What's in a title?

Linking land titling and peri-urban poverty alleviation

The linkages between land titling and third world development are receiving more attention from development researchers since the launch of the United Nations Global Campaign for Secure Tenure in 1999 and the publication of de Soto's ‘The Mystery of Capital’.

A multi-disciplinary team of researchers lead by the Law School of Anglia Polytechnic University, UK, have explored land titling and poverty alleviation among peri-urban settlements in three countries of Africa and the Caribbean. Field researchers in the peri-urban areas of Gaborone, Port-of-Spain and Kitwe interviewed poor households on plots with unclear titles.

All three countries researched had forms of intermediate land title, but few of the plot-holders were interested in obtaining documented title deeds, because of the costly and complex procedures involved. They felt secure enough and were overwhelmingly reluctant to pledge title deeds with the bank in case they lost their land. ‘This land is my life; it has made me,’ said one of them. Land and rental housing markets thrive in spite of, and even because of, the lack of legally recognised title, and attempts to enforce against unauthorised structures have been unpopular and unsuccessful. The implications for government are to undertake a cost benefit comparison between intermediate and full land titling, and for local, community-based land record-keeping.

In Trinidad, new legislation in 1998 led to a programme of tenure regularisation on state lands, affecting some 20000 households. While so-called ‘certificates of comfort’ were issued (which offered a guarantee against households being summarily forced to leave plots awaiting full tenure regularisation), the subsequent progress towards individual plot regularisation has been slow because of bureaucratic processes and costs. Households have generally supported the programme, especially where they can see tangible infrastructure improvements as a result, but the election of a new government has resulted in a scaling down of the programme.

The rapid growth of ‘self-allocated’ plots on tribal land in Botswana led to a ‘zero tolerance’ policy by the Government, which has recently been challenged successfully in the courts. Trained land surveyors in the tribal land boards are improving standards of site surveying and record-keeping, but informal building plans, or layouts, of thousands of self-allocated plots often cannot be reconciled with the official layouts prepared by planners, creating problems for subsequent infrastructure provision and title regularisation.

In Zambia, planned layouts have been prepared by the city council and procedures exist for upgrading tenure to a long lease, linked to phased building of modern structures. However, the collapse of the local mining economy has meant that few households have upgraded, preferring to build cheaper structures for rent and remove themselves to extra-legal areas. In both African cases, property transfer and inheritance has been made increasingly problematic with the impact of HIV/AIDS upon families and social structures.

Governments should evaluate:

• the cost-effectiveness of intermediate land titling programmes
• whether ‘zero tolerance’ policies towards illegal settlements represent best value principles
• compatibility of such policies with UN-Habitat’s secure tenure campaign
• the potential of local community capacity-building in tenure security and infrastructure upgrading programmes.

Robert Home
Anglia Law School
Anglia Polytechnic University
Chelmsford
Essex
UK

T +44 (0)1245 493131 ext 3349

r.home@apu.ac.uk

See also

‘Land Titling and peri-urban development in Africa and the Caribbean’, by R. Home and H. Lim (eds.), Cavendish Publishing, (forthcoming early 2004)

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