Executive Summary

International development agencies globally have maintained a longstanding commitment to securing the land and property rights of people and communities. However, land tenure work is often politically fraught and challenging to undertake.

As a finite resource that constitutes a substantial part of both national and household wealth, land is, and always has been, inherently political. Politics encompass land governance and the exercise of power and the decision-making processes that affect the distribution of status and resources. Land control has long been the basis of political power, and differentiated access has always contributed to disparities between wealthy and less wealthy individuals. For instance, recent studies have found that 16 percent of the world’s farms operate 88 percent of the total farmland in production, and that land concentration has increased across major developing countries over the past 40 years.¹

Because the allocation of land is critical to social, economic, and political health, corruption and elite capture are endemic in government-led land administration. Women, minorities, Indigenous peoples, youth, and other vulnerable groups especially suffer from unequal ownership, access, and control over land, and land continues to be used by the powerful as a tool for political control, patronage, and speculation. Often, despite all assurances to the contrary, national leaders refuse to change the status quo of land ownership and access.

However, development practitioners 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,” or TWP.

TWP on land begins with understanding the ecosystem of stakeholders who govern, control, and interact with land. They include national and local-level policymakers, judges and administrators, land service professionals, civil society organizations, banks and businesses, customary authorities, and, of course, household and community-level landowners and land users. Each of these stakeholders has their own motivations, interests, concerns, and constraints related to land use and allocation, which vary depending on national and cultural context, shifting national and local dynamics, and even personalities and interpersonal relationships. That said, there are several dynamics commonly seen within these stakeholder groups to be aware of, which are described in detail in this report.

TWP on land also requires an understanding of scenarios, events, and trends that tend to change the status quo of land-related politics. These forces may cause new stakeholders to enter the picture, or change the motivations and constraints of existing stakeholders, and can trigger land-related competition, conflict, or corruption, or can positively open moments of political opportunity for land reform. These land-related trends and shifts include sudden changes in land value, legal or policy changes that shift who owns or accesses land, population movement that results in increased demand for land, changes in land-related administrative decision-making, and mass land demarcation and registration. 

TWP on land requires developing tools and strategies for adroitly engaging land-related stakeholders and responding to land-related shifts and trends.

During program design, TWP on land strategies include: conducting situational analysis with an explicit focus on land, initiating stakeholder engagement, recognizing and taking advantage of windows of opportunity, creating space for a diversity of voices in program design, testing and starting with a small program to build momentum, and making the case that secure land rights are foundational for other development objectives.

During program implementation, TWP on land strategies include: cultivating trusted local contacts at different levels of government and in civil society, getting out in the field to learn about local realities, unpacking the politics of commonly used terms, being cognizant of existing and emerging political risks, and continuously networking to maintain and grow stakeholder engagement.

During the program evaluation process, TWP on land is demonstrated through scheduling learning and adaptive management opportunities to pause and reflect, as well as providing openings for evaluation and learning at multiple points during and after an activity.