CADASTRAL REFORM FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE AND POVERTY
ALLEVIATION
by Clarissa Fourie,
Department of Geomatics, University of Cape Town, South Africa
clarissa.fourie@paulaugustinus.com
Paper presented at Federation of International Surveyors Congress XXII,
19th-26th April, 2002, Washington, USA.
ABSTRACT
Increasingly developing world governments are being re-structured to
improve governance and to alleviate poverty, and this also applies to
government departments associated with the registration and cadastral
systems. The link between cadastral reform, good governance and poverty
alleviation will be explored by reviewing some of the recent thinking
in this area, and by drawing on experience with these issues in a number
of countries, such as South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique and Uganda.
Issues that will be addressed include, what is the link between poverty
and land, and poverty alleviation and land management/administration?
In regard to this, the poverty analysis approach of sustainable livelihoods
will be explored, as a useful way of evaluating a land management/administration
system's contribution to poverty alleviation.
INTRODUCTION
Consultants involved in cadastral reform, especially those working in
Sub Saharan Africa, and other developing countries, need to be aware
of other programmes operating within countries, in order to ensure that
the cadastral reform being undertaken is funded by donors (bilateral
and multilateral) and that their work is considered relevant. There
are a range of programmes that have already affected, or will affect,
the lands department of a country in one way or another, namely structural
adjustment programmes, Comprehensive Development Frameworks (CDFs),
Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSPs), National Strategies for Sustainable
Development (NSSDs), Sector-Wide Approaches (SWAPs), Medium Term Expenditure
Frameworks (MTEFs), institutional decentralisation, and human rights
policies (Farrington: 2001; African Development Bank:2002). This paper
will focus only on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSPs) approach,
which emphasizes poverty alleviation, or poverty eradication, as it
is also known. For the purposes of this paper good governance will be
treated as a part of poverty alleviation.
Given the financial position of many Sub Saharan African governments
(and other governments in the developing world), funding and/or loans
from donors form a critical part of government budgets. Many countries'
lands departments are using this funding, or have had funding, to build
capacity and to undertake land administration. This funding is generally
tied to donor covenants, and some of the key covenants are often about
poverty alleviation and good governance. There is a major focus by donors
on poverty alleviation, as international donors have accepted the challenge
of halving poverty on the planet by 2015.
To obtain increased funding and to fulfil these covenants, the lands
department needs to be able to explain how, and why, their products
assist poverty alleviation and good governance. If they do not presently
address poverty/governance issues, the lands department, to grow and
obtain funds, needs to adapt their products and/or market new products.
To do this, a better understanding of poverty alleviation and good governance
is required, and how it is linked to land administration. The purpose
of this paper is to make an initial start to explore these linkages.
It is not possible to make these linkages robustly by focusing only
on the land administration system. Rather both the land management and
land administration systems have to simultaneously be linked to be able
to make it possible to relate them to poverty alleviation and governance.
Based on work in progress (Fourie, van der Molen and Groot :N.D), land
management and land administration have to be linked for the purposes
of this analysis because 1/ conventional land administration definitions
are too narrowly focused 2/ most developing countries have large scale
informal settlement 3/in the developing world often land management
and land administration cannot be analysed in a hierarchical fashion,
or in fact separated. Instead they have to be treated as equals (Barry
and Fourie: 2002). For these reasons, the term land management/administration
will be used throughout the paper.
Finally, the paper focuses on attempting to identify the links between
poverty alleviation/good governance and land management/administration.
It does this by trying to identify and unpack a number of themes such
as, what is the link between poverty and land, and between poverty alleviation
and land management/administration? Given the range of definitions of
poverty, which ones are more useful in the land management/administration
field? In regard to this, the concept of sustainable livelihoods will
be explored, as a useful way of evaluating a land management/administration
system's contribution to poverty alleviation. Also, within a poverty
framework, good governance will be explored in terms of the institutional
frameworks associated with land management/administration systems. This
analysis will be done using Uganda, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa
and other countries as a backdrop.
