تعاني المنطقة العربية من العديد من التحديات في قطاع حوكمة الأراضي وإدارتها . والأهم من ذلك ، أن انعدام أمن الحيازة في
المنطقة العربية هو الأعلى بين المناطق الأخرى في العالم ، كذلك في مؤشر البنك الدولي لممارسة الأعمال التجارية ، تحتل المنطقة
المرتبة الأدنى بين المناطق الاخرى ، باستثناء بعض دول مجلس التعاون الخليجي. يؤثر انعدام أمن الحيازة سلبيًا على العديد من
جوانب الاقتصاد بما في ذلك العمران ، والتنمية الزراعية ، والقطاع الخاص ، وتمكين المرأة ، على سبيل المثال لا الحصر. وفوق

The Arab region suffers from many challenges  in the land governance and land management sector. Most importantly, tenure insecurity in the Arab region is the highest in the world.  In the Worldbank’s Registering Property- Doing Business indicator, the region ranks  lower than any other region, with the exception of some Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Tenure insecurity negatively affects many aspects of the  economy including urbanization, agricultural development, the private sector and women's empowerment, just to name of a few.

The data revolution – characterised by the transition to big data, open data and new digital data infrastructures [1] – is projected to make an astonishing 44 billion terabytes of digital data and information available by the end of 2020 [2]. Despite this plethora of information now available to us, about 1 billion people in 140 countries still feel insecure about their land and property rights [3].

Prindex Researcher Joseph Feyertag argues that corruption holds the key to unlocking tenure insecurity.

Opening up land-related administrative data, combining it with data from other sources  and processing and making this data available as easily accessible information for women and men equally could be a means to counteracting land corruption in land management, land administration and land allocation. But does open data and enhanced data transparency indeed help to counteract land corruption? 

Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, and corrupt practices in the context of land administration and land management have come to be known as ‘land corruption.’ Unfortunately, land corruption is all too common, with one in every five people across the globe paying bribes to access land services. 

During the recent Conference on Land Policy in Africa, we had a chance to sit down and speak with Professor Howard Stein of the University of Michigan. Scroll below to read more.  

1) Can you tell us a little bit about your research, work and background? 

Marc Wegerif, of the Human Economy Program within the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at University of Pretoria, was presenting at the 2019 Conference on Land Policy in Africa (CLPA) in Abidjan Cote d’Ivoire on 28^th November 2019. The theme of the CLPA was “Winning the fight against Corruption in the Land Sector: Sustainable Pathway for Africa’s Transformation”.

Africa remains a net food importing region spending more than USD 35 billion annually on food imports, although this continent has about 65% of the uncultivated arable land left in the world to feed 9 billion people by 2050 (AfDB, 2016). Land tenure remains a major challenge across the continent and only about 10% of Africa’s rural land is registered. In Cameroon, in particular, land as an asset, an input or an income source is not equally possessed by any individual or household with respect to gender and place of living.

The session ”Exploring tools and approaches towards responsible youth and gender sensitive land governance and transparency in Africa” took place on November 27^th, 2019 in the framework of the Conference on Land Policy in Africa and was organized by the Global Land Tool Network and the International Land Coalition. Land is both a source of livelihood and life line for most communities in Africa and is considered a strategic social and economic resource for communities in rural and urban areas.

Cosmas Milton Ochieng, an expert in natural resource governance and economic development in Africa, is the Director of the African Natural Resource Centre at the African Development Bank.

In collaboration with the African Union Commission and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank will host the 3rd Edition of the Conference on Land Policy in Africa in Abidjan from 25 to 29 November 2019.

In this interview, Ochieng shares key insights into why the conference matters for Africa.