Encountering the state through legal tenure security: Perspectives from a low income resettlement scheme in urban India

Tenure security systems—which determine who lives where and under what terms and conditions—are processes of governance that make and effect the relationship between those who confer tenure security and those on who tenure security is conferred. Yet, in dominant analyses of land and housing tenure security, and in policy recommendations for property rights and legal tenure security in developing countries, governance implications are overlooked in favour of analyses of the relative merits of different tenure systems mainly in terms of security, livelihood and economic impact. Using interview data and observations from a resettlement scheme in Ahmedabad, India, this paper empirically examines citizen-state relations in the context of a major shift from de facto (in practice) to legal tenure security and asks how do citizens who have recently come to live under legal tenure security encounter the state and make sense of it. I find a bureaucracy of tenure security that exerts control over low income citizens largely through fear. However, such control is incomplete and acts of resistance suggest an emerging ‘paralegal’ space to renegotiate tenure rules. I conclude by examining the findings through a conceptual framework that explains the relationship between state power and legal tenure security. I also discuss the need for greater scrutiny of the political effects of urban land and housing tenure systems on poor people.     

Lineage and land reforms in Malawi: Do matrilineal and patrilineal landholding systems represent a problem for land reforms in Malawi?

Based on government statistics and interviews with villagers across Malawi this article argues that customary matrilineal and patrilineal land tenure systems serve to weaken security of land tenure for some family members as well as obstructing the creation of gender-neutral inheritance of lands. Data from the National Census of Agriculture and Livestock 2007and the 2008 Population and Housing Census are used to characterize marriage systems and landholding patterns of local communities. Marriage systems correspond to customary land-tenure patterns of matrilineal or patrilineal cultures. The differences between the two ways of land holding represent a challenge for land reforms aimed at unifying rules for land tenure and land devolution. Drawing on an analogy of the resilience of the patrilineal land holding system in Norway, we argue that it will be difficult to remove the preferential rights of lineage members directly. We recommend that, instead of creating a unified national system, existing land rights should be formally recognized and circumscribed by fair procedures. A well-designed landholding system should aim to ease the transitions of diverse customary tenure systems towards the requirements of a modern large-scale society.     

Land tenure security for women: A conceptual framework

While strengthening women’s land rights is increasingly on national and international agendas, there is little consensus on how to understand women’s tenure security. Analyses of women’s land rights often use very different definitions of land rights, from formal ownership to women’s management of plots allocated to them by their husbands. This paper identifies aspects of women’s tenure that should be included in indicators. It then provides a conceptual framework to identify the various dimensions of women’s land tenure security and the myriad factors that may influence it. To be able to compare women’s tenure security in different places, we need information on the context, the threats and opportunities facing tenure security, and the action arena that includes both the people who play a role in promoting or limiting women’s tenure security and the resources used in doing so.     

Governing farmland conversion: Comparing China with the Netherlands and Germany

Farmland conversion has become an increasing concern in China and other parts of the world, including Europe and the USA. Be it for environmental or food security reasons, questions arise concerning how urbanization should be governed, i.e. what rules and regulations could enhance the efficiency and sustainability of land use. Taking a first step toward answering such questions, this paper describes different governance structures for farmland conversion in the Netherlands, Germany, and China. Secondly, it compares five identified differences between these countries in the realms of land property, land use planning, the role of the market, the role of government, and the performance of governance structures. The purpose of this paper is to develop an approach for comparing governance structures for land conversion that: (a) offers some opportunities for exchange of experience between the three countries and (b) provides a framework for further research on governance structures in farmland conversion.     

Localizing Land Governance,Strengthening the State: Decentralization and Land Tenure Security in Uganda

Decentralization of land governance is expected to significantly improve land tenure security of small‐scale farmers in Africa, through ensuring better protection of their assets and reducing land‐related conflicts. This paper, however, cautions not to have too high expectations of transferring responsibilities for land administration and dispute resolution to local government bodies. Field research in Mbarara District in south‐western Uganda brings out how decentralization has limited impacts in terms of localizing land services provision. Nonetheless, local land governance has transformed in important ways, as decentralization adds to institutional multiplicity, and fuels competition among state and non‐state authorities, and about the rules they apply. Rather than strengthening local mechanisms for securing tenure, the reforms introduce new forms of tenure insecurity, fail to transform local conventions of dealing with land disputes and delegitimize local mechanisms for securing tenure. In practice, decentralization has had limited effects in securing tenure for the rural poor, yet reinforces the presence of the state at the local level in diverse ways.     

