Measuring global perceptions of land tenure and land tenure rights

Prindex Global Survey of Perceptions of Property Rights Could Help Provide Solutions to Key Development Challenges

The first official results of an international survey of how people feel safe in their homes and on their land reveal that in the first 15 countries surveyed 25 percent of citizens are concerned about the possibility of their property being taken from them. This is in line with previous findings from a pilot study in three countries.

Prindex, a joint initiative of the Global Land Alliance and Overseas Development Institute (ODI), is the result of more than two years of research and development of methods to accurately measure perceptions and will make a vital contribution to efforts to measure and treat property rights. insecurity and related issues, including through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The countries surveyed using the approved methodology were Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Honduras, Liberia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Peru, Rwanda, Senegal, Thailand and Zambia. Another 18 countries will be surveyed by the end of this year, and the project aims to cover more than 100 countries by the end of 2019.

The results of the first round of data collection and analysis include:

• Large differences in ownership insecurity rates across the sample, with only 8% of respondents saying they felt insecure in Rwanda, compared with 44% in Burkina Faso
• The two most common reasons to feel insecure were: "owner / renter can ask me to leave" and "family disagreements"
• In all countries, renters felt more insecure than landlords.
• In all 15 countries, there was not much difference between the perceptions of men and women regarding security of tenure. However, when respondents were asked about how worried they were that they would be forced out in case of divorce or death of the spouse, women were markedly more concerned than men.
• Younger respondents were on average more insecure than older people, with tenure insecurity being 10.5 percentage points higher for young people aged 18-24 than for those over 55 in 15 countries.
• In just over half of the countries, respondents in urban areas reported rates of tenure insecurity of between two and 10 percentage points above rural areas.
• In a similar proportion of countries, those with formal documentation reported feeling more secure than those without.