WHAT IS THE LINK BETWEEN POVERTY AND LAND?
Poverty linked to unequal distribution of land
While it is almost impossible to get accurate global figures of land
distribution, it can be generally stated that throughout the developing
world, both in rural and urban areas, there is an unequal distribution
of land across the population. The United Nations Development Programme
in its Poverty Report of 2000 states that pro-poor policies have had
limited impact because of the failure of governments to "..squarely
address the sources of inequality -such as unequal distribution of land,
the most important asset of the rural poor in many low-income developing
countries." (UNDP: 2000:2). Along the same lines, the World Bank
states that "(i)n many countries in the developing world where
land continues to be one of the main assets, the poor either lack..
access to, or ownership of, land, or have very insecure rights to the
land they cultivate. ..Theory, and an accumulating amount of empirical
evidence, suggests that, beyond the immediate impact on lower levels
of income and welfare, such lack of asset ownership.." has a range
of other long term consequences for the poor. (World Bank: 2001:2-3).
From a more detailed point of view, a number of micro level studies
were done in Bangladesh, related to poverty alleviation, empowerment
and human well being. A wide range of factors contributing to poverty
were assessed. It was found that there is a clear link between landlessness,
insecure tenure and poverty. The researchers found that "land was
found to be positively correlated with literacy..," as well as
the food security of households (BRAC: 2002). They also found that a
major cause leading to poverty related to alterations in land redistribution,
linked to higher population growth and the scarcity of land (BRAC: 2002).
This study clearly indicates the role that land plays in poverty, and
how central it must therefore be to poverty alleviation strategies.
Definition of poverty
To be able to evaluate the success of poverty alleviation programmes,
in relation to land, or anything else, first requires a definition of
poverty. As poverty is multi-dimensional there are numerous ways of
defining it namely, firstly as income or consumption
poverty. Poverty has most commonly been assessed against income
or consumption criteria. A person is poor only if his/her income level
is below the defined poverty line, or if consumption falls below a stipulated
minimum (Farrington, Carney, Ashley and Turton: 1999:1). One commonly
used income poverty definition is subsistence on USD1 per day or less
(United Nations Development Programme: 2002:1). Placing this in the
context of land, as indicated in the Bangladesh example, there is a
direct correlation between poverty, food security (consumption) and
landlessness (BRAC: 2002).
Secondly, inequity. Poverty refers to deprivation
(i.e. income, basic needs, human capabilities), whereas inequity refers
to distribution within a population group. Analysis of poverty often
employs indicators of inequity to demonstrate poverty (Lok-Dessallien:2002:5).
A common example of inequity in regard to the cadastral system is that
99 percent of parcels in sub Saharan Africa have not been surveyed (UNCHS:1990:4)
and the remaining 1 percent is generally in the hands of the elites.
Thirdly, human (under)development. Poverty
is often viewed as a form of underdevelopment. Underdevelopment can
refer to all groups in each community (in a uniformly poor country)
or could refer to the poor and the deprived in each community (pockets
of poor) (Lok-Dessallien:2002:6). Placing this in the context of land,
access to land and tenure security are necessary conditions for human
development (UNCHS;1996). If the majority of a country's citizens do
not have access to land then there is large scale underdevelopment in
that country.
Fourthly, denial of human rights. Good
health, adequate nutrition, literacy, employment is the human right
of all people. This concept of human poverty also includes lack of political
freedom, inability to participate in decision-making, lack of personal
security, inability to participate in the life of a community and threats
to sustainability. Attributes of poverty are illiteracy, malnutrition
among children, early death, poor health care, and access to safe water
for the poor (United Nations Development Programme:2002:1-2). Here land
would be necessary to enhance people's human rights by, for example,
contributing to nutrition levels and giving people an asset from which
they might obtain employment, such as subsistence farming etc. Also
having land tenure/shelter security would improve the personal security
of the poor.
A fifth poverty definition is social exclusion.