Land tenure security and its implications for investments to urban agriculture in Soweto,South Africa

Land tenure regime is considered one of the most crucial assets determining viability of urban agriculture, especially in terms of investments. Many authors have built on traditional agricultural theory that only land ownership and (formal) secure land tenure can incite investments into farming, thus stressing the need of secure land tenure for more prosperous urban agriculture. However, these statements are often built on weak or nonexistent empirical evidence. This research aims to contribute to the discussion on land tenure for urban agriculture by mixed-method exploration of the above-mentioned theory. Additionally, we propose a farming investment index which measures the level of investments by using non-monetary information obtained from respondents. The results of our study show that land tenure security for urban farmers is often seen as a rather narrow concept, focusing only on legal tenure security but omitting its other dimensions such as perceived and de facto tenure security. Nevertheless, all three dimensions of tenure security positively influence investments to urban agriculture.     

Land tenure security: Revisiting and refining the concept for Sub-Saharan Africa's rural poor

In more developed societies the concept of land tenure security is implicit and backed by long standing institutions. In contrast, the concept is less recognised and carries divergent meanings in developing countries. In these contexts past conceptualisation efforts have favoured reductionist approaches: the concept is narrowed to one aspect or another, but, no shared agreement on a definition prevails. The absence of this basic theoretical knowledge impedes discourse on land policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. This paper contributes to this issue by revisiting and refining the concept of tenure security in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa's rural poor. Using a systematic review, scientific evidence on the conceptualization issue is provided. A typology of different schools of thought is developed: land tenure security is shown to be understood through (1) economic, (2) legal or (3) adaptation lenses. Generic constructs from these viewpoints tend to dominate the notion of tenure security and subsequent land policy formulation; however, it is argued that none adequately describe the totality of the concept. Using the review results and a systems approach a new inclusive concept of tenure security for rural poor in Sub-Saharan Africa is developed. The refined concept of security is defined as an emergent property of a land tenure system. The content of such security is explained by interactions between all elements of a land tenure system as a whole. It is concluded that rural poor in Sub-Saharan Africa can enjoy the total security when interactions between all elements occur in a dynamic equilibrium.     

Large-scale agricultural investments under poor land governance in Zambia

This paper looks at how large-scale land acquisitions made by foreign investors in Zambia are implemented. It scrutinizes both the steps that an investor has to go through in order to attain land within the Zambian land governance system as well as the actors shaping the acquisition process.As the most important formal change introduced to the Zambian land governance system, the Lands Act 1995 paved the way for foreign investments in land. The new actor “investor” on the other hand has emerged as a result of rising prices for food and non-food commodities. The study finds that the enforcement of formal rules in the process of acquiring land is currently weak and largely determined by a number of actors: while investors, local authorities and government officials have strong leverage, local land users are excluded from the process. If the process of transformations of customary land into state land continues, land administration will be inevitably shifted toward statutory jurisdiction. As a result, local chiefs will lose their discretionary power thereby further marginalizing local land users. As it stands, welfare implications are chiefly down to the individual actors. However, it is only the government that can issue a guarantee that local land users will also benefit from land acquisition.     

An assessment of the implications of alternative scales of communal land tenure formalization in pastoral systems

Pastoralism faces diverse challenges, that include, among others, land tenure insecurity, that has necessitated the need to formalize land rights. Some governments have started regularizing rights for privately owned land, but this is complex to implement in pastoral areas where resources are used and managed collectively. Our aim was to assess how the scale of communal land tenure recognition in pastoralist systems may affect tradeoffs among objectives such as tenure security, flexibility, mobility, and reduction of conflicts. We used a participatory scenario-building approach to investigate alternative scenarios of land tenure recognition in southern Ethiopia where a new communal land tenure system is in the early stages of implementation. Through key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and a workshop, respondents analyzed the likely outcomes of communal land tenure recognition at different scales. Our findings suggest that there is a good chance of success when the tenure policy is embedded onto customary structures. All scales have some shortcomings, but Reera seems best, yet pastoralists preferred the Dheeda which despite its challenges, is the best for maintaining flexible mobility. There are multiple uncertainties and complexities, which suggest the for multi-pronged approaches and various support mechanisms when implementing a formal land tenure system in these areas.     

