1. The Continuum of Land Rights Approach Different forms of Land Rights
Samuel Mabikke, PhD
GLTN/UN-Habitat
Partnership For Action Conference: Improving Land Governance And Management In Africa
Pretoria - South Africa, August, 2017

2. TENURE SECURITY for ALL -
A Global Challenge!!
Finding ways of Recognising, Recording and Administering a variety of appropriate and legitimate land tenure forms to achieve security of tenure for all

3. Fundamental Questions …we need to ask ourselves !!
What is security of land tenure?
Why is achieving security of tenure for everyone important?
How can we develop appropriate concepts, tools and Approaches to help us understand and act to achieve this?

5. security of tenure
“Security of tenure is the right of all individuals and groups to effective protection against evictions.”
“Security of tenure can be defined as an agreement or understanding between an individual or group to land and residential property, which is governed and regulated by a legal and administrative framework.”
Source: HABITAT III, Issue Paper 9

6. WHY IS TENURE SECURITY IMPORTANT?
Increased tenure security can:
Help overcome land, housing and livelihood inequalities
Promote equity, inclusion and the realisation of human rights
Promote food security, entrepreneurship and sustainable development
Facilitate provision of essential facilities, services and quality of life
Reduce physical insecurity and conflict
Reduce forced eviction, corruption, ‘land grabbing’
Overcome wide-spread discrimination against women
Create options for youth

7. RECOGNISING The challenge, 1991
“Notwithstanding the type of tenure, all persons should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats. States parties should consequently take immediate measures aimed at conferring legal security of tenure upon those persons and households currently lacking such protection, in genuine consultation with affected persons and groups.”
General Comment 4, UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1991

8. A response, habitat II
“Access to land and legal security of tenure are strategic prerequisites for the provision of adequate shelter for all and for the development of sustainable human settlements affecting both urban and rural areas. It is also one way of breaking the vicious circle of poverty.”
“While recognizing the existence of different national laws and/or systems of land tenure, Governments at the appropriate levels, including local authorities, should nevertheless strive to remove all possible obstacles that may hamper equitable access to land and ensure that equal rights of women and men related to land and property are protected under the law.”
Habitat Agenda, Habitat II, 1996

9. The situation today
Accelerated urbanisation & growth of informal settlements and slums
Powerful economic forces pushing towards individualisaion and commodification of land and housing rights
Many situations of land conflict, dispossessions, grabbing, eviction
Conventional land administration policies & systems unable to cope
Large-scale individual land titling programmes mostly unsuccessful
An overall trend of growing tenure insecurity, at the expense of poor and vulnerable individuals, groups, communities

10. falling off the register
70% of developing country populations fall outside any land register
In Sub-Saharan Africa: more than 60% of urban dwellers live in informality, and poverty
Conventional land administration is too expensive, and where in place is often not working
Problems of sustainability and inability to implement at scale
Inadequate recognition of communal, secondary, group rights, etc.
Need to develop an affordable, inclusive, scalable approaches

11. IMPROVING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF TENURE
Tenure is frequently understood in binary terms: - formal vs informal,
- legal vs extra-legal,
- secure vs insecure,
- de facto vs de jure
In practice a diversity of appropriate, legitimate tenure arrangements exists between these extremities
There is no automatic correlation between the form of tenure and its security
The extent of the actual security depends on many factors, including historical, social, regulatory, institutional and governance

12. SO WHAT IS THE continuum?
The continuum of land rights is not a theory, it is rather a powerful concept, or metaphor, for understanding this rich land tenure diversity
Rights to land are regarded as lying on a continuum between informal and formal
In between these lie a wide and complex spectrum of rights

13. An inclusive understanding of tenure
Tenure can take a variety of forms along this continuum … documented as well as undocumented, formal as well as informal, for individuals as well as groups, including pastoralists, and residents of slums and other settlements, which may be legal or extra-legal …
The rights do not lie on a single line, and they may overlap
Registered freehold should not be seen as the preferred or ultimate form – it is one of a number of appropriate and legitimate forms (customary, leasehold, group tenure, others)
The most appropriate form depends on context
(See: Handling Land, GLTN 2012)

14. A POWERFUL ALTERNATIVE APPROACH
The continuum offers a powerful and practical alternative approach to the dominant focus on titling of individually held private property as the ultimate form of tenure security, or the end goal of land tenure reforms
It recognises that there are a number of tenure forms that are appropriate, robust, effective, legitimate – it builds on what is there
It promotes increase of security across the continuum, with opportunity for movement between tenure forms
The Continuum of Land Rights is now widely accepted, as part of a global shift in understanding of land tenure

15. GROWING ACCEPTANCE WORLDWIDE
The continuum concept and approach are increasingly visible in key resolutions, statements, tools, programmes, law and practice. Examples include:
Land Policy Initiative Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa (2010)
UN-Habitat Governing Council Resolution, April 2011 (GC 23/17)
Land Governance Assessment Framework, or LGAF (WB and others)
Namibian Flexible Land Tenure Act, 2012
Voluntary Guidelines (FAO and others – governance of all forms of legitimate tenure)
Social Tenure Domain Model concept and tool (GLTN partners)
Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration approach (FIG, WB, others)

16. HABITAT III The New Urban Agenda…
“We commit ourselves to promoting, at the appropriate level of government, including sub-national and local government, increased security of tenure for all, recognizing the plurality of tenure types, and to develop fit-for-purpose, and age-, gender-, and environment-responsive solutions within the continuum of land and property rights, with particular attention to security of land tenure for women as key to their empowerment, including through effective administrative systems.”
New Urban Agenda,§35
Habitat III, 2016

17. Key ingredients for implementation
A continuum of land rights can be said to have been implemented in a particular country situation once:
the full spectrum of formal, informal and customary rights are catered for within the land information management system; and
the range of rights in the country constitutes legally enforceable claims which can be asserted and defended in a forum such as a court

18. The continuum in practice
Research in Malawi, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique and South Africa found evidence of a diversity of deep-rooted and emerging practices and systems already in place, including:
Witnessed right to land
Locally documented right to land - social legitimacy
Familial / Marital right to land
Administratively documented right to land – official recognition
Occupation rights / permission to occupy
Customary land right
Group rights to land
De facto rights of possession
Forms of leasehold
Individual private ownership / freehold

19. THE CONTINUUM IN SUMMARY
The continuum of land rights offers a potential pathway to tenure security, through
Recognising, recording and administering a variety of appropriate and legitimate land tenure forms
From an operational perspective, a continuum of land rights can be said to exist
“When the full spectrum of formal, informal and customary rights are catered for within a land information management system” and “When a range of rights in a country constitutes legally enforceable claims which can be asserted and defended in a forum such as a court”
Success will depend on contextual challenges and opportunities.
A well supported, sustained, locally driven strategy involving multiple partnerships and innovative land tools is essential

20. UN-Habitat, P.O Box 30030, Nairobi 00100, Kenya
THANK YOU
GLTN Secretariat
UN-Habitat, P.O Box 30030, Nairobi 00100, Kenya