This includes a range of factors such as material deprivation, and deprivation
from participation, empowerment and social rights (Lok-Dessallien:2002:6).
An example of this are residents of informal settlements, who are outside
of the formal land tenure system and suffer material deprivation, as
well as a deprivation of their social rights as citizens of the city
(Fernandes and Varley:1998). Sixthly, vulnerability.
Some groups may be at risk of becoming poor because of inherent vulnerabilities.
Vulnerability is a function of external risks, shocks, stresses and
internal defencelessness (Lok-Dessallien:2002:2). As indicated in the
Bangladesh example, loss of land leads to poverty for vulnerable groups
(BRAC:2002).
Seventhly, lack of basic needs. People
are poor because they lack income, food, clothing and shelter (Lok-Dessallien:2002:4).
A land related example here is that without land there can be no provision
of shelter. Eighthly, relative or absolute poverty.
"Absolute poverty refers to subsistence below minimum, socially
acceptable living conditions, usually established based on nutritional
requirements and other essential goods. Relative poverty compares the
lowest segments of a population with upper segments, usually measured
in quintiles or deciles." (Lok-Dessallien:2002:2). An example of
this comes from Bangladesh where it was found that among the ultra poor,
where they owned land, "..the average landholding was only 5.6
decimals.." (BRAC:2002).
Ninethly, lack of social and institutional capital,
such as accountable institutions, mechanisms to enforce laws (World
Bank:2001). The formal institutions of land administration in many countries
only cover about 10-30 percent of the population. The poor generally
lack formal land administration systems and law protecting their land
rights. This definition covers both poverty and governance. Finally,
livelihood unsustainability (see below).
As has been indicated, land is an important factor whichever way poverty
is defined. Often Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) outlining
poverty in a country will use a number of these definitions simultaneously
to undertake an analysis of poverty and to design poverty alleviation
programmes. All these definitions of poverty can be used with differing
degrees of usefulness to obtain a better understanding of land management/administration
and poverty alleviation/governance. However, I intend to explore only
one of them in any detail, namely sustainable livelihoods, because it
shares a number of important epistemological characteristics with cadastral
reform analysis.
Definition of sustainable livelihoods
With respect to the background of the sustainable livelihoods concept,
"(t)he.. concept of sustainable livelihoods (SL) has emerged over
the last decade, with growing legitimization through several major international
fora. The Brundtland Commission in 1987 introduced SL in terms of resource
ownership and access, basic needs and livelihood security, especially
in rural areas. The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development,
in Agenda 21, noted the integrative power of the concept, which offers
a way of linking socio-economic and ecological policy considerations
in a cohesive policy-relevant structure.. The Social Summit linked SL
explicitly to full employment, and the Beijing platform re-emphasized
the importance of women's livelihoods for successful development."
(United Nations Development Programme:1999). The approach has also been
taken up by a number of donors such as DFID, British Aid. I will show
that this approach draws in the institutional/governance aspect as well.
According to Farrington, the sustainable livelihoods concept can be
defined in three ways. Firstly as a set of principles which "..specify
that development activities should be people-centred, differentiated
according to locally relevant criteria such as class and gender, multi-level
i.e. linking local perspectives into higher level processes of policy
design, conducted in partnership between public and private sectors,
and sustainable." (2001:2). Secondly, it can be defined as an analytical
framework which draws "..in conventional types of analyses (economic,
social, institutional etc.) to identify how poor people's options and
constraints can best be understood." Thirdly, it can be defined
as a development objective intended to "..enhance the overall level
and sustainability of livelihoods." (Farrington:2001:2).
To contextualise this, "(t)he assumption is that people pursue
a range of livelihood outcomes.. by drawing on a range of assets to
pursue a variety of activities. The activities they adopt and the way
they reinvest in asset-building are driven in part by their own ..priorities,
(and) ..are .. influenced by.. vulnerability, ..overall trends.. and
seasonal variations. Options are also determined by the structures (such
as the roles of government..) and processes (such as institutional,
policy and cultural factors) which people face.." The assets referred
to here include financial, human, natural, physical and social, including
institutional, capital. "These constitute livelihood building blocks."
