Author: Amrit Bhandari

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The 2014 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty will take place at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on March 24 – 27, 2014. The theme of the 15th annual conference is “Integrating Land Governance into the Post-2015 Agenda: Harnessing Synergies for Implementation and Monitoring Impact.”

USAID and the World Bank are committed to strengthening land tenure and property rights to address the challenges affecting emerging economies. As in past years, USAID will serve as a conference partner and sponsor. According to Tim Fella, USAID Land Tenure and Conflict Advisor, “USAID invests in and is committed to the success of this annual conference because it is the premier land event, and one of the best opportunities to influence ideas and practice in property rights.”

Papers are invited for presentations at the conference in seven thematic areas:

• Securing and protecting land rights from a gender perspective
• Managing urban landscapes
• Attracting responsible land-based investment for local benefits and common resource management
• Maximizing benefits from spatial data
• Strengthening country level institutions
• Fostering transparency in land ownership, use, and administration
• Research on key aspects of land governance

Those who are interested in presenting at the conference should submit an initial 800 to 1,500 word abstract by November 17, 2013 (or November 10 for a group proposal) and should be willing to review up to four other abstracts. Final papers are expected to be between 6,000 and 12,000 words.

The World Bank conference will echo other global conferences this year that have featured discussions about making land tenure and property rights a central theme of a global post-2015 development agenda. Last week, a conference on community land and resource rights was co-organized by Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, International Land Coalition (ILC), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Oxfam, and the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) in Interlaken, Switzerland. Thomson Reuters Foundation reported that attendees demonstrated “support for increased dialogue between conservation groups and local communities, whose interests can clash, as well as for crafting indicators to measure progress on strengthening community land rights as part of the post-2015 development framework now under discussion.”

A similar consensus is expected to emerge from the 40th Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), which will be held in Rome, Italy the week of October 7, 2013. One side event to watch will be “Land tenure and property rights in a Post-2015 Agenda – What’s best for food security, growth and poverty reduction?” hosted by the United Kingdom’s Department of International Development (DFID) with participation by USAID, MCC, Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) and Landesa. According to Dr. Gregory Myers, Division Chief for the Land Tenure and Property Rights Division at USAID, “the United States Government views land tenure and property rights as a critical element of the post-2015 development agenda. Property rights are a building block to help lift people out of poverty – especially women.”

Farmers in Burma are increasingly organizing to push for recognition of expanded rights to land and how they use it. Despite the passage of the Farmland Law in 2012, grievances and conflicts over land remain widespread and farmers face continued restrictions of their farming choices.

Farmers participating in a two-day conference last month presented a list of demands to legislators, calling for an amendment of the 2012 Farmland Law. The farmers want an end to arrests of farmers protesting forceful expropriation of and eviction from their land, as well as fair compensation for any land takings. According to one member of the group quoted in Radio Free Asia, it is difficult to resolve land disputes in court, because farmers are “treated like criminals when businessmen or developers sue them. They feel that they are being discriminated against.”

Radio Free Asia reported that the group intends to draft a more comprehensive statement on “land grabbing” within 15 to 30 days and send copies to parliament, relevant government ministries, political parties, nongovernmental organizations, and the international community.

Last month’s conference follows a “Farmer’s Forum” that took place earlier this year in Yangon, Burma to draw up a charter to submit to the government. The agreed-upon charter included rights to reasonable compensation for land expropriated by government or occupied by the military, to freely establish and register farmers’ associations, to have a voice in the amending of land laws, and the right to grow crops of their choosing.

USAID’s land tenure and climate change specialist, Peter Giampaoli observes, “The increasingly organized and public voice of farmers in Burma is an important step in raising awareness, developing alliances, and attracting the attention of government as they seek to expand and secure the land rights of smallholder farmers.”

Download USAID’s profile of land tenure issues in Burma.

Land tenure impacts investment, credit availability, poverty rates, land values, and agricultural productivity, which are all linked to economic performance. When land tenure and property rights are secure, individuals can make investments, secure credit, sell land, and make longer term decisions about agricultural practices. On the other hand, in developing countries that have a large informal sector, and in which land tenure is insecure, people lack opportunities to invest in or profit from land, and their transactions are not protected by the state. In order to increase GDP, governments should formalize property rights to encourage more of these transactions.