Governance assessment of the UAVs implementation in Rwanda under the fit-for-purpose land administration approach

Conventional land tenure recording approaches to create a sustainable land administration system (LAS) have been found to be of limited value in developing countries. To respond to this challenge, the ‘fit-for-purpose’ (FFP) approach was developed. This approach has gained relevance in the last years and promotes the use of new technologies like unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to provide valuable base maps. Yet, contemporary failures demonstrate that technological innovations should consider the governance context when being implemented. Understanding the relevance of the FFP approach and acknowledging the importance of institutional factors in policy implementation, this research presents and applies the ‘Fit-for-purpose governance assessment framework’ (FGAF). The FGAF operationalises the seven elements of the FFP approach with five governance dimensions of the framework named Governance Assessment Tool (GAT). To apply FGAF, our selected case study is focused on the UAVs implementation in Rwanda. We conducted 37 semi-structured in-depth interviews, a pilot project with Rwandese stakeholders, and analysed several official documents and national reports. Additionally, UAV data collection was carried out to test the performance of the technology too. This research found that participation and flexibility are the governance qualities that present the main challenges, while inclusiveness, affordability, upgradability, attainability and reliability provide better opportunities to implement UAVs. Based on our case study, we conclude that the governance context favours a top-down approach for the implementation of the UAV technology in the LAS. For the sustainability of the LAS, the central government should incentivize participatory governance models for local and non-governmental actors. Also, strengthening the capacities of the field agencies at the district level through fiscal decentralisation can support the effective uptake of the UAV technologies in the LAS.     

Land acquisition compensation in post-reform China: Evolution,structure and challenges in Hangzhou

This paper focuses on evolving land acquisition compensation policy and practice in Hangzhou, a better-developed coastal city in the Yangtze River Delta Region, by assessing the evolution of land acquisition compensation and the interplay among the main actors, especially the local government and affected individual villagers and rural collectives. It evaluates the hybrid compensation governance that includes monetary compensation, employment alternatives, share-holding co-operative, social security assurance, and rural collective retained land. The study reveals that while land acquisition compensation has been gradually improved in many aspects, land-lost villagers are still subject to various uncertainties in sustaining their lives, competing in the labor market, and adapting to urban life. Furthermore, markedly improved land acquisition compensation in Hangzhou has created newly emerging socio-economic problems amongst dislocated rural villagers. The paper reveals how different compensation measures have redefined rural collectives and land-lost rural villagers in the urbanization process.     

Revisiting the World Bank's land law reform agenda in Africa: The promise and perils of customary practices

This paper revisits the World Bank's land law reform agenda in Africa by focusing on two central issues: (1) land law reform as a tool for resolving land conflicts, and (2) the role of land law reform in addressing gender inequalities. While the Bank's recent land report provides insights for improving land governance in Africa, it fails to acknowledge the exploitative and contentious politics that often characterize customary land tenure systems, and the local power dynamics that undermine the ability of marginalized groups to secure land rights. Using insights from recent fieldwork, the paper analyses the links between land law reform and conflict in Ghana, and the gendered dynamics of reforming land governance in Tanzania. These “crucial cases” illustrate how land law reform can provoke conflicts over land and threaten the rights of vulnerable populations (e.g. migrants and women) when customary practices are uncritically endorsed as a means of improving land governance. As such, the paper concludes with a series of recommendations on how to navigate the promise and perils of customary practices in the governance of land.     

Are urban land tenure regulations in Namibia the solution or the problem?

