METADATA
Target 1.4:
By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal
rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land
and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and
financial services, including microfinance.
Proposed Indicator 1.4.2: Proportion of women, men, indigenous people and local communities with secure tenure
rights to individually or communally held land, property and natural resources.
Relevance:
Type of Indicator: Outcome indicator
Feasibility: Administrative data is available in all of the countries and is collectible annually, universally, can be
replicated, and at relatively low cost. The collection of data is possible through the collaboration of international
institutions (UN-Habitat, UNEP, IFAD, UNFAO, The World Bank, and WRI) through the conducting of surveys every
3-5 years, and have the methodology and networks required and the capacity to undertake this work.
Methodology:
Percentage of women and men with secure tenure rights to individually or communally held land, property and
natural resources.
Disaggregation:
This indicator can be disaggregated spatially (inc. urban/rural) and by the age and sex, socio-economic profiles, and
groups of people/communities (indigenous, local communities).
Definitions
The following definitions are proposed.
Land Tenure
Land tenure can be described as a bundle of rights that individuals and communities have with regard to land, which
may include the rights to occupy, to use, to develop, to inherit, and to transfer land. Some of these rights will be held
by individuals, some by groups, and others by political entities. This bundle of rights can be broken up, rearranged
and passed on to others. The following is the typology
Secure tenure rights or tenure security
Tenure security is the right of individuals and groups to effective protection by the state against evictions, i.e. under
international law, the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families and/communities from
the home and/or the land they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate form of legal or other
protection. Security of tenure can then be defined as an agreement between an individual or group about land and
residential property, which is governed and regulated by a legal and administrative framework. A person or
household can be said to have secure tenure when they are protected from involuntary removal from their land or
residence by the state, except in exceptional circumstances, and then only by means of a known and agreed legal
procedure, which must itself be objective, equally applicable, contestable and independent.
Perceived tenure security refers to an individuals experience of his/her tenure situation or their estimated
probability that their land rights will not be lost as a result of eviction by the state, land owner or other authority, or
because of other factors that may cause involuntary relocation or curtail their use of the land, such as threats of land
conflicts.
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Security of Tenure Although the methodology is now developed for Household surveys, this is not yet
tested.
The Administrative data although available in all countries, it is still paper based in most of the developing
countries. Data quality will therefore be improved over time as computerization increasingly takes route.
Bibliographic References:
Food and Agriculture Organization (2012). Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of
Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. Available at:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i2801e/i2801e.pdf
Food and Agriculture Organization (2004). Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives. Ref: FAO
Corporate Documents Repository. Indigenous Peoples rights to lands, territories and resources: selected
international and domestic legal considerations. Available at:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5407t/y5407t0g.htm
Food and Agriculture Organization (2003). Multilingual Thesaurus of Land Tenure, English Version. Rome: FAO.
Available at:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/x2038e/x2038e00.htm
UN-Habitat, Global Land Tool Network (2008). Secure land rights for all. Nairobi. Available at:
http://unhabitat.org/books/secure-land-rights-for-all/
UN-Habitat (2014)Options For Global Reporting On GLTN/GLII Land Indicators In The Context Of The
Sustainable Development Goals
URL References:
Policy Connections: