Thumbnail Image

Improving tenure security for the poor in Africa: Namibia Country Case Study.

Investing in rights: lessons from rural Namibia

Year of publication 2006

Pages 23 p.

Author Fuller, B.;Land and Water Division

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Document

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) This case study looks at the land tenure in Namibia, where for a century of colonial rule indigenous Namibians were dispossessed from rights to both land and resources – by German and then white South African settlers establishing commercial farms and related businesses. Access to freehold tenure was reserved for white settlers and tenure security for indigenous Namibians largely disappeared. In non-white areas, rights were provided under indigenous tenure systems whose legal status was somewhat murky. Urban tenure was denied as blacks were not allowed ownership of residential land. While the acquisition and redistribution of freehold farmland has garnered the headlines since independence in 1990, many issues, problems and solutions to the restoration of rights in other areas have emerged. Land and rights reform for Namibia is not the simple task of obtaining from those who have much and redistributing to those who have little. Redistribution, in this classic sense, would apply to o nly half of the country’s land. The story of the other half is often neglected. Namibia has a web of social, historical, environmental and legal parameters that have required a complex approach to both the recognition and restoration of property rights.

Language English

Also available in:
No results found.

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Thumbnail Image
    Document
    Improving tenure security for the poor in Africa: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda - Case Study
    Formalization and its prospects
    2006
    Also available in:
    No results found.
    This paper identifies the key issues of land tenure security for the rural poor, vulnerable and marginalized in the East African countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The report finds that most of these issues are common across the three countries, both in terms of the challenges that the communities face and imperatives that inform policy interventions and responses. In all three countries, customary and statutory systems operate side by side and, in all three, there is a tendency for policy and legislative frameworks to privilege the modern systems of property relations over traditional ones, even as national rhetoric indicates recognition and support for the latter. The paper concludes that formalization has not always benefited the rural poor. Instead, an elite minority has tended to benefit from reforms while the majority of the poor and vulnerable end up worse off as institutions and systems that supported their livelihoods and gave them a sense of security are marginalized and replaced by modern institutions.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Document
    Improving tenure security for the poor in Africa: Mali - Country Case Study
    Improving security of land tenure for the poor and other vulnerable groups in rural areas.
    2006
    Also available in:
    No results found.
    The study aims to clarify the various issues regarding land security of poor and other marginalized groups in Malian rural areas. It looks into questions relating to how poor and vulnerable groups obtain access to land and natural resources, and what factors cause their exclusion. It analyzes existing methods for formalizing land rights and land transactions and their impacts on the poor. Specific attention is given to the practical organization of the procedures for formalization and recording land rights. Any study of “land security” requires knowing whose rights are to be secured and protected, from whom or what they are to be secured, and how and why they are to be secured. The majority of the rural population in Mali is poor. Thus, this paper approaches the issue of land from the rural perspective with particular focus on the more underprivileged rural groups. Based on literature review and field research, the study i) examines modes of access to land and natural resources in M ali and their effects on the land tenure situations of poor and vulnerable groups; and ii) analyses the methods used for securing access to land and natural resources for those groups.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Document
    Improving tenure security for the poor in Africa: Ghana country case study
    Towards the improvement of tenure security for the poor in Ghana: Some thoughts and observations
    2006
    Also available in:
    No results found.
    This paper provides an overview of the land tenure situation in Ghana. It focuses on the rural poor in terms of their access to natural resources, their vulnerability to major threats and the causes of their tenure insecurity. It also suggests approaches to securing property rights as a means for improving their livelihoods. Activities to enhance tenure security for the poor and vulnerable in Ghanaian rural communities require a comprehensive review of laws on the rights of women, protection of rights of the rural communities in the event of compulsory land acquisitions and enhancement of tenure security through formalization and registration. The paper also advocates recognition of secondary rights as part of a comprehensive rural programme on formalization of holdings and as the prerequisite for any land titling programme.
Show more

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

No results found.