Resource Persons: Hope for the Landless Poor The government of the Indian state of Odisha invited Landesa to assess its program to provide homestead land to half a million rural poor who owned no land.

example from

INDIA

ADDITIONAL INDIA RESOURCES:

More information on Landesa’s work in Odisha

In-‐depth background on the Community Resource Person project

STEP 1: RESEARCH

Landesa and local researchers met with poor rural families and officials in 88 villages across ten districts in the state. They found that government land administrators had insufficient capacity to identify eligible families or provide the homestead plots on the scale required to meet the government’s high goals.

example from

INDIA




STEP 2: DESIGN

Landesa used their research findings and knowledge from similar situations in other states to design a strategy for supplementing the government's capacity. The solution was to hire and train village youth (called Community Resource Persons) to work in the village to identify poor rural families without title to land they possessed and help these families navigate the government process for obtaining a land title.

example from

INDIA




STEP 3: ADVOCATE

Landesa then presented their findings and recommendations to the state government and met with senior officials to explore how the Community Resource Persons model could be tested and eventually scaled.

example from

INDIA




STEP 4: IMPLEMENT

The Odisha government invited Landesa to help test the model in several pilot villages, training staff and monitoring implementation. The pilots were successful and the state has now adopted the model in seven districts. Landesa helped design and is actively supporting implementation of the scaling plan, which is increasing the government’s capacity to provide homestead plots to landless families in a cost-effective and impactful way.

example from

INDIA




Land rights registration: Documenting and securing farmers’ land rights Landesa is working with the Chinese government to develop effective programs and institutions to document and confirm farmers’ land rights to every parcel across the entire country through a land registration pilot program.

example from

CHINA

STEP 1: RESEARCH

During six rounds of nationwide surveys across 17 provinces, and hundreds of rounds of rapid rural appraisals, Landesa identified a key problem in rural China: the majority of Chinese farming families lack good documentation of their land rights.

example from

CHINA

STEP 2: DESIGN

Landesa used these research findings and knowledge from present land registration pilot projects, as well as comparative international experiences, to design a strategy to improve the existing documentation process. Landesa is now working to scale up present pilot projects so that farm families’ land rights and parcel information are fully and accurately recorded in a system that is publicly accessible and includes the land rights of both male and female farmers.

example from

CHINA

STEP 3: ADVOCATE

Landesa presented its findings and recommendations to both the central and local governments, and met with senior officials to explore testing and scaling the land registration pilot program.

example from

CHINA

STEP 4: IMPLEMENT

Anhui province adopted Landesa’s advice and invited Landesa to work closely on its pilot project to design, train, build capacity, increase grassroots publicity, and improve dispute resolution mechanism for their pilot program. The pilot was a success and Landesa is now actively working with the national government to establish relevant regulations and guidelines on rural land registration based on the pilot experiences. The national registration system will eventually strengthen the tenure security for hundreds of millions of farm families in China.

example from

CHINA

A Snapshot of Women’s Land Rights in Rwanda: How can they be protected and strengthened as the Land Law is implemented? After five years of technical assistance advising the Government of Rwanda on their legal framework governing land, Landesa’s support shifted to implementing the country’s new land law. This law, for the first time in the country’s history, formalized land tenure, providing farmers across Rwanda with legal proof that the parcel they farm is theirs. This legal proof allows farmers to use their land as collateral for a bank loan, defend their plot from theft, and pass it along to their children without interference. Landesa developed programs in Rwanda to ensure that women understood the formalization process and could benefit from these historic changes.

example from

RWANDA

ADDITIONAL RWANDA RESOURCES:

Landesa in Rwanda page: Program ini=a=ves and country overview

In-‐depth report on Women’s Land Rights in Rwanda: How can they be protected and strengthened as the Land Law is implemented?

STEP 1: RESEARCH

Landesa conducted field research, interviewing women’s organizations and rural women, to understand the opportunities and constraints that women face in accessing and owning land.

example from

RWANDA




STEP 2: DESIGN

Landesa analyzed the research and developed recommendations based on the research findings and knowledge from other countries. Landesa also held a workshop with officials to design improved laws, programs, and procedures that are compatible with reality for rural women.

example from

RWANDA




STEP 3: ADVOCATE

Landesa worked with policymakers and other government officials to ensure that the land formalization process was effective in recognizing women’s land rights.

example from

RWANDA




STEP 4: IMPLEMENT

The Rwandan government adopted Landesa’s recommendations on a small scale to pilot their effectiveness. Then Landesa conducted further research on the pilot project and used those findings to recommend further improvement of the model the government had started using across the country.

example from

RWANDA





Thank You

Land Property Rights: An Introduction

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