Availability: Land Tenure

To what extent is detailed land tenure information available as open data?

DefinitionsResearch GuidanceQuestion sub-componentsIndicator Justification

Definitions and identification

Land tenure refers to “the right or mode of holding land. It covers ownership, lease, customary tenure (traditional rights/customary rights) and usage rights” (UN Environmental Program). Land tenure data thus describes identifies who holds rights over land, which rights are held, and over which land. This data can be used to understand access to land and land tenure security, to identify the land ownership patterns, to track the transfer or alteration of properties, to adjudicate doubts and disputes, landscape in a country, to identify land concentration, to understand access to land and land tenure security, and for anti-corruption purposes. Land tenure data provides one form of evidence of the relationship of people to land and its associated natural resources, but neither surveying nor registration constitutes that relationship. (Please see the FAO’s AGROVOC thesaurus for definitions across languages.)

Historically, land data was often stored in two different sets of records: a cadastre that detailed surveyed parcels and a register that detailed who held rights to land, with the two linked via parcel number. In digital systems these records are often—but not always—combined. Thus, the “land tenure dataset” this indicator examines may at times not be a single dataset but instead multiple datasets that cover the relevant information when combined.

Land tenure datasets typically rely on the existence of a national land registration system and database; land tenure data should provide information regarding specific parcels of land, and then either:

• the rights held with respect to those parcels (e.g., whether it is owned land, common land, or unregistered land); and/or
• the actual subjects—people or entities—holding tenure rights.

Note: A dataset that only provides details of land parcels, without any information on the tenure rights over the parcelsm, is not considered a land tenure dataset for the purposes of this survey.

Start by identifying the agency or agencies in charge of land registration and/or collection and publication of land tenure data. Look for registers, cadastres, and institutions working with land tenure of any type. Some countries have departments in charge of collecting and publishing land-related data, often in conjunction with geospatial data.

In some cases, information on individual rights holders may be available under more restrictive licenses than general rights information. In these cases, you can indicate that data on individual subjects is ‘partially’ available.

There may be cases in which available datasets only cover one kind of right hold: e.g., datasets of state-owned land, ownership by legal persons, or land concessions and customary land tenure. In these cases, conduct your assessment for the most open dataset(s), and indicate which kinds of tenure or data subjects are covered.

Starting points

• Sources:
  • The World Bank Doing Business Ranking contains a subindex on "Transparency of Information" (inside "Registering property") that tracks who can obtain information on land ownership from the agency in charge of immovable property registration; the subindex includes links to the relevant agencies that may be helpful. Be aware, however, that the detailed information provided in the subindex applies only to each country's largest business city.
• Search:
  • Releases of cadastral/register data;
  • Geospatial datasets;
  • Reports from government, civil society organizations, or international organizations on land tenure.
• Consult:
  • Officials with organizations that work on land tenure issues; for example, tenure security, anti-corruption, economic development, etc.;
  • Experts on land registration/land rights;
  • Geospatial data experts;
  • Rural reform advocates/experts;
  • Land information agencies;
  • Land registration agencies and/or national cadastres;
  • Geospatial agencies;
  • Open data portals.

What to look for?

Look for evidence that the data covers each of the following kinds of land tenure:

• Land tenure data involving natural persons and land tenure data involving legal persons—some countries' datasets may only cover land owned by individuals, while other countries may make data about corporate (company) land ownership accessible as open data.
• State lands—in some cases, data about the land owned by government entities is managed separately and may not be included in the main tenure dataset. Sometimes, when the main tenure dataset is closed rather than open, data about state lands may be in a separate open dataset. Land concessions information may also be bundled with state land data.
• Communal lands—land held by communities, and may include records of indigenous lands and reservations.
• Open access lands—land anyone can access;, and may include national parks or common land.
• Urban tenure and rural tenure—some tenure datasets only cover urban or rural land. Check whether both are included, or whether separate datasets exist for urban and rural areas.

Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

• Is this data available online in any form?

  • Data is not available online.

    Supporting questions: Are there other offline ways to access this data in the country? (e.g., attending an office to inspect it).

  • Data is available, but not as a result of government action.

    Supporting questions: If government is not providing access to data, how is this data available? Please provide a URL(s) for where this data can be found.

  • Data is available from government, or because of government actions.

    Supporting questions: Please provide a URL(s) for where this data can be found.

