Access to land is a necessary part of housing development. However, certain tenure systems don’t support the emergence of formal land markets, and ineffective land administration can also hamper efforts to make land available. Only an estimated 10% of land in Sub-Saharan Africa is formally registered, and in West Africa, land registration is even less common. Governments, then, need to play a key role in the recording and enforcing of ownership claims.
Ghana has taken steps to improve land administration first by expanding the reach of land registries. Following the lead of Tanzania, Ghana surveyed all of its communal lands and registered over half of them at a cost of $500 per village. In order to streamline registration procedures, Ghana also digitized all land records and registration systems, which cut down the number of days to transfer property from 169 to 34.
Source:
World Bank Group. (2015) Stocktaking of the Housing Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Opportunities. World Bank, Washington, DC.