(Farrington, Carney, Ashley and Turton:1999:2-3). This approach to poverty
also draws in the institutional, and therefore governance, aspects.
Sustainable livelihoods analysis, by comparison to all the other poverty
definitions above, contains all three of the most critical factors needed
to be able to undertake a comparative analysis with cadastral reform.
Central analytical criteria for comparisons with cadastral reform analysis
are 1/physical scale (macro country level and micro parcel level), 2/multi-sectoral
(e.g. includes forestry, human settlement, agricultural reform, water
management, tax, etc.), and 3/time scale (longevity, over time, sustainable).
Firstly, the sustainable livelihoods approach takes into account both
the macro country level policy and what happens at the micro level on
the ground. The cadastral system is normally a national, or at least
provincial, level system, but it is implemented at the micro level parcel
by parcel. That is, this definition suits the physical scales of cadastral
reform analysis.
Secondly, sustainable livelihood analysis involves multiple sectors
(Farrington:2001:2). It cannot be done rigorously through one discipline
or sector. Any analysis for cadastral reform purposes needs to be undertaken
by a range of disciplines (e.g. land surveyors, land lawyers, social
scientists, computer/GIS specialists, educationists, etc.). Also, cadastral
reform generally ends up as multi-sectoral in donor programmes in that
it forms part of different sectors, or components, of programmes, such
as Mozambique's agricultural reform programme PROAGRI (Government of
Mozambique:1997).
Thirdly, the sustainable livelihoods approach places great emphasis
on interventions which promote sustainability (Farrington:2001) and
not just snap shot interventions. Conventionally cadastral systems are
designed for use over long time periods by generations of people, and
any cadastral reform must take this into account.
Finally, it is the intention of this paper to undertake an initial exploration
of what the impact would be if cadastral reform was undertaken using
sustainable livelihoods analysis as one of the analytical tools. It
would require undertaking a people-centred analysis of the cadastral
system and proposed reforms, which would "..identify how poor people's
options and constraints.." (Farrington:2001:2) were affected by
any cadastral reform initiative. Such an approach could help "..to
identify how to empower the poor to break existing cycles of impoverishment,
by strengthening their access to capital assets, and by working at policy
and institutional levels to strengthen the capacity of the public sector,
..(and).. local government..to design.." (Farrington, Carney, Ashley
and Turton:1999:5) more appropriate land management/administration programmes.
WHAT IS THE LINK BETWEEN POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND LAND MANAGEMENT/ADMINISTRATION?
Poverty, land registration and tenure security
As I have argued in an earlier paper, in the developing world the poor
cannot afford to use land registration systems. However, I have also
argued that, while the majority of people, and especially the poor,
cannot afford present land registration systems, the cadastral system
and spatial information systems need to be adapted to give the poor
both tenure security and access to spatial information (Fourie:2001).
An appropriate Spatial Data Infrastructure, which accommodates both
cadastral and non cadastral parcels, and supplies new forms of evidence
for tenure security, should be created. This would fit together with
the tenure security continuum advocated by Payne, who argues that "..every
step along the continuum from complete illegality to formal tenure and
property rights (i)s a move in the right direction, .. (and should)
..be made on an incremental basis." (1997:29,31).
To conclude, conventional approaches to land registration have often
been seen as having no place in poverty alleviation programmes because
of their cost and because the poor cannot afford them. I am arguing
that an adapted form of the system, linked to spatial information, must
play a major role in poverty alleviation. Sustainable livelihoods analysis
of cadastral reform approaches would contribute enormously to ensuring
that pro-poor adaptations were made in a robust fashion. Such an analysis
could also make a valuable contribution to a pro-poor evaluation of
present land registration systems and their linked land management/land
administration systems, to assess whether, and how, reform was required.