• Extent of existence:

• Do the datasets available cover the majority of urban land tenure? (The datasets available cover a small proportion of urban land tenure in the country., The datasets available cover a large proportion of urban land tenure in the country, but not all., The datasets available cover all urban land tenure in the country.)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If The datasets available cover a small proportion of urban land tenure in the country. or The datasets available cover a large proportion of urban land tenure in the country, but not all.: Please explain what is and isn’t covered.

• Do the datasets available cover the majority of rural land tenure? (The datasets available cover a small proportion of rural land tenure in the country., The datasets available cover a large proportion of rural land tenure in the country, but not all., The datasets available cover all rural land tenure in the country.)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If The datasets available cover a small proportion of rural land tenure in the country. or The datasets available cover a large proportion of rural land tenure in the country, but not all.: Please explain what is and isn’t covered.

• Existence summary:

• Please summarize your answers to the preceding existence sub-questions, including the extent of existence. [Open Text] Drawing on the research you have conducted and the evidence you have gathered for this section, describe what you have found (or not found) when answering the existence sub-questions for this indicator.

  Supporting questions

  Please provide the URL(s) for the evidence that supports the summary provided.

Elements

• Kinds of data:

• The data covers land tenure involving indigenous people or ethnic minorities (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your "Partially" response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where indigenous people or ethnic minorities land tenure data is located

• The data covers land tenure involving natural persons. (No, Partially, Yes) In some cases, information on individual rights holders may be available under more restrictive licenses than general rights information. In these cases, you can indicate that data on natural persons is ‘Partially’ available.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: Are individual persons identified in the data?

  If Partially or Yes: If land tenure data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where natural persons land tenure data is located.

• The data covers land tenure involving legal persons. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: What information is provided to identify legal persons (e.g., company registration number, company name, address, etc.)?

  If Partially or Yes: Is information provided on the beneficial ownership of land held by legal persons?

  If Partially or Yes: If land tenure data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where legal persons land tenure data is located.

  If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

• The data covers land tenure involving state land. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: If land tenure data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where state owned land data is located.

  If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

• The data covers land tenure involving communal lands. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: If land tenure data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where communal land tenure data is located.

  If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

• The data contains information about land concessions and/or leases. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: If land tenure data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where land concessions or leases data is located.

  If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

• The data contains information about roads, utilities, and corresponding rights.Supporting questions (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: If land tenure data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where information on roads, utilities, and corresponding rights is located.

  If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

• The data contains information about geological/mineral resources and rights. Supporting questions (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: If land tenure data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where geological/mineral resources and rights data is located.

  If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

• The data contains information about natural resources and environmental mapping/rights. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: If land tenure data can be found in multiple datasets, please provide the URL where natural resources and environmental mapping/rights data is located.

  If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

• Data fields and specifics:

• Each record has a geospatial reference that enables it to assign features to a spatial extent. (No, Partially, Yes) The geospatial reference might be latitude–longitude coordinates, an address, an ID to associate it to a geospatial dataset, etc. Answer "Partially" when a geographical reference exists but is broad; for example, when a neighborhood is identified, but not a more granular location. Answer "Yes" for datasets that have the most granular geographic references that can be expected for their kind.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: What kind of geospatial reference is provided?

  If Partially or Yes: Please briefly explain your answer

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide supporting URL(s) as necessary

• Each tenure record contains information about the rights held over the land (freehold, lease, etc.). (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: Please briefly explain your answer

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide supporting URL(s) as necessary

• The data includes information about individuals' sex and/or gender. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please describe what data includes sex and/or gender information.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where sex and/or gender information is located.

• Data publication:

• The data is available free of charge. (No, Partially, Yes) This means that the data is accessible without any cost, unlike cases where accessing datasets requires a one-off payment or a subscription fee.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

• The data is openly licensed. (No, Partially, Yes) This means that the data is provided under a license that clearly states that anyone may reuse it, with minimal restrictions on its reuse (e.g., attribution, share-alike).

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If No: If there are explicit restrictions placed on reuse of the data, briefly describe those.

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: If the data is provided with an explicit open license, please provide the name of that license and/or a link to it.

• The data is published with sufficient language coverage to make it accessible to all or almost all members of the public. (No, Partially, Yes) Assess this sub-question using the list of languages provided by your regional coordinator. If the country has only one official language (or de facto official language) and no national languages but there are other languages in use in the country, answer “Partially” if the data is available only in a single language. If the country has multiple official, national, or co-official regional languages, answer “Yes” if the data is available in the majority of these languages.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please briefly describe the language coverage available.

