Title:
'Property Ladder' Helps Poor Gain Land Rights
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
See text below
Text:
Less than a third of people in developing countries
own or have any official right to the land they live
on. Development experts say gaining land rights is
important for reducing poverty and increasing
economic growth and food production. Poor people can
then use the land as security to get bank loans.
Land records can also show foreign investors that
the land and the rights of those on it are legally
secure. Foreign demand has increased in recent years
for agricultural land in Africa, Asia and South
America. UN-Habitat official Clarissa Augustinus in
Nairobi, Kenya, says: "When an investor goes to the
government and says 'I want a piece of land,' the
government looks on their maps which show that that
particular piece of land is empty, and they give it
to an investor. But when the investor goes there and
looks at the land, he sees that it is fully occupied
by a tribe or a family or whatever." Forcing the
people off the land can harm the investor's image.
Ms. Augustinus says ownership documents like deeds
and titles are rare because establishing property
lines and recording land is expensive. UN-Habitat
says the answer for some countries is to create a
series of steps in gaining land rights -- a
so-called property ladder. First, people could
receive a simple document or starter title to the
land they are on. They would be safe from the threat
of being forced off the land by the state or wealthy
buyers. Higher steps would provide greater rights.
Finally, a majority of a community could decide to
allow individual ownership of the land. Namibia,
Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia are among the countries
adopting property ladders. Ms. Augustinus says
Ethiopia has already provided twenty million land
certificates on the lower end of the property ladder
for about one dollar each. In Southeast Asia, the
United States Agency for International Development
is working on a project to help Timor-Leste develop
property rights. The first step is an official
certificate recognizing a landholder's unopposed
claim. East Timor separated from Indonesia in
nineteen ninety-nine. The Indonesian army had
destroyed land records and forced communities from
their land to break up resistance. For VOA Special
English, I'm Alex Villarreal. You find live English
lessons Monday through Friday at the VOA Learning
English page on Facebook. You can also read, listen
and learn with MP3s and texts of stories at
voaspecialenglish.com
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personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
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