How land management/administration systems can destroy and/or strengthen
the sustainable livelihoods of the poor
Using the sustainable livelihoods approach it would be possible to establish
a rigorous link between poverty alleviation and land management/administration.
Such an investigation should focus on assessing the impact of cadastral
reform policies on the capital of the poor with respect to:-
•Land, their access to it and tenure security, within and outside
of the land registration and cadastral system;
•Their access to natural resources, within the framework of land
use planning and land use controls implemented through the cadastral
surveying system;
•Social capital, in terms of their de facto land tenure systems,
which supplies them with a safety net, family rights, land rights for
women etc. The fit between statutory law and customary/informal laws
and norms would have to be carefully assessed;
•Institutional capital. Often the poor are left outside of the
formal land management/administration system. "Access to institutional
and social capital, i.e. accountable institutions, mechanisms to enforce
existing laws,.. are increasingly recognized as being.. (as important
as).. physical, human and natural capital. The way in which land rights
are administered assumes critical importance in this respect."
(World Bank:2001: 5). That is, good governance in a land management/administration
system is also critical to poverty alleviation;
•Information capital, generally the poor have no access to information
about land and land use, and about technical procedures relating to
land. This in turn also limits good governance (e.g. transparency, accountability
of officials);
Using a sustainable livelihoods analysis makes it is possible to evaluate
how land management/administration systems can destroy and/or strengthen
the sustainable livelihoods of the poor. Drawing on Farrington, Carney,
Ashley and Turton's (1999:7) generic analytical framework, it should
be possible to :-
•Identify the main positive and negative impacts -including those
that are difficult to quantify;
•Assess how well interventions 'fit' with livelihoods and how they
can be modified to fit better;
•Establish under what conditions the poor find it difficult to
participate;
Using this framework, it is possible to identify some of the obvious
points of focus for an assessment of a land management/administration
system. Firstly, cadastral surveying is intimately linked to land registration,
and to the world of law in general. McAuslan argues that it is not good
enough to develop new laws through lawyers talking to, and influencing,
other lawyers, and/or developed world laws being imported into developing
world countries without being adapted. Instead he argues, in terms of
the school of thought termed Law and Development, that research should
be undertaken to assess the social impact of laws and that "..such
research could demonstrate the many ways in which legal processes can
be used to distort development goals, delay the implementation of development
programs and mask.. the maintenance of privilege behind the formal facade
of change and legally equality." (McAuslan: 1998 and McAuslan:
1998 quoting International Legal Center:1974).
That is, drawing on McAuslan, before cadastral reform is implemented
its social impact needs to be assessed, more especially as cadastral
reform often accompanies reform in the land registration/land rights
system in the developing world. An example of such a social impact assessment
was undertaken in Namibia, when land registration and cadastral reform
was under discussion (Fourie: 1998). This socio-legal research was undertaken
to assess to what extent it was possible to dovetail statutory law with
a variety of customary laws, by analysing existing human behaviour in
relation to boundaries, marriage, death, divorce, dispute resolution
and the maintenance of records etc. That is, an assessment was made
of the extent to which the intervention would 'fit' with local rules
and norms. The role of government at the local level and its interface
with the communities in the area of land registration was also assessed.
The study also included a general bias to keep the system affordable
for the poor, but no specific analysis was undertaken in terms of the
sustainable livelihoods approach.
A sustainable livelihoods approach would have gone beyond this people
centred and pro-poor social impact assessment by also:-
•Assessing "(h)ow poor peopleÕs options and constraints.."
(Farrington:2001:2) would be impacted by the design of the new land
registration and cadastral reform system;
•Evaluating how it would "..enhance the overall level and
sustainability of livelihoods." (Farrington:2001:2), and suggesting
alterations to policy and regulatory framework design, to improve the
fit between the cadastral reform intervention and sustainable livelihoods;
• Identifying whether it would have enhanced their asset base specifically;
•Keeping the focus on the poor. Because of the multiple stakeholders
involved in cadastral reform, the needs of the poor are often left out,
or downscaled;
•Assessing what poor users can pay, and are prepared to pay, for
land titling, the transfer of a registered right and/or spatial information;
•Undertaking a rigorous assessment of how far land registration
services have to be decentralised to be useful to the poor;
I am arguing that a sustainable livelihoods approach both includes,
and can go beyond, a social impact assessment used in regard to law,
land registration and cadastral reform, and that it fits well with the
Law and Development approach advocated by McAuslan (1998).
