Land Tenure Center Newsletter
Number 82, Fall 2001, p. 8

Lessons learned in tenure reform: a global perspective

LTC assisted South Africa in its recent National Land Tenure Conference. Lessons listed below were presented to South Africa’s Department of Land Affairs in a preparatory seminar.

by Harvey M. Jacobs, Director, LTC
and Brenda R. Haskins, Legal Specialist, LTC
hmjacobs@facstaff.wisc.edu; brhaskins@facstaff.wisc.edu

1. Tenure reform deals with the most difficult of issues: land, its possession, and ownership are complex issues due to the social, cultural, political, and material values and power embedded in landownership and control.
   
   
2. Tenure reform actions are bound to offend some groups. Land is a fixed resource, and it is difficult to structure win-win solutions.
   
   
3. Success in tenure reform requires a high degree of political will and consistency in political and administrative activity.
   
   
4. Tenure reform combined with a trend toward devolution of governmental administrative authority is a global phenomenon. Devolution, while an obvious directive in theory (citizen access, variation in local conditions, etc.), raises complex issues of competency, abusive behavior, lack of oversight, and equity among local authorities.
   
   
5. Tenure reform is country- and region-dependent; it is a function of culture, history, and the legal framework; there are no easy or transferable formulas for how to approach tenure reform.
   
   
6. Success in tenure reform requires transparency and participation, which itself requires implementation with a non-adversarial dispute-resolution process.
   
   
7. Public agencies must not overpromise what will be accomplished with tenure reform, either substantively or through the timeline for its implementation.
   
   
8. Success in tenure reform requires an openness to utilizing a variety of tenure forms.
   
   
9. Tenure reform programs must be wary of unintended consequences of policy design and reform.
   
   
10. Success in tenure reform is assisted by starting in "easier" situations, experimenting and succeeding, and then building on that success, rather than first seeking to address the most pressing problems, which are often the most complex.
    
    

Copyright © 2001 by Land Tenure Center and Board of Regents, University of Wisconsin. All rights reserved.
Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for noncommercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies.

Top of page

Return to Newsletter index
Return to publications page
Return to LTC's home page