Land tenure in Namibia is regulated by a variety of Acts, some of which date back to as far as 1937, and some of which are yet to be approved by Cabinet. This variety of Acts makes it difficult to evaluate the performance of land administration as a whole, and the appropriateness of coercive instruments with regards to urban land tenure in particular. In this article we evaluate how urban land tenure regularization practices are conducted in Namibia, and to compare new formal procedures, designed to address problems of efficiency and efficacy, to older existing procedures, supposedly not efficient or effective. This evaluation uses a theoretical framework of Pritchett and Woolcock [Pritchett, L., Woolcock, M., 2004. Solutions when the solution is the problem: arraying the disarray in development. World Development 32 (2), 191–212], which deals with public service delivery and transaction-intensive services. Applying this framework for a comparative analysis of 5 different land subdivision practices – each relying on a different land-related act – we conclude that the degree of regulation and regularization is perhaps not so much a solution for urban land tenure problems but more of a problem in itself.     

Changes in land use, land tenure, and landscape fragmentation in the Tijuana River Watershed following reform of the ejido sector

Changes in land use and land tenure can influence both physical fragmentation and ownership fragmentation of landscapes, with implications for biodiversity. In this study, we evaluated changes in land use and land tenure in the Tijuana River Watershed, a region of high biodiversity and endemism, following the implementation of a new Agrarian Law which allowed for privatization and sales of communal land (ejidos) beginning in 1992. In order to understand changes in land use and cover, we constructed maps from aerial photographs and Aster images and measured changes between 1994 and 2005. In order to understand changes in land tenure, we collected data from Mexican government sources on ejido land size, ownership, and sales, and we conducted 55 structured interviews with ejidatarios in the watershed. Our results demonstrate that land-use/cover change between 1994 and 2005 was dominated by an increase in urban area and grasslands, and a decrease in coastal sage scrub, chaparral, and, to a lesser degree, agriculture. In particular, the conversion of coastal sage scrub has left a far more fragmented landscape than existed in 1994. In addition, most of the ejidos in the watershed, as well as individuals interviewed, had participated in some stage of the land certification and titling process allowed by the new Agrarian Law, resulting in substantial changes in land tenure. However, land tenure security appeared to play a larger role than a desire to sell land and, contrary to studies from other regions, full title to the land was obtained in a range of urban and rural settings, rather than primarily on land closest to urban zones. Our results suggest that past predictions regarding future urban growth and fragmentation of native vegetation in the region have proven accurate and highlights regions of change that merit further study.     

An evaluation framework for earthquake-responsive land administration

In recent years earthquakes and their secondary hazards have claimed the largest number of lives of all large natural disasters. Some of the world’s most earthquake-prone zones are also areas of high population density. The impact is magnified by vulnerability factors including non-enforcement of building codes, knowledge gaps, urban poverty and poor governance capacity to manage and reduce earthquake risks. Poor security of land tenure and property rights increases the vulnerability of people and affects their ability to respond to natural disasters.Earthquake recovery and reconstruction provides very significant challenges for land agencies, with these challenges differing from one country to the next due to differences in the local context. Drawing on contrasting case studies in Haiti, Nepal and New Zealand this paper identifies the common post-earthquake land administration functions and challenges that may apply to many contexts. These lessons provide land agencies and other key stakeholders with a summary of the challenges an earthquake poses for land administration at different post-disaster stages. We also discuss the policy and regulatory, institutional, operational and preparedness lessons for land administration. From these lessons we propose a framework for evaluating the earthquake-responsiveness of a land administration system. This framework can be used by a land agency in an earthquake prone region, or where an earthquake has recently occurred, to assess what challenges to land administration might occur in the event of an earthquake, and the preparedness of their land administration system.     

Chinese land policies and farmers’ adoption of organic fertilizer for saline soils

Soil salinization has become a global concern and poses a great threat to food production and sustainable land use. Land use policies are the main driver of saline soil farmland use in ecosystems. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for analyzing how saline soil farmland use is affected by land use practices of individual farm households. An empirical study, using an ordered probit model, was conducted based on questionnaire responses from farm households in 8 towns and 14 villages in eco-fragile areas in Shandong, Jilin and Xinjiang provinces. The results suggest that land tenure, state systems agricultural support, characteristics of a field parcel and characteristics of the farm households have different influences on farmer's land use in three regions. The adoption of organic fertilizer by individual households is constrained by the lack of stability and integrity in land tenure. Furthermore, the parcel of a field is generally small, sparsely distributed and often fragmented, which increases costs. Even subsidizing organic fertilizer does not necessarily help in its adoption. Given these challenges, this study makes recommendations for different regions that may promote the adoption of improved saline soil farmland cultivation methods by farmers.     

