Abstract
What potential will the fit-for-purpose land administration concept have of working in the Republic of South Africa? This question is asked against the existence of a high-quality cadastre covering most of the South African landmass. However, a large proportion of the people living in South Africa live outside of this secure land tenure system. Many citizens and immigrants reside on communal land, in informal settlements, in resettled communities, in off-register housing schemes, and as farm dwellers, labour tenants and other occupants of commercial farms. Reasonable estimates suggest that there are more than 5 million land occupations that exist outside the formal land tenure system and hence outside the formal land administration system. This paper looks at the current bifurcated system and considers how the application of the fit-for-purpose land administration system can expand the existing cadastral system and provide security of tenure that is beneficial and acceptable to all. It demonstrates that, not only could it work, but it is also considered to be necessary. This paper uses South Africa as a case study to demonstrate how adjustments to institutional, legal and spatial frameworks will develop a fully inclusive, sufficiently accurate land administration system that fits the purpose for which it is envisioned. These country-specific proposals may well be of international interest to assist with the formulation of fit-for-purpose land administration systems being developed in other countries.
Highlights
Land administration is defined in the Land Administration Domain Model as “the process of determining, recording and disseminating information about the relationship between people and land” [1]
The Framework for Effective Land Administration released by the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management notes that “all people have the right to an adequate standard of living, regardless of whether underlying people-to-land relationships are formal, informal, statutory, customary, legal, legitimate, or otherwise in nature” [2], (p. 7)
South African government’s vision, it is argued that the fit-for-purpose land administration concept is highly suited to provide a mechanism to bring all legitimate land occupations, currently excluded, into a unitary land administration system
Summary
Land administration is defined in the Land Administration Domain Model as “the process of determining, recording and disseminating information about the relationship between people and land” [1]. The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the context of National Food Security (VGGT) notes that “access to land, fisheries and forests is defined and regulated by societies through systems of tenure. These tenure systems determine who can use which resources, for how long, and under what conditions” [3], Conventional land administration systems require high accuracy standards for identification, mapping and recordation of land rights They are generally expensive and operate within a judicially oriented legal framework. The fit-for-purpose land administration concept with its three key pillars (institutional, legal and spatial frameworks) supports all these goals by maximising the documenting and recording of people-to-land relationships, thereby facilitating their recognition and inclusion [7], (p. 13)
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