The Benefits of Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration for Urban Community Resilience in a Time of Climate Change and COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The major global pressures of rapid urbanization and urban growth are being compounded by climate impacts, resulting in increased vulnerability for urban dwellers, with these vulnerabilities exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of this is concentrated in urban and peri-urban areas where urban development spreads into hazard-prone areas. Often, this development is dominated by poor-quality homes in informal settlements or slums with poor tenure security. Lessons from a resilience-building project in the Pacific shows that a fit-for-purpose (FFP) approach to land administration can provide solutions by increasing the number of households with security of tenure, and consequently, improving resilience outcomes as informal settlements grow. This paper specifically discusses the influence of FFP land administration on reducing vulnerabilities to external shocks, such as climate change and COVID-19. It proposes ways to be better manage urban growth through the responsible governance of land tenure rights and more effective land-use planning to improve resilience to multiple shocks and stresses, hence, delivering improved access to safe land and shelter. Land administration systems can contribute to enhanced resilience to the shocks of climate extremes and pandemics by improving tenure security and enhancing land-use planning controls. It is argued that climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction need to be better mainstreamed into two major elements of land governance: (i) securing and safeguarding of land rights, and (ii) planning and control of land use.

Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration—Providing Secure Land Rights at Scale

“…Mitchell et al [17] investigate the interlinkages between land tenure, climate vulnerability, and pandemics. Through research in Honiara, Solomon Islands, they consider how improving tenure security at scale through FFPLA can enhance climate resilience to mitigate vulnerability to both climate and pandemic impacts.…”

Sustainability in Peri-Urban Informal Settlements: A Review

“…Settlement location and patterns are driven by the possibility of accessing resources. Informal settlements occur in diverse settings and purposes: along open coastal areas, river flood areas, or hill slopes [55], or to avoid or face natural hazards and risks [83,92]. They are also driven by opportunities and the possibility of improving the satisfaction of basic services, and thus can develop along roads, railways directed to the hinterland [4], and other infrastructure for water and power access (ex.…”

“…Farms are fragmented for housing or commercial use [66,82,119]. Inequality widens because on one side, land is acquired at low prices, with inadequate compensation in case of expropriation or off-registered transactions [55,72,77], and on the other side, value is captured and rapid wealth is accumulated in the hands of a few landowners and land developers through capitalization [86,90]. Compounding the forces driving inequality, property may be lost to settle debts [57] and land is grabbed, sometimes through formalization for domestic and foreign investment, where disproportionate advantages go to local elites and powerful people as well as to landowner villagers [73,121,148].…”

New Directions in Land Reform: An Editorial Overview

“…Such institutions include the GLTN and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and are active in both urban and rural situations. The legislative change that land reform requires can be a highly complex, political, and slow process, with uncertain outcomes; more local approaches are needed, rather than centrally directed and top-down national approaches [84]. Land reform researchers have responsibility for faster communication of new knowledge, management, and exchange, for instance, through open-access academic publishing, and strategies of learning and adaptation across the Global South and North [85,86].…”