Unbundling tenure security and demand for property rights: Evidence from urban Tanzania

Abstract

Rapid urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa occurs with little land registration, and government-led regularisation schemes often find limited uptake of title deeds by residents. In theory, there could be private and public benefits from land titling in cities. However, little is known about how landholders value the various dimensions of formal property rights in comparison to informal tenure. We address these questions by unbundling property rights into multiple functions of tenure security and by adopting an innovative combination of methods, including an incentivised willingness-to-pay exercise, a survey, and in-depth interviews conducted in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Examining how landholders perceive dimensions of tenure advances our understanding of limited land formalisation in urban Africa and provides evidence for alternative policy approaches to address local demand for tenure security more effectively.