Formalization does not mean that everyone holds a legal title to their land or home. USAID endorses the principle of “secure enough” tenure, in which there is a continuum of rights that can be strengthened through a variety of affordable and sustainable approaches. These approaches may include public recognition of customary or indigenous rights to an area, certificates that secure the rights to use or manage resources, a community-managed titling process, or more formal strategies such as land titling or creating public land registries.

When governments seek to stimulate economic growth through outside investment in large land areas, the lack of secure tenure presents a problem for the existing individuals or community holders who occupy that land but are not recognized as rightful holders of property. These people are at risk of displacement and being denied fair, prompt and adequate compensation for resources and livelihoods lost. For this reason, USAID supports the United Nations-negotiated Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security and forthcoming Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment. When applied correctly, these guidelines will improve the security of property rights for all, facilitate the development of more economic opportunities for small, medium and large-scale producers, and contribute to food security and economic growth.

In rural areas, secure land tenure may lead to economic growth by: allowing farmers to invest in better seeds or tools, see returns on those investments, and pass land to their heirs; making it easier to gain credit to finance investments in agriculture or other entrepreneurial activity; freeing farmers to choose whether they want to use their land for agriculture or lease it to someone else and pursue an alternate livelihood; and attracting external investment necessary for broad-based economic growth.

In urban areas, municipalities need to invest in infrastructure and public services in order to meet the needs of rapidly growing populations. However, the rate of urbanization in cities around the world is too fast to meet the demand for housing or basic services, and public spending is curtailed by weak city and municipal tax bases. One way to increase both the tax base and land tenure security is by recognizing informal settlements and incorporating them into urban plans. This approach has been used successfully in a pilot project in Afghanistan, for example, and USAID continues to work there to build capacity in land use planning and land registration systems.

Learn more about how economic growth and land tenure are connected in the new Land Tenure, Property Rights, and Economic Growth Issue Brief.

No-take fishing zones in the Caribbean’s near-shore and reef areas may be an important strategy for sustaining marine ecosystems and conserving fish populations, according to preliminary research. Meanwhile, the increasing use of no-take reserves calls for recognition of the vital role that local communities play in natural resources management and their rights to benefit from that management. Shared management of ecosystems and resources requires equitable and appropriate distribution of both responsibilities and benefits among all stakeholders.

In order to protect the Caribbean’s highly threatened near-shore and reef ecosystems, local communities must be engaged in decision making and stewardship of natural resources. If the community is not consulted, there can be significant local opposition and non-compliance because no-take reserves prohibit the main livelihood of these communities. In order to continue to earn a livelihood, fishermen have been known to sneak in at night or dynamite the reefs in order to push fish to the surface.

On the other hand, with sufficient resources, no-take areas have the potential to serve as tools of empowerment for the adjacent community. If the right to manage marine resources is recognized and local people are consulted in the establishment of reserves, the community can be an active partner in effective monitoring of human activities and ecosystem conditions. The state may help communities restrict access and enforce prohibitions by deploying coast guard, marine police, or other resources to patrol extensive open waters and coastlines.

This has worked in Jamaica, where subsistence fishers represented by organizations such as the Bluefields Bay Fishermen’s Friendly Society advocated for the establishment of a reserve in Bluefields Bay with strict enforcement of no-take restrictions.

When effectively monitored, no-take reserves provide an area for populations to recover free from fishing pressure. In the above cited study, fish grew bigger and laid more eggs and coral grew faster within the reserve. Rebounding populations then expanded into habitat outside the no-take areas. In the mid-1990s in St. Lucia, the total catch around an extensive closure of coral reef fishing grounds increased significantly, in some places by as much as 90 percent.

The gain in fish harvested and lives improved around the no-fish zones depends on government authorities working side-by-side with community leaders to agree on strategies for implementing codes of enforcement and rules of engagement.

Read more about a related USAID project: The Indonesia Marine and Climate Support (IMACS) is a four-year project that aims to improve marine resources management in Indonesia.

A new opinion piece describes how secure land rights can improve agricultural productivity and food security. In Why Strong Land Rights Advance Food Security, Eric Postel, USAID’s Assistant Administrator for the Bureau of Economic Growth, Education and Environment and Tjada McKenna, Feed the Future’s Deputy Coordinator for Development, explain what development practitioners can do to improve land rights and food security in a multitude of development projects.

