Innovating Along the Continuum of Land Rights Recognition: Meridia’s “Documentation Packages” for Ghana

Abstract

Documentation of land rights can ensure tenure security and facilitate smooth land transactions, but in most countries of the global south this has been difficult to achieve. These difficulties are related to the high transaction cost, long transaction times, and procedural rigidity of land registration processes. In response to these problems, innovative approaches of tenure documentation have been conceived at a global level and are being promoted in many countries of the global south. Little is known yet about how such innovative land tenure documentation approaches unfold in various contexts and to what effect. The implementation of innovative approaches is challenging, due to the legal pluralistic nature of land governance and administrative hybridity in many countries of the global south, including the West African region. This qualitative study explores how Meridia, a small for-profit company, develops innovative approaches to register land rights in the form of “documentation packages” within the existing institutional setting of Ghana. In the paper, we describe both the processes of preparing the documentation packages and respective actors involved, as well as the nature of encounters between innovative interventions and existing institutions. Meridia develops specific products in response to both the regional diversity of land tenure, uses, and market demands, as well as in response to the challenges that the institutional context poses to the process of land tenure registration. As such, the case illustrates how innovation evolves in step-by-step fashion through negotiations with existing land institutions. The various documentation packages developed in this manner differ in terms of cost and complexity of preparation, in terms of recognition by customary and statutory institutions, as well as in the usability of the issued certificates and the extent of exchangeability of associated land parcels. Therefore, Meridia’s product innovation reflects the continuum of land rights, but it also poses questions for future research regarding the political economy of land tenure certification and regarding the actual uses and benefits of issued certificates.

The nexus between land title registration and property prices in Ghana: evidence from Accra’s housing market

“…The idea of property formalization has been popularized as a way of reviving dead capital and De Soto (2000) points to it as the fundamental factor that explains the success of capitalism in different parts of the world. In recent times, land market transactions have become more cosmopolitan transcending beyond national borders and enabling online transactions through information technology and the land registry opens a window through which land information can be accessed by a worldwide audience (Salifu et al ., 2019). This therefore reaffirms the role of up-to-date land information without which the participation of especially foreign market players (who often have little or no knowledge of the local property market conditions) is inhibited leading to market stagnation and possible fraud (Ubink et al ., 2009).…”

Pursuing PhD by publication in geography: a collaborative autoethnography of two African doctoral researchers

“…As the research work progressed, we sharpened our scholarly writing skill by co-authoring articles outside of our PhD works. Through such external collaborations, the first author successfully published in Geojournal and Sage Open (See Asante & Sasu, 2018;Asante et al, , 2017 while the second author also published in geography journals such as Climate Services, Land and Cities (See Ahmed et al, 2020;Naab et al, 2019;Salifu et al, 2019). Thus, collaborations outside one's PhD study plays a significant role in one's academic development, and helps to diversify one's academic experience.…”

Land, Innovation, and Social Good

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