This paper reviews whether land titling programmes have achieved the benefits claimed by their proponents. It finds that they have generally failed to do so. Investment in land and housing, access to formal credit, and municipal revenues have not increased noticeably more than under other tenure regimes, including those that allow many unauthorized settlements, and there is no significant evidence of poverty levels being reduced. Titling does provide increased tenure security — but many alternative forms of tenure, including those in many informal settlements, also provide high levels of security. In addition, in many nations, land titles do not necessarily protect people from eviction and expropriation of their land. Land titling often fails to increase access to credit, and low-income households who obtain titles are often as reluctant to take loans as banks are to lend to them. Titling also does not necessarily improve infrastructure and services provision, while many settlements have obtained improved provision without titles.

No abstract

This paper reassesses the treatment of religion in development studies thirty years after the publication of a special issue of World Development on 'Religion and Development'. Given the changes in the social and political context, consideration of the subject of religion can no longer be avoided. The paper identifies two implications of this for development studies. First, the assumptions of secularization and secularism that supposedly define the relationships between religion, society and politics have to be revisited. Second, development studies must recognize that religion is a dynamic and heterogeneous social category. Both development studies and religion are concerned with the meaning of 'progress' or a 'better life'. Therefore, attention has to be given to social and historical processes of meaning creation. This has the methodological implication of a shift from positivist to interpretivist research methods. The paper concludes by looking at how consideration of religion is transforming development studies.

No abstract

No abstract