This past July, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah unveiled the Feed the Future Progress Report on Capitol Hill as part of an event hosted by the Senate Hunger Caucus. The results were measurable—the U.S. Government has supported over 7 million farmers and 12 million malnourished children in just under 3 years. In order to fully realize food security goals going forward, we must address the lack of secure land tenure and property rights in many countries. Clear land use rights lead to increased investment in agricultural inputs and incentives to employ sustainable farming practices–both of which result in higher yields and ultimately improved food security. According to Dr. Gregory Myers, Division Chief for USAID’s Land Tenure and Property Rights Division, “In order to lift the next one billion out of poverty, we cannot rely on public resources alone – we must leverage private sector investment in agriculture. For USAID, private investment can be small, medium, or large, but it must be responsible and the rights of local communities must be recognized. Globally, we need more data on the impact of large-scale land investments.”

Recognizing this need, USAID is striving to build knowledge around land tenure and property rights, including large-scale land investments, through the Evaluation, Research and Communication (ERC) project. USAID’s Bureau for Food Security (BFS) leads the Feed the Future initiative and supports Agrilinks, a web site that captures new learning in food security and agricultural development, disseminates it among practitioners, USAID mission staff, and other donors, and connects those actors to each other in order to improve development outcomes around the world. Using a knowledge-driven approach to food security and agricultural development, Agrilinks aims to extend and multiply the impact of the learning and innovation developed through agricultural development research and practice.

Become a member of Agrilinks and take part in working groups, facilitated online discussions, closed e-consultations, #AskAg Twitter chats, and Feed the Future stakeholder meetings with other food security and land/resource tenure professionals.

The G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition aims to lift 50 million people out of poverty in ten years through a partnership between G8 members, African nations and the private sector. In order to increase production at a rate needed to achieve food security, the New Alliance seeks to accelerate responsible investment in African agriculture and commit to coordinated policy reforms. Each of the nine New Alliance countries (Benin, Malawi, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania) have developed Cooperation Frameworks with G8 and private sector partners that outline their shared commitments and responsibilities.

The New Alliance recognizes that good land governance is critical to improving food security and nutrition; each country’s cooperation framework details commitments to strengthening land tenure and resource governance. Under the New Alliance, partners commit to support the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security and develop pilot programs for their implementation. The cooperation frameworks and key policy commitments related to land governance in each of the New Alliance countries are below.

Burkina Faso’s key policy commitments include providing incentives for private sector investment in agriculture; establishing and operating rural land agencies and village land commissions in 302 rural districts; drafting transparent procedures for access to land in state or local government-developed areas; delineating and registering the land areas already developed; and issuing documents relative to land use rights in all the developed areas, including for women.
New Alliance Cooperation Framework (English) / French
USAID’s Land and Resource Tenure Profile for Burkina Faso

Cote d’Ivoire’s key policy commitments include securing rural land tenure and facilitating access to land for smallholder farmers and private enterprises; demarcating village lands and issuing land tenure certificates; extending and operationalizing the land information system (SIF); and strengthening the capacity of all agencies involved in implementing the Rural Land Act.
New Alliance Cooperation Framework (English) / French
USAID’s Land and Resource Tenure Profile for Cote d’Ivoire

Ethiopia is committed to developing and implementing a transparent land tenure policy; strengthening land use rights to stimulate investment in agriculture; extending land certification to all rural land holders, initially focusing on Agricultural Growth Program (AGP) districts (woredas); refining land law, if necessary, to encourage long-term land leasing and strengthen contract enforcement for commercial farms; and further developing and implementing guidelines of corporate responsibility for land tenure and responsible agricultural investment.
New Alliance Cooperation Framework
USAID’s Land and Resource Tenure Profile for Ethiopia

Ghana’s commitments include providing incentives for private sector investment in agriculture and developing a database of suitable land for investors.
New Alliance Cooperation Framework
USAID’s Land and Resource Tenure Profile for Ghana

Mozambique’s key policy commitments include developing and improving the transparency and efficiency of land policy and land administration; developing innovative methods for increasing the availability and access to credit by smallholders; reforming land use rights (DUAT) system and accelerate issuance of DUATs to allow smallholders (women and men) to secure tenure and to promote agribusiness investment.
New Alliance Cooperation Framework (English) / Portuguese
USAID’s Land and Resource Tenure Profile for Mozambique

