Why Tenure Matters More Than Ever

The annual Michael Barrett Award for 2015 deservedly went to Paul Munro-Faure for his work in developing the UN’s Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests.

Tenure is important and challenging argued Paul Munro-Faure in delivering the RICS 2015 Michael Barrett Award Lecture. As deputy director of the Climate, Energy and Tenure Division of FAO, the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation, his lecture was inspired by the publication of the UN’s Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. Negotiated and formally endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security, this is an historic but deceptively thin document for what is a weighty leap forward in advancing beyond those important Millennium Development Goals; and are now reinforced by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which include land tenure, and which were formally adopted by the UN General Assembly in September. 

Land surveyors know perhaps more than anyone that security of tenure is a major factor in economic stability and development. If you have legal and protected title to land you may be able to feed yourself and your family. If you own a building you may raise more easily a loan to develop a business. Yet in much of the world tenure remains tenuous.

Occupy it or lose it!

We are all familiar with the old adage that possession is 9/10ths of the law. Paul gave a fascinating example of this and how the Paston family in 15th century Norfolk had purchased Gresham, a fine manor house. Their purchase had been conducted entirely legally only to find that an earlier owner from the previous century still purported to have a claim on the property and asserted it by occupying it! After exhausting all attempts at judicial restitution to remove the usurpers, the Pastons instructed their servants to physically retake possession. Even today in many parts of the world it is advisable to occupy a property 24/7 to avoid unauthorised possession.

When the UN was set up in 1945 it faced massive problems. Europe was in chaos, millions had lost homes. One of the first official appointments of the embryo FAO was that of a land tenure officer. While today Europe has stable systems of tenure there remain many places in the world where that is not the case.

Open Tenure system helps forest peoples

With millions of hectares of jungle and forest cleared every year around the world indigenous peoples can lose their livelihoods and food sources. Paul showed us a video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe2vJpGwBjA] about how in Cambodia monks are managing a system known as Open Tenure to empower communities. Using open source software developed by FAO local communities can record their land resources. Running on tablet computers, the software guides users on how to record critical data to back-up claims including important documents such as agreements between households and local authorities. Boundaries are marked and mapped with geospatial data helping to reduce conflict. The technology helps people to understand land use. A monk, who is head of the community forest of 18,261 ha comprising 8 communes and 5 villages, explains how they have been managing the land for 14 years. But they need regular patrols to detect violations and illegal activities like traps.

Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security

The guidelines have now become the globally-accepted standard for improving the governance of tenure for all, with an emphasis on vulnerable and marginalized people. While the guidelines were prepared in the context of food security, they also contribute to other development goals, including poverty eradication, sustainable livelihoods, women’s tenure rights, social stability, housing security, rural development, environ mental protection and sustainable social and economic development. The guidelines are the key reference for work on tenure in support of the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals – formally adopted by the General Assembly of the UN on 25 September 2015.

The global community agreed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 but they made scant reference to issues of tenure; how real property is held, accessed and administer ed. The Secretary General’s Development Goals for the period 2015-30 (SDGs) include clear targets which put tenure firmly on the global agenda: ensuring that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property; that agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers – in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers – are doubled, through secure and equal access to land; that reforms give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property; and that access for all is ensured to adequate, safe and affordable housing.

The SDGs and 2015 are a major step forward and opportunity for the profession; RICS and FIG as partners are committed to the global support for the development of the Voluntary Guidelines.

This article was published in Geomatics World January/February 2016