Secondly, a common problem found in the developing world, where there
is a centralised system of land registration and very little cadastral
coverage, is that when land is titled it is often found that the land
is already occupied, often by the poor. However, because the occupants
have no evidence of their rights held by the land registration system,
they lose their land rights, as well as their access to natural resources.
In this situation, if the country level land registration system had
been evaluated using a sustainable livelihoods approach, and especially
the adjudication and titling procedures, it would have been quickly
established that the livelihoods of the poor would be affected by the
technical procedures associated with titling. Mozambique had a serious
problem with their technical procedures undermining rural occupants'
livelihoods. Consequently they have changed their adjudication and technical
process and introduced an approach that enhances the livelihoods of
the occupants of the land, when land titles are allocated to outsiders
(Government of Mozambique:1997).
Finally, a sustainable livelihoods analysis could also make it clear
that an innovative cadastral and/or spatial information system is required
to enhance the livelihoods of the poor in certain situations. Drawing
on work done in Uganda, and former homelands in South Africa, it could
be argued that under certain conditions, where there is no land registration
(cadastral) and spatial information system, the livelihoods of the poor
are at greater risk. In rural areas where customary tenure has broken
down, there is often no land use control and de facto tenure rights
are not always respected. There are also few dispute resolution mechanisms.
In this situation an appropriate land registration, cadastral and spatial
information system, could give tenure security, improved land use/natural
resources management and supply evidence for dispute resolution. This
could make a direct contribution to the sustainability of the livelihoods
of the rural poor, by securing some of their most important assets,
namely the land and/or natural resources.
An appropriate land registration/cadastral and spatial information
system could also make a direct contribution to good governance in that
local authorities need funds. To acquire funds they have to be able
to bill for services and for taxes, especially from the businesses and
investors in their areas. They cannot bill unless they have spatial
information, which is usually supplied by the cadastre. This is not
to say that conventional cadastres and spatial information systems are
appropriate, rather that adapted forms are required, such as the one
being implemented in Uganda (Government of Uganda:1998).
That is, using a sustainable livelihoods' analysis of a cadastral system
quickly establishes that there are many aspects of the systems that
can cause problems to poor people's livelihoods. It also shows however,
that innovative cadastral/spatial information systems could have a major
role to play in improving the assets, and therefore livelihoods' options,
of the poor. These are only some of the initial findings using this
approach, and this issue will be explored further in additional papers.
POVERTY ALLEVIATION, GOOD GOVERNANCE AND LAND MANAGEMENT/ ADMINISTRATION
What is governance and how does it relate to poverty
alleviation?
The concept of good governance has recently come into regular use. I
have shown above that a lack of good governance is often treated as
part and parcel of poverty and its definition. In addition to this,
good governance is generally linked to concepts and terms such as democracy,
civil society, popular participation, empowerment and human rights.
In the last decade it has been closely associated with public sector
reform. In 1989 governance was defined by the World Bank as "the
exercise of political power to manage a nation's affairs. The Bank took
this further in 1991 when it defined three aspects of governance namely:-
•The form of political regime;
•The process by which authority is exercised in the management
of a country's economic and social resources;
•The capacity of government to design, formulate and implement
policies and discharge functions" (World Bank: 1991);
In 1999 the World Bank took this even further and argued that "..good
governance now focuses on accountability, transparency, corruption,
participatory government and legal and judicial reform." It also
noted that "(t)he absence of good governance has proved to be particularly
damaging to the 'corrective intervention' role of government. Programs
for poverty alleviation.. have been undermined by a lack of public accountability,
corruption, and lack of participation of beneficiaries." (www.afdb.org/projects/policies/pdf/governance/pdf).