Tanzania’s key policy commitments include developing and implementing a transparent land tenure policy; providing certificates of land rights (statutory or customary) for smallholders and investors; and developing an instrument that clarifies roles of land implementing agencies.
New Alliance Cooperation Framework
USAID’s Land and Resource Tenure Profile for Tanzania

Nigeria’s key policy commitments include adopting a Systematic Land Titling and Registration (SLTR) process that respects FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests.
New Alliance Cooperation Framework
USAID’s Land and Resource Tenure Profile for Nigeria

Benin’s key policy commitments include facilitating and safeguarding access to and use of land; extending the development of rural land ownership plans to cover the entire country; and setting up a trustworthy information system on rural land ownership.
New Alliance Cooperation Framework

Malawi’s key policy commitments include improving access to land, water and basic infrastructure to support food security and nutrition. The Government of Malawi has also committed to enact a new land bill by June 2015.
New Alliance Cooperation Framework
USAID’s Land and Resource Tenure Profile for Malawi

There is growing recognition among governments, civil society organizations and the media that clear, secure land tenure and property rights are a necessary condition for achieving food security and better nutrition. Devex is currently hosting a month-long campaign–“Land Matters”–which examines why and how land tenure and property rights are related to a variety of critical development issues, beginning with food security. According to Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights, “secure property rights create positive incentives that enable more efficient and effective investment in land, labor, capital, and improved practices in food production and nutrition.”

Visit the Land Matters campaign site

Since the ousting of Muammar Qadhafi in Libya in 2011, the country has been on a shaky path to peace and security. Libyans have been dealing with the consequences of Qadhafi’s rule and the short, destructive civil war that followed his ouster. Due to a long history of property expropriation by the Qadhafi regime and disregard for long-standing customary claims to land in rural areas, issues relating to housing, land, and property (HLP) rights are often the cause of grievances and conflicts.

In March 2013, the Ministry of Justice of the Government of Libya issued a Draft Law regarding properties expropriated by the state since 1978. The law includes provisions regarding restitution and compensation for those whose property was expropriated by the state under Law No. 4 – a provision the Qadhafi regime used to justify wide-ranging expropriations.

USAID’s Supporting the Justice and Security Sector through Property Rights (SJSSPR) Project elicited Libyan citizens’ significant concerns about HLP issues, supported local efforts to resolve HLP conflicts, and identified how HLP issues can be better addressed in order to contribute to long-term peace and security. The SJSSPR project supported a legal analysis of the Draft Law by Landesa, a U.S.-based organization with extensive international experience on HLP issues. Their analysis suggests that, with further refinement, the Draft Law could be an important step for achieving long-term peace and security by addressing historical HLP injustices.

The legal analysis noted that the Draft Law is an important first step toward resolving long-standing HLP grievances in Libya, but identified several opportunities for improving it. Those opportunities include specifying the historical period for which citizens can file compensation or restitution claims, providing details regarding the restitution process, and recognizing the right of women to participate in and benefit from a restitution program. See the full analysis of the Draft Law, including the recommendations and read more about Land Tenure and Property Rights in Libya.

A guest post by Dr. Steven Lawry, Global Lead, Land Tenure & Property Rights at DAI, a USAID partner and global development company committed to shaping a more livable world. Follow them @DAIGlobal

Outside of national parks and private land, roughly 90 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s land is administered under customary tenure—arrangements based on a society’s customs and history. In a highly uncertain economic environment, a customary land right has proven for many poor people to be the one reliable asset over which they have secure control. Yet despite its pervasiveness as the principal institutional arrangement for providing access to secure land rights, customary tenure is rarely recognized under statutory law.

Statutory recognition of customary tenure would afford customary rights holders many economic and social advantages. Of immediate benefit would be the potential to halt the growing phenomenon of state-owned land being sold or leased to large-scale investors even while it is held in common trust under customary tenure arrangements. Statutory recognition also has the potential benefit of bringing customary land administration under the domain of civil law, giving equal rights to women on matters of property ownership, inheritance, and use.

