Access to land is a necessary part of housing development. However, certain tenure systems don’t support the emergency of land markets, and ineffective land administration can also hamper efforts to make land available. In Ethiopia, the government has control over all land and land administration issues, making land difficult to acquire and tenure rights difficult to obtain and protect – resulting in high housing costs. Residents are able to sell property and improvements on the land, but not the land itself.
In an attempt to improve land administration processes and therefore encourage the function of formal land markets, Ethiopia has taken steps to improve the reach of land registries. For less than US$1 per parcel, Ethiopia issues certificates for 20 million parcels of land and mapped them onto a cadastral index map for less than US$5 per parcel.
Source:
World Bank Group. (2015) Stocktaking of the Housing Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Opportunities. World Bank, Washington, DC.