Good governance and land management/administration
While there are a few exceptions (e.g. Indonesia), too few cadastral
reform projects include a rigorous institutional/governance analysis.
In 2001 the World Bank noted that "..even though the returns to
economic activity by the poor and the governance environment are key
elements of poverty reduction strategies, land has rarely been considered
in debates about good governance." This is despite the fact that
"..(a)ccess to institutional.. capital, i.e. accountable institutions,
mechanisms to enforce existing laws.. are increasingly recognized as
being.. (as important as).. physical, human and natural capital. The
way in which land rights are administered assumes critical importance
in this respect." (World Bank:2001:5).
I have shown above how the analysis of poverty alleviation and good
governance can be usefully linked to land management/administration
systems evaluation through the use of a sustainable livelihoods approach.
This approach also supplies a useful framework for the analysis of the
institutional aspects that are integral to land registration/cadastral
and spatial information systems (e.g multiple institutions involved,
levels of government etc.). Because of the paucity in research, it is
not possible to draw directly from sustainable livelihoods analyses
of these systems. However, reference is made to a comparative example
for illustrative purposes.
That is, an example from the forest sector is used to show how sustainable
livelihoods analysis can usefully identify land related institutional/governance
issues that undermine the livelihoods of the poor. Based on my experience
in Indonesia, where the forest and land sectors overlap (a common phenomenon
in many developing countries), I would argue that lessons could be learned
in the land management/administration field from the findings of studies
such as Hobley and Shields (2001), undertaken in the forest sector.
Hobley and Shields show that using a sustainable livelihoods approach
in the forest sector makes it possible to identify key constraints,
to improving forest-based livelihoods, which are present in the institutional
environment. This environment relates particularly to "the relationships
between and within the forest department, the forest users and the political
(or enabling) environment." In their analysis they examine the
relationship between these different agencies and the development of
livelihood assets. "They argue that, unless there is fundamental
internal change within the main delivery organisation there will be
little or no change in their external relationships with forest users,
and thus no sustained change in access or influence over key livelihood
assets.".. "Even relatively small process changes, that affect
the relationship between user and frontline staff, provide fundamental
challenges to existing power bases and, in turn, these confrontations
cannot be won simply through changing some of the forest planning processes."
(Hobley and Shields:2001).
Drawing from observations of cadastral reform in a number of countries,
it can be concluded that, if similar studies were undertaken in the
land registration and cadastral fields, it is likely that similar findings
would result. It would be found that the multiple institutions in the
land industry, and their often poorly coordinated relationships, often
impact negatively on the livelihoods of the poor, as does the unwillingness
of many land industries/agencies to undertake large scale change when
it comes to the adoption of pro-poor strategies. It would also probably
be found that power relationships are entangled with land allocation/titling,
which can make simple technical process changes unproductive.
While it is possible at a general level to usefully draw on studies
of other sectors, a full evaluation should be undertaken to establish
the details of just how a registration/cadastre related institutional
and regulatory framework constrains the livelihoods of the poor, and
what particular form this took.
CONCLUSION
This paper has been an attempt to start thinking about how some of the
most important issues on the world stage, namely poverty and governance,
are related to the land industry. It has been an attempt at trying to
think 'outside of the box,' and in a rigorous fashion. Superficial understandings
are not going to help in the creation of the appropriate new technical
and legal tools and products which are required. It has also been an
attempt to better position the land industry in the debate around poverty
alleviation and good governance for them to access funding, more especially
as the land industry is critical for the alleviation of poverty and
good governance.
REFERENCES
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BRAC, 2002, Studies Related to Poverty Alleviation, Empowerment and
Human Well Being, www.brac.net/red_abs_pov_emp_micro.html .
Farrington, J., 2001, Sustainable Livelihoods, Rights and the New Architecture
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