Hosaena Ghebru - Drivers of tenure insecurity and the customary tenure system in Africa

Drivers of tenure insecurity and the customary tenure

system in Africa: Empirical evidence from selected African

countries

Hosaena Ghebru (PhD) International Food Policy Research Institute - IFPRI

Strengthening Institutions and Governance - SIG Workshop

November 9 - 10, 2015 Washington DC, USA

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INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

The three (neo-classical) rationale for

land rights reform/formalization• Tenure security

• Enhance investment

• Transferability

• Gains from trade

• Reallocate land to more efficient users

• Credit access

• Land as collateral

How important are each of these and are they always achievable?


Introduction: Doing nothing no longer an option!

• New land reforms high on the development agenda:

• (High Level) Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor - LPI

• USAID, The World Bank, DFID (scaled up financing of land reform projects)

• Land governance – integral component of the G-8 alliance for food security

• MDGs/SDGs: Rights based approaches


Mixed stories: some failed reforms

• Land titling in Kenya and Madagascar

• Have not enhanced tenure security, promoted investment,

land and credit markets (e.g. Place and Migot-Adholla

1998, Jacoby and Minten 2006,2008)

• Sucessful reforms:

• Ethiopia: Low-cost land registration and certification

• Rwanda: Systematic Land Titling

• Recent innovative initiatives of protecting land rights:

• Community land delimitation initiative – Mozambique

• Customary land secretariat – Ghana



Tanzania

Burkina-

Faso

Ethiopia



Case study countries

• Nigeria (2013 LSMS data – 5000 hhs)

• Ethiopia (2013 AGP data – 7500 hhs)

• Mozambique (2014/15 TIA data – 6000 hhs)

• Ghana (just starting)


Data characterization: Factors associated with tenure

insecurity


Data characterization: Gender-differentiated aspect


MOZAMBIQUE…


Regression results: Determinants of demand for DUAT

Unconditional

DD

Conditional

DD (only if

affordable)


Regression results: Determinants of demand for DUAT


Nigeria…




ETHIOPIA …


Regression Result: Demand for SLLC- Logistic model (ME)

Explanatory Variables Model - 1 Model - 2 Model - 3

Perceived risk of Gov't expropriation (1=yes) -0.011 -0.014 0.002

Perceived risk of private dispute (1=yes) 0.047* 0.052* 0.062**

Village level – % of hhs with iron roof housing 0.067*** 0.078*** 0.067***

Village level - av. # of years since parcel acquisition

via PA allocation -0.002** -0.002**

Interaction term (Rented out * Gender) -0.131** -0.119 -0.064

Boarder dispute experience (1=yes) 0.069*** 0.066***

Protect against encroachment (1=yes) 0.153*** 0.150***

Land predominantly acquired via inheritance -0.043* -0.041*

Tigray region 0.113*

Amahara region 0.041

SNNP region -0.124***


THM!

• Generally, “doing nothing no longer an option” as perceived tenure security risk arefairly high

• Recent wave of emphasis on land titling as a reform agenda should avoid a one-size-fits-all approach and, hence, should be considered as viable option only in areaswith high economic potential and dispute prone areas

• Under certain circumstances where titling is considered as appropriate and viableoption, diagnostic processes should still be given proper prioritization as todetermine the level at which titling reforms be implemented (such as at community,household, individual and/or parcel based titling). Such diagnostic processes couldbe crucial steps in the process of getting “the recent wave land reforms” right.

• Preliminary results also show the need for gender, age and parcel disaggregatedanalyses as tenure risk and demand for formalization are hugely associated withindividual as well as parcel-specific properties


Thank You!

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Hosaena Ghebru - Drivers of tenure insecurity and the customary tenure system in Africa

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