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© 1999 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank

research-article

The Evolution of the World Bank's Land Policy: Principles, Experience, and Future Challenges

Klaus Deinlnger and Hans Binswanger

Klaus Deininger is an economist in the World Bank's Development Research Group; Hans Binswanger is sector director in the Rural Development and Environment Department in the Africa Region. The authors would like to thank Michael Carter, Alain de Janvry, Dina Umali-Deininger, Ruben Echeverria, Gershon Fedcr, Gustavo Gordillo de Anda, Isabel Lavadenz, Shcm Migot-Adholla, Pedro Olinto, Elisabeth Sadoulet, and participants at a World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) workshop in Santiago and various World Bank seminars for detailed comments.

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 years 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 programs 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 markets, 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 decentralized fashion. Achieving land policies that incorporate these elements requires a coherent legal and institutional framework together with greater reliance on pilot programs to examine the applicability of interventions under local conditions.


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