Focusing on innovation and sustainability in rural and urban land development : experiences from World Bank development support for land reform
Bell, Keith Clifford
The World Bank is recognized as a global leader for its support of land reform. For more than three decades, the World Bank has provided financial, technical and analytical policy support to developing countries, with cumulative investment funding having now exceeded several billion dollars. There are many complexities, dimensions and themes associated with land reform. Securing land rights is particularly relevant to vulnerable groups such as the poor, women, orphans, displaced persons and ethnic minority groups, especially after disasters or conflicts. Fees and taxes on land are often a significant source of government revenue, particularly at the local level, and underpin the sustainability of decentralization of government and services delivery. In most societies, there are many competing demands on land including development, agriculture, pastoral farming, forestry, industry, infrastructure, urbanization, biodiversity, customary rights, ecological and environmental protection. Most countries have great difficulty in balancing the needs of these competing demands. Land reform, in any country, will involve varying degrees of emphasis on social equity and economic development. In post-conflict countries, tenure security and access to land are major factors in providing long-term stability.
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