The land-rights poverty nexus

Alfred Lahai Gbabai Brownell

Chapter 18 in Research Handbook on Human Rights and Poverty, 2026, pp 312-328 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter discusses a critical human right that is largely overlooked: how unsecured land rights drive poverty. International human rights laws do not recognize a right to land, even though unsecured land rights trigger corruption, conflicts and the resulting poverty dynamics across West Africa. It permits a migration trend enabling a rural to urban brain drain creating a poverty corridor – an end-to-end poverty encryption caused by a natural resource curse factor – a masked poverty driver. In order to remedy and alleviate global poverty, especially for vulnerable populations, the right to land must be secured. Recognizing this right is critical to build and sustain the resilience of peoples. This chapter explores the right to land across West Africa and concludes that if rights to land are not secured, achieving the SDGs and poverty reduction will become unlikely and human rights may not be protected, respected and fulfilled.

Keywords: Poverty nexus; Poverty corridors; Masked poverty driver; Unsecured land rights; Rural to urban brain drain; Fragile poverty fault line (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035350506
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