Legal empowerment of the poor through property rights reform: Tensions and trade-offs of land registration and titling in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Land registration and titling in Africa is often advocated as a pro-poor legal empowerment strategy. Advocates have put forth different visions of the substantive goals this is to achieve. Some see registration and titling as a way to protect smallholders' rights of access to land. Others frame land registration as part of community-protection or ethno-justice agendas. Still others see legal empowerment in the market-enhancing commodification of property rights. This paper contrasts these different visions, showing that each entails tensions and trade-offs. The analysis helps explain why land law reforms aiming at legal empowerment may be controversial or divisive in African countries.

Needs and Satisfiers: A Tool for Dealing with Perspectivity in Policy Analysis

“…When looking at relevant literatures, I came across an additional institution that is also an important potential satisfier in Africa: land-tenure regimes (LTRs), which are institutions that regulate access to land. In my discussion of LTRs, I refer to the contributions of Catherine Boone (2012Boone ( , 2014Boone ( , 2019 in order to highlight how African LTRs differ from Western arrangements, as well as to demonstrate the relevance of subnational variations in LTRs.…”

“…In this view, formalizing land rights weakens rural landholders in the face of large investors. For their only 'weapon' then becomes having recourse to the courts-an arena in which companies are much more resourceful, being able to recruit the best lawyers, while poor landholders lack time and knowledge of law (Boone 2019;Igoe 2006).…”

Making Secure Land Tenure Count for Global Development Goals and National Policy: Evidence from Zambia

“…If land was suitable for agriculture, colonial rulers mostly organized African smallholders in officially recognized 'tribes' -in some cases confined to certain areas set aside for 'native' cultivation. Governance was often via indirect rule by traditional authority via recognized chiefs or headmen who were endowed with discretionary powers to allocate land and resolve conflict (Boone 2017). After independence, many policies continued unchanged.…”

Implementing Forest Tenure Reforms: Perspectives From Indonesia’s Forestry Agencies

“…community participation (Djamhuri, 2008;Kusumanto & Sirait, 2012;Suharti, 2001); community livelihood (Barr et al, 2006;Maryudi et al, 2012); social capital in supporting community forestry (Lee, Rianti, & Park, 2017;Wulandari & Inoue, 2018); and sustainable forest management (Mendoza, 2000;Purnomo, Mendoza, & Prabhu, 2005;Santika et al, 2017;Tiani & Charancle, 2007). At the global level a number of studies indicating forest tenure reforms play a critical role in resource management, as evidenced by for example, granting of forest rights in Nepal (Devkota & Mustalahti, 2018;Fox, 2018;Maharjan, 2005), implementing land formalization policy in Africa (Boone, 2019) and in Malagasy (Boué & Colin, 2018); provision of certificate of ownership in Mexico (De Janvry, Emerick, Gonzalez-Navarro, & Sadoulet, 1993;Sellars & Alix-Garcia, 2018). Similarly, household land distribution in China is convincing as an effective forest and land resource management (Tan, Wang, & Heerink, 2018;Zinda & Zhang, 2018).…”