Evaluating the Community Land Record System in Monwabisi Park Informal Settlement in the Context of Hybrid Governance and Organisational Culture

Abstract

The study examined the effectiveness of a community-operated land record system (CRS), a product of an evolutionary information system planning approach under hybrid governance arrangements in Monwabisi Park informal settlement in Cape Town. To structure the analysis, the authors adapted an analytical framework for analysing land registration effectiveness to community records systems. It serves as a tool for analysing, designing and managing similar information systems. The CRS is an element of a participatory planning and development project involving a triad: (a) community-based organisations (CBOs); (b) a non-governmental organisation (NGO), which has acted as a change agent, facilitator and resource provider; and (c) the City of Cape Town. The hybrid governance institutions comprised a set of local community and government protocols. Of further significance are the organisational cultures of the CBOs, and the NGO’s information system team differs markedly from that of most land registries. The researchers examined the CRS database and operations management, interviewed key-informants and interviewed shack residents door-to-door. The CRS was effective because residents used it and largely adhered to the associated documented community protocols to defend their tenure and to effect transactions in shacks. Further contributors were the NGO and CBOs continually managed the institutional and leadership dynamics relevant to the CRS, factors often ignored in similar projects.

Evaluating Some Major Assumptions in Land Registration: Insights from Ghana’s Context of Land Tenure and Registration

“…Such intervening socio-cultural structures alleviate the need for registration. This scenario demonstrates the land registration usage theory [58] and shows how alternative strategies are used to secure land rights, and thus highlights the ineffectiveness of existing recording systems in these rural areas as background reference [40,58]. Moreover, the interrelationships between different land rights that coexisted more or less peacefully under customary norms come into dispute when they encounter registration.…”

“…Even some commentators who argue strongly for the universal desirability of land registration acknowledge the existence of tenure security among indigenous people in the absence of registration [34]. It is important to recognize that the effectiveness of land registration systems, like other information systems, increases when people see the need to interact with them and use them as a basis for transactions and defense of tenure security [40,41].…”

“…Given the pronounced role of non-state actors in FFP approaches and the need for contextualization, it is crucial to allow the needs for registration to naturally emerge locally to some reasonable extent before a registration intervention. When this happens, landholders are more willing to undertake registration on account of personal awareness, which helps to keep the register up-to-date [40]. Assuming a general desirability for registration potentially leaves a gap between the local reality of landholders on the one hand, and administrative expectations on the other.…”

“…For FFP-LA, there is the need to keep a balance between the state's desire to undertake land registration and the reality of landholdings and local economy within a community. If the local economic circumstances are ripe, it might be sufficient to entice people to undertake registration after an initial register is compiled [40]. Figuring out the right time to deploy land registration can go a long way to promote sustainable land registers.…”