Land Registration (1/3) : Overview of the current situation
In this series of blog posts, we will dive into issues related to the land registration and how blockchain technology can ease access to such services to all citizens especially in Africa.
Context elements
Land tenure is the legal system that rules on :
- who owns a piece of land,
- who can use it,
- for how long, and
- under what conditions.
Currently 70% of the world’s population has no access to conventional land registration/tenure systems. Worldwide, less than 32 countries give access to their citizens to a functioning, nationwide, centralized land administration that encompass local registration systems.
According to history, land tenure security can legitimately be based on individual, family, community, cultural or even national claims.
“In fact, in Africa, 90% of land is held under customary tenure. Customary laws have a been made on the benefits or drawbacks attributed to great impact in matters regarding marriage, inheritance and traditional authority, usually in a context characterized by patriarchy. Indigenous peoples and other minorities have been traditionally marginalized. Women in particular have often been excluded from inheriting land from their fathers or husbands. Often, the name of the wife or daughter would not appear on the land titles. These women may find themselves further disenfranchised in a decentralized world characterized by immutability of records.”
“It is estimated that in most countries, between 50% to 75% of a country’s wealth exists in the form of land or real estate. Land is also an important factor of production that contributes to different sectors of the economy. In addition, land can often be the only asset of the poor.”
Security and transparency of tenure is then essential for the development of a community, region or country, as it encourages landowners to invest in their land and to develop sustainable activities there, thus generating significant social and economic development.
What are the current issues
First and foremost, many countries simply have not properly defined the means and systems of registering their land and that of their citizens.
In Africa, for example, barely 10% of the surface is officially documented, recorded and searchable.
As a result, and in a natural way, the gap between rural and urban areas is particularly significant there: while many cities and towns register at least part of land ownership, rural areas often do not have any official registration system of land ownership.
This is often due to the fact that such systems are expensive and time consuming to set up.
If a system is implemented, when a potential buyer seeks to acquire land, they must identify, trust and secure the ownership title or any "accepted" document, such as existing deeds of sale, and have it signed by the rightful owner and register by an official entity.
For many holders of land titles acquired in developing countries, false documents, forged signatures, and flaws in documents and registrations have brought documentation related to land and real estate into disrepute.
The resulting situation is that the property no longer has a "good title" (or valid title) attached to it, no longer being legally salable or buyable, thus leaving the potential buyer in many cases without any legal recourse.
In addition, as regards agricultural land, it is often administered / regulated by customary practices without any written documentation.
In places where land is properly documented, records are mostly completed and accessible in paper form and are usually stored in a centralized way. This makes them particularly vulnerable to loss, destruction, fraudulent modification or misuse.
In addition, natural disasters or other incidents can destroy these centralized paper registries most often centralized in capitals or prefectures, as illustrated in the case of Haiti, where large quantities of official documents were destroyed during the earthquake of 2010.
The loss, fraudulent modification or manipulation of title to property or cadastral documents creates latent social conflicts which deeply affect confidence in government institutions.
Paper land registries also suffer from inefficient processing and significant administrative heaviness. Land sale / transfer processes often require a wide variety of paper documents, handwritten signatures and verification by a third party (government agency, notary, etc.).
These complex and time-consuming procedures are one of the major obstacles to investment in this area but also to the development of plots and their use for economic activities that are sorely lacking in Africa.
Tenure security is the cornerstone to economic development. Obtaining secure property rights is critical to smallholder development and equitable growth. With a system of property rights that is viewed as legitimate, owners can use their claim for collateral for agricultural inputs, improvements, innovations, and expansion of their businesses.
In the following articles, we will further investigate possibilities offered by the blockchain technologies, such as Cardano, to develop access to Land registration while making them more trusted and secured.
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