An end to global poverty starts with property rights

The key to securing global prosperity in our increasingly interconnected global marketplace is addressing the housing crisis that no one talks about.

While experts debate how best to solve the international financial crisis, providing the world’s poor with secure tenure to their home or land is a crucial global economic and social problem for which solutions already exist.

Recently, the U.S. mortgage crisis has squeezed many Americans who are struggling to stay in their homes, a struggle they share with 20 percent of the world’s population. A full 80 percent of that population, however, has no legal documentation of their property rights or the legal right to stay in their homes.

The absence of clear, enforceable rules and the lack of a simple piece of paper, like a deed, are often roadblocks on the pathway from poverty to prosperity for the world’s poor.

Secure tenure — the freedom to live without fear of eviction, the freedom of knowing that property rights are protected — matters not only for you, but also for these individuals, families and communities in the poorest corners of the world. Having a place to call home, or a piece of land to farm, or a place to start a business matters to the poor and non-poor alike, and all of us should have secure access to rights of use, ownership and transfer.

Secure tenure is an economic matter. Tenure security can provide opportunities for investment and accumulation of wealth and can encourage business development. Farmers make more productive use of land they own, investing in improvements or higher-value crops and safeguarding it from environmental degradation.

For households and small businesses, legal records of land ownership are one factor necessary to access credit.

Secure land and property tenure also expands basic public services. Because of it, poor communities are in a better position to demand that their local governments provide electricity, clean water, and proper sanitation, improving the health of residents.

Women and children across the globe face many laws and customary practices that don’t protect women’s tenure rights. Yet, a woman’s ability to inherit and hold onto rights to her land is a crucial social safety net that protects her and her children. The lack of tenure rights worsens the plight of HIV/AIDS widows, for example. It threatens children with homelessness, hunger and loss of education. Children sometimes forgo school to guard their homes and farms for fear of being evicted while their mothers work. This is unacceptable in today’s world.

Ultimately, for secure tenure to foster growth that reaches the poor, it must be codified and rooted in an efficient system where transparency and good democratic governance protect property rights for all segments of society. This means effective property laws, titling or other legal land records, and reliable land transfer and registration services. Improving real property rights systems will yield long-term dividends by enhancing the climate for investment and finance in both urban and rural areas where market economics is taking hold. Completing this job will take time; and the time to start is now.

Governments and nongovernmental organizations alike can support those working toward these reforms.

Habitat for Humanity continues to raise awareness about the urgent need for tenure security to improve housing conditions for the world’s poor and recently published a detailed tenure report with policy recommendations.

The Millennium Challenge Corp., an innovative U.S. government development assistance agency, has already committed more than $278 million toward projects in poor countries worldwide that have themselves made secure and efficient access to land a goal for their long-term economic growth and poverty reduction.

Land and shelter are among the most important assets the poor have, both to survive and to prosper.

Today, we have a historic opportunity to demonstrate strategic American leadership in fighting global poverty by championing secure tenure for the poor. To empower the poor toward a life of opportunity not only benefits them but also contributes to the global peace and prosperity we all seek.

• John Danilovich is CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corp. and former U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica and Brazil.

Jonathan Reckford is CEO of Habitat for Humanity International.