Definition

Land access, ownership and tenure security refer to the systems of rights, rules, and institutions that govern the ownership, use, control, and transfer of land. These rights may be formal (legally recognized and documented) or informal (customary or socially recognized), and they determine who can use land, for how long, and under what conditions.

Secure land tenure implies that individuals and communities, particularly small-scale producers and Indigenous Peoples, have reliable, enforceable, and socially legitimate rights to access, use, manage, and benefit from land and natural resources without fear of displacement or expropriation. It also encompasses equitable distribution of land and recognition of diverse tenure systems, including individual, communal, and customary arrangements.

Rationale

The extent to which small-scale producers can reach food security depends largely on their access, ownership and tenure security of land, and the natural resources attached to it. A more equitable distribution of such assets also improves food security of urban consumers, by making food more accessible and more affordable in local markets.

Key interventions

• Land tenure regularization: Bestows tenure rights to individuals and communities over the land they occupy without formal documentation. The main regularization steps are land identification, demarcation, recording and certification.
• Demarcation and recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ and other traditional and/or ethnic communities' territories: Identify and acknowledge the rights of the communities indicated above to their lands, establish their territorial extent, document their traditional rights over their lands, territories and natural resources, record and certify their rights and duly implement Free Prior and Informed Consent processes.
• State-led land reform: Redistributes land from large holdings to smaller beneficiaries (landless workers, smallholder farmers) mainly a) via fixing maximum size of land holding (land ceiling) that an individual/family can own. Surplus land over and above ceiling is taken away (with or without paying compensation to original owner) and distributed to beneficiaries; b) tenant rights over the plots they farm are upgraded to ownership rights; c) large holdings are expropriated entirely or partially by the state in public interest of for non-compliance with norms of the social function of the property, and are redistributed to beneficiaries.
• Market-led land reform: Follows a willing buyer-willing seller approach through legally regulated procedures. Land is purchased by the state from willing sellers and subsequently transferred to beneficiaries, or is acquired directly by beneficiaries from willing sellers through public loans.
• Multi-purpose land consolidation and land banking: Legally regulated procedure led by a public authority, sometimes supported by a public land bank, to adjust the structure of property rights in rural areas, and facilitate public infrastructure development, through coordination between owners and users, involving reallocation of land parcels, in order to remove the effects of land fragmentation, facilitate farm holdings enlargement, and achieve broader environmental and socio-economic development objectives.
• Transformative policies for achieving gender equality in land ownership: Aim at conferring women and men same rights in all tenure systems, backed by national laws. Issue clear and secure land titles/certificates, recognizing ownership rights in the names of women or in joint ownership with their husbands. They apply on all policy instrument sub-categories mentioned above.
• Documentation and recording of women’s secondary land rights in customary tenure systems: Aim at recording and documenting women’s land rights stemming from male relatives. Formalizing such rights empowers women to participate in household decision-making, have access to productive resources, and safeguard them from individual titling programs on customary lands that recognize only male household heads.
• Community-led stewardship in small-scale fisheries: Aims at improving the livelihoods of small-scale fishers and fishing communities. Secures the rights of small-scale fishers and their organizations to access and manage marine and inland fisheries resources through the establishment/strengthening of decentralized co-management institutions and preferential access areas.
• Community-Based Resource Management (CBRM): A community rights based participatory management framework aiming at creating incentives and conditions for resource users within defined areas to use natural resources sustainably. It provides tenure rights over land and the resources attached to it. CBRM often involves a partnership between Indigenous Peoples and other traditional and/or ethnic communities and the authorities in charge of protected area management through governance frameworks.