Land Tenure Security in Selected Countries – Global Report

Land tenure systems are the product of historical and cultural factors and they reflect the relationships between people, society and land (Payne, 2002). Land tenure comprises the customary and/or legal/statutory rights that individuals or groups have to land and related resources, and the resulting social relationships between the members of society (Kuhnen, 1982). Each country has developed specific land tenure concepts that are based on historical and current values and norms. The concepts determine the present tenure systems and they have often been shaped by an evolutionary process. In many cases, endogenous forces act as drivers that sharpen and change tenure systems, for example population growth, industrialization and urbanization, or accelerating natural resource exploitation.