The evolution of the World Bank’s land policy: Principles, experience, and future challenges

This article examines the evolution of policy recommendations concerning rural land issues since the formulation of the World Bank's "Land Reform Policy Paper " in 1975. That paper set out three guiding principles: the desirability of owner-operated family farms; the need for markets to permit land to be transferred to more productive users; and the importance of an egalitarian asset distribution. In the 25 yean since that paper was published, these guiding principles have remained the same, but it is now recognized that communal tenure systems can be more cost-effective than formal title, that titling pro-grams should be judged on their equity as well as their efficiency, that the potential of land rental markets has often been severely underestimated, that land-sale markets enhance efficiency only if they are integrated into a broader effort at developing rural factor mar-kets, and that land reform is more likely to result in a reduction of poverty if it harnesses (rather than undermines) the operation of land markets and is implemented in a decen-tralized fashion. Achieving land policies that incorporate these elements requires a coher-ent legal and institutional framework together with greater reliance on pilot programs to examine the applicability of interventions under local conditions. In the rural areas of most developing countries, land is not only the primary means for generating a livelihood but often the main vehicle for investing, accumulating wealth, and transferring it between generations. Thus the ways in which access to land is regu-lated, property rights are defined, and ownership conflicts are resolved has broad impli-cations beyond the sphere of agricultural production. These regulations, rights, and procedures affect not only the ability of households to produce for their subsistence and for the market but also their social and economic status (and often their collective identity), their incentive to work, their willingness to use the land sustainably, and their ability to self-insure or to obtain access to financial markets