Institutions for improving access to land for settler-housing: Evidence from Papua New Guinea

This paper provides household level evidence of the institutions that are developing to provide security of access to land for housing within the settlements of Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. Data collected from a survey of 441 randomly selected households shows that households organise around regional, family, and professional cleavages to provide security to person and property. Further, some households pay rent to landlords and keep evidence of the above to legitimise their claims to the land settled upon. In one case, a community has formed an organisation to mediate between the settlers and the customary landowning group. The above is evidence of the maturation of institutions to provide tenure security. It also provides the opportunity for policymakers to adopt and then adapt (migrate) the existing institutions into the formal system as part of ongoing reforms.     

Sustainability and Land tenure: Who owns the floodplain in the Pantanal,Brazil?

In seeking to achieve poverty alleviation and environmental conservation, public policy has often centred on guaranteeing land titles to local peoples. However, such approaches have brought unintended outcomes, replacing small-scale economies and natural areas by intensive exploitation of resources with no clear improvement in local people’s wellbeing. To understand this, we go beyond a general political ecology framing to consider relations between sustainability and land tenure, focusing on the intersection of economics, ecology and anthropology to understand how land tenure, property and use play out on the ground. We draw together different concepts including bundle of rights, de facto and de jure resource use, property regimes, density-dependence and non-equilibrium theory. The significance of this three-discipline view is illustrated through a case study of the Pantanal wetland, Brazil, where conservationists, the government and the local population contest ownership of the Paraguay River floodplain. Government sought to address conflicts around tenure and access through a narrow view of property, which failed to encompass the overlapping layers of land tenure, property and use on the ground and only served to create further legal battles. This article concludes that a more complex view combining the three perspectives is needed in the case of the Pantanal, and in other cases of contested property rights, in order to resolve conflicting claims and foster sustainability. We dissect both the power plays involved between different groups competing for control of a valuable resource, and the legal frameworks which can and should provide checks and balances in the system. The more nuanced grasp that emerges of local systems of tenure and access, of how these diverge from western property concepts, and of their environmental implications favours a better understanding of local realities, allowing for better management policy and consequently contributing more effectively towards poverty alleviation and environmental protection.     

Land tenure insecurity in post-certification Amhara,Ethiopia

It is generally believed that tenure security has improved due to the programme of land certification. In this paper I argue the opposite. Tenure security concerns three different rights: possession, renting and latent rights. Rights of possession are believed to have improved, but the evidence is weak and conflicting. Land rentals are expanding and farmers face high tenure insecurity. The main problem, though, is latent rights, with great insecurity and increased conflict levels. Despite rapid economic development there is considerable social malaise, an unfortunate agricultural structure, and considerable pressure for land redistribution due to unresolved land tenure issues. The paper is based on the certification literature and primary material from North Shäwa.     

The evolution and resilience of community-based land tenure in rural Mexico

This paper examines the evolution of ejido tenure in Mexico since the 1992 constitutional and legal reforms in that country. Prior to the Mexican Revolution, communal tenure had all but disappeared, but since 1920 community-based tenure re-emerged to become the dominant tenure form in Mexico. The paper investigates ejido land tenure through an examination of ejido governance structures and the tenure rules relating to the acquisition, transfer and extinction of land and resource rights. It draws on community-level research and numerous published case studies, relevant laws, and on data describing the status of ejidos countrywide. This reveals a diverse set of practices, which in many instances depart from the rules as defined in the Agrarian Law and even in internal community regulations. Land tenure plays a critical mediating role in the inter-relationship between humans and the environment. Using the framework of resilience I examine the persistence of ejido tenure and its dynamics in the aftermath of major land policy and legal reforms. Three major ‘shocks’ are identified which are seriously challenging the resilience of ejidos. These are the 1992 legal reforms, NAFTA and the resulting out-migration from rural Mexico, and urbanization. I conclude that ejidos have generally been resilient enough to accommodate the 1992 reforms, but problems with cross-generational transfers that stem in part from labor migration, and urbanization have set ejidos on a course that could ultimately overcome all but the most resilient communities.