Customary Power Can Both Boost and Block Land Titling in Africa

Why Land Titles Matter?

Only about 15% of African households hold formal titles to agricultural land, even though titles are widely available and linked to higher investment returns. Matthew Ribar probes why uptake remains low by connecting land titling to local politics and national tenure regimes—an important question for development, property rights, and rural livelihoods across Sub-Saharan Africa.

What Ribar Does

Ribar combines a large cross-national dataset with a focused case study to show how the interaction of national institutions and local customary authority shapes whether households secure formal land titles.

Data and Measurement

• A pooled dataset of 170,216 household-level titling observations across 22 African countries.
• A novel geospatial measure of land values and the potential returns to agricultural investment used to proxy where titling is most economically valuable.
• A field case study in Côte d’Ivoire featuring an original survey of 801 households and 194 customary elites to trace the local political mechanisms behind statistical patterns.

How the Analysis Works

Statistical models link the likelihood that households hold formal titles to spatial variation in agricultural returns, while interacting that relationship with national land-tenure centralization and the strength of customary institutions. The Côte d’Ivoire survey provides qualitative and quantitative evidence on how local elites and customary authorities influence titling decisions and enforcement on the ground.

Key Findings

• Households located in areas with higher potential returns to agricultural investment are more likely to hold formal land titles.
• The effect of economic returns on titling depends on the national land-tenure regime and the strength of customary institutions:
• In countries with centralized land-tenure regimes, strong customary institutions weaken (attenuate) the link between high agricultural returns and titling uptake.
• In countries with decentralized land-tenure regimes, strong customary institutions strengthen (reinforce) that link.
• The Côte d’Ivoire case traces how customary elites shape recognition, bargaining, and enforcement around land claims—conditions under which customary authority can impede title uptake and, by extension, development-oriented investment.

What This Means for Policy and Research

Ribar’s work shows titling programs cannot be treated as purely technical interventions. National tenure design and local customary power interact in complex ways: reformers should consider local political arrangements and elite incentives when promoting formalization of land rights. The study highlights the value of combining large-scale geospatial analysis with targeted fieldwork to reveal the local politics behind property-rights outcomes.