Land tenure
Learning note (draft)
Print this pageThis draft Note relates to KSF3: Alignment of design features with
IFAD Strategic Objectives and lessons learnt; analysis and results framework
Version: January 2008
Core issues
Ensuring secure access to land and other natural resources is often central to improving rural livelihoods and reducing poverty. Both the rules of land tenure and the system of access rights can be critical.
- Land rights and rules of access determine who benefits, and how benefits are shared, from land-based developments such as changes to more sustainable farming systems, improved irrigation or community-based natural resource management (CBNRM).
- Landlessness or precarious land access are often at the root of chronic poverty, social exclusion and food insecurity.
- Women can be doubly disadvantaged because land inheritance practices as well as norms and procedures for formalizing land rights often discriminate against them.
- Weak and unprotected land rights can undermine incentives for longer term investments by land users in sustainable land and natural resource management.
- Unclear or conflicting systems (e.g. customary versus statutory land rights) often culminate in the loss of land rights for the poorest and most vulnerable.
- Because land ownership and political power are often closely connected, those with limited land rights may be less able to influence community decisions on land allocation and use – e.g. to spend community funds to introduce pro-poor CBNRM.
- Where land rights are insecure, project interventions that raise the value of land can deprive IFAD’s target groups of their land rights through encouraging land grabbing by the more powerful.
Rules and norms governing land tenure can be administered by statutory (formal) and customary (informal) organisations. Neither is per se superior; the social context is what matters. Any pro-poor tenure system must be:
- Inclusive: no member of the community should be excluded from land access if this is necessary to sustain her or his livelihood.
- Secure: tenure is protected against violation from more powerful actors and land can be occupied for long enough to allow the rural poor to reap the benefits of their land-based investments.
Systems for rights of access to land are complex and context specific. Some rights of access are strong – e.g. the right to exclude others from the land. Others are weaker and often confined to certain uses or periods of time – e.g. access to stubble grazing, or pastoralists’ access to watering points during the dry season. Access rights are not always visible and may overlap: some may be vested in the community, some in an individual and yet others in the state.
In handling core issues of land tenure and access project designers should:
- Take into account the complexity and context-specificity of land rights.
- Reflect the political nature of land rights in implementation arrangements.
- Consider gender differences in access to land and security of rights.
- Establish and/or strengthen grass roots bodies such as CBNRM groups. Ensure that these are recognised as entities which give the rural poor a voice in determining rights to natural resources. Ensure that IFAD’s target beneficiaries are actively involved in groups and able to influence their decisions.
- Generally, build on and foster the progressive evolution of traditional land tenure systems (giving due weight to the core issues above) instead of establishing new systems right away.
- Take into account that involvement in land rights is a long term process, so ensure that implementation agencies are designed to sustain project impacts.
Key tasks for design and review
A land tenure assessment should be an integral part of project inception / formulation. Key questions are:
- Would the current land tenure situation seriously hinder project implementation or undermine incentives for IFAD target groups to participate in project activities?
- What are the likely distributional impacts – intended or unintended – of project activities on target groups and other members of the rural society?
The assessment should take into account potential influences of land tenure arrangements on livelihoods at household level (considering impacts on women, men, youth and the elderly), within communities (e.g. for different ethnic groups, sharecroppers and landlords), and between the community and outsiders (e.g. threatening of indigenous people’s land rights by mining companies).
The land tenure assessment should be based on:
- A participatory poverty analysis that identifies for the intended project area the key elements of the land tenure system, including i.) types of land rights and their core features in terms of security, duration and inclusiveness , ii) main features of the land administration system (de facto and de jure), iii) interrelationships between land tenure and livelihood strategies.
- An analysis of current land policy, including the legal framework and recent policy initiatives.
Phasing of project components: If the land tenure assessment reveals serious land issues projects may need to include facilitation or more specific measures to resolve the most pressing land issues, before implementation of major investment components such as irrigation infrastructure or community resource development funds can begin.
Measures to address the identified land issues should ensure that:
- Weaker and / or temporary rights are acknowledged in favour of the target groups.
- Efforts to enhance women’s land rights go beyond formal prerequisites (e.g. participation in CBNRM groups) and include complementary measures to empower women to directly influence decisions regarding their access to land.
Design of implementation arrangements should take full account of political sensitivities. Teams should:
- Choose implementation partners that have a proven track record and/or are strong enough to carry out these highly political tasks.
- Investigate whether and how alliances can be built with Civil Society Organizations to create the critical mass necessary to implement pro-poor land policies and sustain project results after implementation.
- Strengthen the ability of the rural poor to enhance and secure their land rights.
email this article