• There are accessible and open official tools available to help users explore data. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “Partially” if tools make it possible to get at extracts of data without having to download a full dataset. Answer “Yes” if there is an interactive tool that displays user-filtered extracts of the data to answer simple questions without downloading data at all.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially: What are the main barriers to accessibility and usability?

  If Partially or Yes: Do these tools rely on AI or machine-learning tools? For example, as interfaces. Please briefly explain.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide URL(s).

• The data is timely and updated. (No, Partially, Yes) If you have also assessed an associated governance framework, evaluate timeliness by comparing against the relevant schedule laid out in that framework. If there is no such schedule, look first for other indications of an expected schedule (e.g., does the site say the data is updated once a year?), and then examine the frequency, regularity, and recency of updates.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially: If only some of the relevant data is updated, please explain which.

  If Partially or Yes: When was the most recent update to this data?

• Historical data is available that allows users to track change over time. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: For what time period(s) (i.e., start and end dates) is data available?

• The data is provided in machine-readable format(s). (No, Partially, Yes) Assess the datasets you have provided in response to this indicator’s sub-questions; if there are multiple datasets, use the best example you can locate in terms of availability of open data. Note this selection in the elements summary box and then also answer the following sub-question (on bulk downloading) with respect to that specific dataset.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially: What prevents you from assessing this data as fully machine-readable?

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide a comma separated list of the formats available

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where machine-readable data is located.

• The machine-readable dataset is available as a whole. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “No” if it's only possible to access individual records. Answer “Partially” if it's possible to export extracts of the data. Answer “Yes” if there are bulk downloads or APIs providing access to the whole dataset without financial, technical, or legal barriers.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where bulk download access is available or described.

  If Partially or Yes: If bulk access is provided through an API, please provide a link to where the API is described.

• Negative scoring:

• This information is missing required data. (There is no evidence of data gaps., There is evidence that a portion of mandated data is missing., There is evidence of widespread omissions in mandated data.) In cases where the indicator itself identifies a dataset(s) to assess against—or a separate governance indicator has asked you to determine data requirements of a relevant governing framework—assess against that. In cases where there is no such identified dataset(s) or related governance indicator, please assess based on: the parameters laid out in the publication of the information (e.g., are some fields entirely empty when they shouldn't be?); your local knowledge (e.g., if the data is supposed to include information for all public officials, does the number of total entries seem reasonable?); and any broader research you may have done for this topic (e.g., have media articles decried the incompleteness of this data?). Note: this sub-question examines omissions only of mandated data; so if, for example, laws do not require the reporting of data below certain thresholds, that data is not considered “missing.”

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If There is evidence that a portion of mandated data is missing. or There is evidence of widespread omissions in mandated data.: Please briefly explain.

• Nonscoring:

• There is evidence of use of this data. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “Yes” for more than one example; answer “Partially” for a single example.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: In the example(s) provided, who is using this data? E.g., government, civil society, private sector, media, academia, others.

  If Partially or Yes: In the example(s) provided, for what purpose(s) is the data being used? E.g., for accountability, to improve access for marginalized populations, to influence policy for equity or inclusion, for red flag analysis, etc.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide URL(s) for example(s).

• Elements summary:

• Please summarize your answers to the preceding element sub-questions. [Open Text] Drawing on the research you have conducted and the evidence you have gathered for this section, describe what you have found (or not found) when answering the element sub-questions for this indicator.

  Supporting questions

  Please provide the URL(s) for the evidence that supports the summary provided.

Land is a key element in every human civilization. The way in which societies interact with land has broad impacts, from shaping social and economic development, to supporting cultural, and even religious life. The eradication of hunger and poverty, and the sustainable use of the environment depend in large measure on how people, communities, and others gain access to land and other related assets (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2012). Even though data is recognized as an important asset for good land governance, for many stakeholders, collecting and publishing information about land has been a challenge for various technical, conceptual, and political reasons.

Many initiatives, policy recommendations, and research papers highlight land tenure as fundamental to understanding land dynamics. Land tenure itself comprises a wide range of fundamental and complex topics. LandVoc, an online thesaurus for land governance, for example, classifies within this thematic area concepts such as land tenure systems, tenure regularizations, indigenous land rights, housing rights, and land ownership. For this indicator the Barometer focuses on data related to different kinds of rights held by people and/or institutions over a piece of land.