Speech

Launch of DFID Policy Paper on ‘Land: better access and secure rights for poor people’

Speech delivered by Gareth Thomas, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for International Development

19th July 2007

It’s a pleasure to launch this new paper on improving poor people’s access to land. Having commissioned the paper some six months ago, I didn’t expect to be here to see it launched. Thanks to all the people from across DFID who participated in its development, and to those outside DFID who helped to test the ideas contained in the paper.

Land is so often the ‘backdrop’ in the images that we see of developing countries. But land is much more than the ‘landscape’:

• It’s one of the most basic assets that poor people can use to make a living.
• It plays a central role in power relations, politics and cultural identity.
• And where environmental degradation, climate change and population growth and movement put pressure on scarce land resources, this is likely to increase the likelihood of conflict. For example, if you think about Darfur. This is a situation where increasing pressure on scarce land resources caused by drought and expanding human and animal populations has undoubtedly contributed to the conflict in Darfur.

So, it’s time to bring land centre stage for a change as an important development issue. An issue where perhaps we haven’t done as much as we could to talk about the £50 million of commitments that we currently have on land issues. This new paper therefore sets out our approach, which is guided by the EU’s Land Policy Guidelines (2004). It also provides an update on what we’re doing together with other donors and also with NGOs to improve poor people’s access to land and secure their rights in 21 countries around the world.

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Unless poor people have better access to land we will not make the progress needed to achieve the MDGs. And unless poor people have secure rights to land, we won’t close inequality gaps; and we won’t make sufficient progress on boosting economic growth or tackling poverty.

Secure rights to land and property mean the chance to build a house, the opportunity to invest or the collateral to secure a loan needed to generate a business or invest in their community. Secure land and property rights also encourage business, which stimulates the economy. They provide a basis for tackling disputes over land, and can reduce the risk of conflict over who has control of land. And, once people have security of place, this provides them with a platform to establish a broader spectrum of rights.

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We know that there are two main problems to tackle, both linked inevitably with governance.

First, we need to tackle the problem of unfair access to land. This means supporting land reforms where there is political opportunity to do so, or by seeking ways to make land markets work better for poor people. For example, research by the World Bank, funded by DFID, has shown that land markets can be both efficient and equitable in parts of India where more traditional land reforms have become tied up in litigation [John Farrington of ODI will talk in more detail later about how rental markets can work for poor people].

Second, we need to make tenure (i.e. land rights) more secure for poor people. Secure rights reduce the risk of unjust eviction. They may unlock collateral for loans. And they give people the confidence to make productive investments in their land and property. For example, the introduction of secure land rights (in the form of a land certificate) in Cambodia gave people the confidence to make good productive investments in their land. The result was a 60% increase in agricultural productivity. With the increased income they received, households were able to spend 24% more on improving their welfare.

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Tackling these two problems of poor access and insecure tenure is by no means easy. As many of you know only too well, land is a challenging issue to work on. Those obstacles to good governance cannot be underestimated:

• Many politicians find the issue of land reform too politically hot to handle – reforms are extremely difficult to achieve and land issues are emotive and potentially explosive;
• Land administration is often inefficient and often highly corrupt. In fact, according to Transparency International, land is one of the top three most corrupt sectors in South Asia.

But if countries are serious about improving governance, they need too to be serious about addressing problems around land.

And in many countries, we are seeing governments and people become serious about land. And we in DFID are getting behind their efforts. Change is possible, despite the difficulties,. This paper, I hope, gives some examples of how we’re making progress in a difficult sector on two main issues:

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First, the paper highlights in particular where we’re making progress on Growth, particularly looking at how to unlock economic opportunities for poor people. We know that growth tends to accelerate when people can access land fairly and efficiently, and when land tenure is secure.

