Securing tenure for conflict-affected populations: A case study of land titling and fit-for-purpose land administration in post-conflict Sri Lanka

Benjamin C.R. Flower, Piyal Ganepola, Srinivasa Popuri and Jan Turkstra

Land Use Policy, 2023, vol. 125, issue C

Abstract: This article assesses the efficacy of best-practice tenure reforms for conflict-affected populations, using a case study of Sri Lanka’s post-conflict Northern Province. In Sri Lanka, as in other conflict and post-conflict societies, increasing tenure security is a policy priority to build peace and foment socioeconomic development. This paper finds, however, that increasing tenure security through land titling in the Northern Province has been difficult, because allocating indefeasible ownership rights is challenging in a context of mass displacement and the erosion of subnational land administration capacity. In contrast, the paper charts the experience of a recent fit-for-purpose land sector intervention, which has enabled rapid increases in tenure security at scale through distributing intermediary tenure documents that confer occupancy rights. The paper argues that the fit-for-purpose land administration model could be strengthened to engender further increases in tenure security in Sri Lanka. It should also be considered as a scalable best-practice alternative to land titling in post-conflict and other challenging contexts.

Keywords: Tenure security; Post-conflict; IDPs; Land titling; Fit-for-purpose (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837722004653
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:125:y:2023:i:c:s0264837722004653

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106438

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().