Introduction and Background

As a finite resource that constitutes a substantial part of both national and household wealth, land is and always has been inherently political. Control over land has long been the basis of political power, and competition over land and resources a driving force of both global and local politics. In some instances, these complex social and political realities may seem so daunting as to lead to a temptation to avoid engagement. However, over the last half century development cooperation agencies have developed strategies and approaches for navigating local political, social and institutional realities to make progress on land tenure. These strategies and approaches reflect much of what has been called “thinking and working politically” (TWP).

Utilizing TWP can play a pivotal role in fortifying the design and implementation of comprehensive land tenure governance programs and projects, in combination with Political Economy Analysis (PEA). These kinds of approaches rooted in political economy contribute significantly to land tenure programming. Despite the extensive experience of land tenure specialists employing TWP approaches for decades, there remains a notable scarcity of explicitly outlined approaches and tools detailing how to integrate critical political analysis into land tenure programming.

This practical document aims to fill this gap by bringing together various approaches to TWP on land, and providing examples of how and where these approaches work. It was developed through interviews with land tenure specialists, as well as the personal experiences of the authors based on decades of designing and implementing land tenure programs.

The outline of this report is as follows. Section I defines TWP. Section II elucidates why working on land tenure issues is so inherently political and identifies common land tenure stakeholders and political considerations. Section III provides tools and best practices for TWP on Land, based on the experiences of development cooperation agencies and implementing partners. Section IV highlights case studies from USAID describing how the TWP approach has led to instrumental programming. We end the report with conclusions and future considerations.