For example, the paper tells the story of Ruslan, a community leader in Sulawesi, Indonesia. He endured decades of clashes between the government and hundreds of families who use the forest land to gain a livelihood. Poor access to forest resources trapped his village and his community in poverty. The forest was badly managed, and the environment suffered as a result. But as the result of some policy reforms backed by a multi-donor effort including DFID, Ruslan’s community now have secure access to former state land. This means he can plant more profitable crops, he can send his children to school and he can get better medical care too. Tens of thousands of people like him, in Sulawesi, in Indonesia have also improved their incomes, and the prospects look good for millions more people to lift themselves out of poverty in years to come. But this story is about much more than improving poor peoples’ incomes. The community manages the forest more sustainably and productively than before, which is good for both Indonesia’s economy and it’s good for Indonesia’s environment.

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The second issue the paper touches on is tackling the Governance failures that prevent poor people from accessing land and securing their rights.

For instance, the paper talks about Atiful, a formerly landless woman in Bangladesh. Her family suffered severe poverty, discrimination and stigma because of their landless status. But now, her community are part of some 60 formerly landless people that own their own homes and a small plot of land thanks to the SAMATA programme that DFID funds. This has given her a roof over her head and a plot of land to work without fear of eviction, so she has been able to improve her family’s nutrition and her children’s health. At the same time, being part of a community has empowered the group to negotiate a 40% increase in the wages that her husband gets for labouring. I think that’s a good example of working through NGOs, who play such an important role in pushing for land reforms and improving poor people’s lives.

This story also serves to illustrate a ‘third G’– Gender – that runs through both Growth and Governance themes. We know that women experience particular discrimination in accessing and inheriting land. Gender discrimination is an unacceptable injustice, and it’s also bad for growth. For example, women provide 70% of agricultural labour in Kenya, but only 1% of them own the land that they have to farm. As well as making them vulnerable to land grabbing, this prevents them from accessing credit, which restricts their potential contribution to Kenya’s economic growth – never mind all of the social and cultural issues that flow from that discrimination.

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What does this mean in practice? The main thrust of our work involves getting behind the work of committed national governments.

In Africa it means that:

• We’re helping the Kenyan government to tackle unjust evictions, finalise their National Land Policy and train 7,000 members of the Land Control Boards and Land Disputes Tribunals;
• It means that we’re working with the World Bank too to help strengthen and reform traditional authorities that control access to 80% of land in Ghana. This will make it cheaper to register land claims there, and cut out excessive red tape and rent seeking.
• It means too that we’ve delivered a reform assistance programme in the highly politicized land environment in South Africa; it means too that we’ve launched a Land Fund in Mozambique to assist implementation of the country’s progressive new land legislation. [Later, we’ll also hear an update on progress in Rwanda]

And to enhance these national efforts, we’re supporting the African Union’s regional framework on land, which aims to assist national action on land policy in Africa.

In the really difficult places, the fragile states where change can sometimes seem particularly impossible, we’re making progress. In Afghanistan, DFID is working with the Asian Development Bank to help the Afghan government to make rights to grazing land clearer, fairer and more secure. A national land policy is being prepared there too, together with a new land titling and registration system. And that is an essential part of efforts to stabilise rural communities and reverse 20 years of economic and social decline that war and drought have caused in Afghanistan.

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The paper also shows how we’re complementing our national and regional work with support to important international initiatives in this area as well, like:

• The Commission for Legal Empowerment of the poor, which is an independent global body hosted by UNDP that seeks to reduce poverty by expanding legal protection and economic opportunities for the poor.
• The Rights and Resources Initiative, which brings together both international and community organizations to strengthen tenure and forest governance, and improve the sustainable use of forests for economic growth and poverty reduction.

The final issue for us collectively, together, is that we need to get better at communicating the challenges and findings encapsulated in this document, so we can share learning and keep each other in the development community informed. This paper is a first step. And we’re keen that you share findings across the development community with us, to help us all do more to help poor people to gain access to land. It’s an issue that’s often been neglected.

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