Customary tenure arrangements represent intact systems of economic, social, and cultural rights—so why not focus on protecting and deepening those rights? Neither the Universal Declaration of Human Rights nor the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights recognize the right to land among the rights that signatories agree to recognize and uphold. However, many of the protected rights, including the rights to shelter, food and livelihoods, arguably are contingent upon the right to land.

Several sub-Saharan African countries have taken important steps toward extending statutory recognition to customary land rights, on par with freehold and public tenure. Botswana was a pioneer in this movement; its 1968 Tribal Land Act placed customary rights at the center of the national tenure system, and made the administration of customary rights subject to civil authority, removing traditional authorities from the land administration process. Recent land policy reforms in Kenya, Mozambique, and South Sudan have similarly extended full statutory recognition to customary tenure arrangements.

International human rights law should codify the Right to Land, including the right to land held under customary tenure arrangements. This measure is long overdue and makes good sense, especially for sub-Saharan Africa, where a plurality of tenure systems—customary, freehold title, and public—should enjoy equal recognition before the law.

By Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights

On July 30, I had the pleasure of joining Landesa President Tim Hanstad at Global Washington in Seattle for a rich discussion of the Global Farms Race: Implications of Food Security, Poverty, and Foreign Investment.

At the heart of this conversation are the rights of communities and individuals to decide for themselves how to use and profit from land. Do they possess clear and documented land and resource rights? Who has the power to make decisions? According to a recent World Bank report, up to 90% of the land in Sub-Saharan Africa is undocumented, which makes it extremely difficult to determine who has a right to what land and resources. Consequently, decisions are being made for individuals and communities, rather than by them. This is unsustainable and will undermine the objectives we seek to achieve, particularly improved food security and nutrition.

Two of the biggest policy challenges are the lack of good data and out-of-date laws. In many countries in which USAID works, decades of civil war, fairly recent independence, and repeated changes in government have resulted in land records that are non-existent, incomplete, or overlapping – making it very difficult to figure out who owns what and how much land has been sold or leased to whom. Combine this with laws and policies that do not recognize the property rights of many citizens, and it spells potential disaster for smallholders around the world.

In the global farms race, the rush to purchase or lease agricultural land to feed the world’s growing population tends to overshadow the slower process of determining ownership and boundaries. Governments sell or lease what is legally public land to investors for agricultural export. However, the purchaser/lessor may find smallholders on the land. Frequently, commercial investors do not know that the land has been grazed or farmed by local people for centuries. So, who is the “bad guy” in this deal? Who is responsible for ensuring that local, indigenous and customary rights are recognized, or that they have land on which to make a livelihood? There are few “bad guys” in this scenario, but many bad decisions. It should be those who occupy the land, who in fact have property rights, who are responsible for making decisions about what happens with the land and who benefits.

Because these issues are so fundamental to global development goals, USAID is partnering with country governments around the globe to invest in programs that improve land governance systems. Together with our partners across Europe and in many bilateral organizations such as the World Bank, IFAD and FAO, we are encouraging governments to recognize that occupants indeed have property rights and that is a fundamental requirement for economic development and sustainable resource management. One of the most important tools to address the lack of clear land tenure is the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security, which were adopted by the UN Committee on Food Security in May 2012. The Voluntary Guidelines provide a framework that policy makers can refer to when creating laws and policies to strengthen land tenure and resource rights. Improved access and rights to land create incentives for better agricultural productivity, which leads to better food security and nutrition.

In Ethiopia for example, a USAID-supported land certification program has helped to transform property rights, enhance agricultural productivity, and limit resource degradation. In the area where the land certification program was implemented, crop yields have increased between 11 percent and 40 percent per acre over three years with no other inputs. When people have land certificates, they are more inclined to conserve land, water, and wildlife and invest in productivity.

Secure property rights are also extremely important for women. We know when women do not have property rights, their home and land may be taken by relatives. There is a greater likelihood that their health and security are jeopardized and their children may be forced to work or marry at an early age instead of attending school. When women have more secure rights to land and resources, they are more likely to invest in agricultural inputs, produce food to feed their family, participate in household decision making, earn income, and access credit.

USAID is seeking to expand the knowledge and data on the impact of land rights programs and large-scale land acquisitions through a new Evaluation, Research and Communication (ERC) project, launched in May. Follow me on Twitter @Gregorywmyers where I share results and engage in the growing global dialogue on land and resource governance.