OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING:

[W]hen recordkeeping is nonexistent or chaotic, who can confidently identify the rightful owner of a parcel of land? As the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and Transparency International put it in a report a decade ago, "where land governance is deficient, high levels of corruption often flourish." This corruption "is pervasive and without effective means of control."

Globally, one in five people report having paid a bribe to access land services. In Africa, two out of three people believe the rich are likely to pay bribes or use their connections to grab land. Uncertainty about land rights can also affect housing security - around a billion people worldwide say they expect to be forced from their homes over the next five years.

Inevitably, the marginalized and vulnerable are the worst affected, whether they are widows driven from their homes by speculators or entire communities subjected to forced eviction by developers. Weak land rights and corruption also fuel conflict within communities, such as in Kenya, where political parties promise already-occupied land to supporters in an attempt to win votes.

But there is reason for hope. The ongoing revolution in information and communications technology provides unprecedented opportunities to digitize and open land records. Doing so would clarify the land rights of hundreds of millions of people globally and limit the scope for corrupt practices.

Robust land rights upheld by strong institutions not only strengthen housing security but also boost countries' economic prospects, because people gain confidence to invest in land and businesses, and companies and individuals can use land as collateral to gain access to credit. Moreover, secure rights enable governments to increase revenue by collecting property taxes. And when land records are easily accessible for inspection, governments can be held accountable, ownership and use rights can be more easily protected, and land markets become fairer and more dynamic.

Given the benefits of open, accessible digital land records, it should come as no surprise that many countries, including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Mauritius, are currently digitizing their land records or have recently completed this process. Other governments seeking to reduce corruption and make development more inclusive can follow four recommendations - drawn from a new report by the German development agency GIZ and a related Land Portal webinar - for documenting, digitizing, and opening their own records.

For starters, existing property records should be verified and upgraded before digitization. Digitizing the inaccurate or incomplete paper records that exist in many settings will only perpetuate the problem.

Tweet   @brothersjudd