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 Land Policy and Administration
Few will disagree that inappropriate land policies can constitute a serious constraint on economic and social development: Insecure land tenure, outdated regulations, and dysfunctional land institutions constrain private investment and undermine local government’s ability to raise taxes in many countries. Highly skewed land ownership distributions and discrimination along lines of gender or ethnicity limit economic opportunities for the disadvantaged groups and, in addition, foment social conflict - which has often erupted in violence. However, the complexity of the subject and the fact that change is often fiercely resisted by vested interests benefiting from the status quo have historically frustrated many efforts to bring about policy change.
More than a decade of collaborative Bank research, culminating in the recent publication of a Policy Research Report, Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction, has made three contributions: First, it helped to quantitativley demonstrate that inappropriate policies and institutional arrangements that undermine tenure security, sustain inappropriate patterns of land use, and limit broad-based land access, inflict large losses that and are too important to ignore. Second, it has pointed towards interventions in terms of policy, institutional change, and infrastructure investments, that can provide the basis to deal with these issues through an effort that is sustained in the long term. Finally, it has helped to generate broad consensus among the stakeholders involved (governments, civil society, donors, etc.) on the principles for interventions and how to coordinate them so as to maximize synergies.
This analytical effort has helped to sustain a tremendous expansion of the Bank’s lending portfolio: While in FY 1990-94 only 3 stand-alone land projects were approved, this number increased to 19 (0.7 bn commitment) and 25 ($ 1 billion commitment) in the 1995-99 and 2000-2004 periods, respectively. As research is increasingly translated into AAA and policy advice, this positive trend is expected to continue: FY04 commitments on land-related projects (i.e. stand alones and those with a land component but excluding adjustment operations) alone amount to $ 1 billion and, following the lead of the Bank, other donors are now addressing land issues much more vigorously in their programs as well.
The World Bank aims to support the development of a network to facilitate the sharing of country experiences, with its partners’ collaboration, FAO and IFAD.
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