Why does the Prindex data matter for the land governance community?

Property rights are a cornerstone of economic development and social justice. Data on perceptions of security of property rights are required to monitor global initiatives such as the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Forests and Fisheries and the Sustainable Development Goals (see indicators 1.4.2 and 5.a.1).

However, perceptions of security of tenure have never been assessed at the global level, preventing a clear understanding of the magnitude and nature of citizens' experience of security and insecurity related to crucial assets such as housing and land. Prindex addresses this gap, creating a baseline global dataset to support the achievement of secure property rights around the world.

What is the status?

In 2018, Prindex collected data from 53,000 respondents for 33 countries.
In 2019, the Prindex questionnaire module on perceptions of tenure security was included in the Gallup World Poll. Having previously published data and analysis for 33 countries, Prindex has recently released its full global dataset of 140 countries.  
In July of 2020, Prindex released comparative results from its data collection.

What is the methodology?

The Prindex questionnaires measure respondents’ tenure security by posing nearly 60 questions in six core modules. In line with the efforts to build a comparable indicator for tracking progress on tenure security in the land sector, Prindex assesses perceived tenure security via a central question about people’s home, land and / or additional property:

• In the next five years, how likely or unlikely is it that you could lose the right to use this property, or part of this property, against your will?

The survey also collects a range of additional data through the questionnaire designed to capture robust information on individuals’ tenure situation, as well as key individual and household characteristics. Since 2019, data from the World Poll is also available for Prindex to analyse other factors which are connected to perceived tenure security.

Key areas of enquiry include information on tenure rights the respondents have over their main dwelling, respondents’ perceptions of their tenure, documentation of tenure rights, benefits conferred by tenure security, tenure rights to other properties and tenure security of these, and experience of tenure insecurity and perceptions of tenure security at a national level.

For the data collection in 2019, the Prindex questionnaire module on perceptions of tenure security was included in the Gallup World Poll; the Gallup World Poll surveys were conducted either using a face-to-face questionnaire or over the telephone and respondents were selected using very similar methods to the data collection in 2017/2018. More detailed information about questionnaires and sampling strategies is available in the methodology section on the Prindex website.

What are the main results?

The Prindex Comparative Report released in July 2020 tells us how secure people feel about their land and property rights in those countries, providing a launch pad for deepening and intensifying processes of policy review and reform around the world.

The report highlights that nearly 1 billion people around the world consider it likely or very likely that they will be evicted from their land or property in the next five years. This represents nearly 1 in 5 adults in the 140 countries surveyed.

Source: Prindex Comparative Report, Figure 2 (p. 12,) July 2020.

Source: Prindex Comparative Report, Figure 5 (p. 15,) July 2020.

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