Measuring What Matters: Rethinking Tenure Security for a New Era of Development

Editorial — On the outskirts of Beira, Mozambique, Verónica stands beside the remnants of her family home, rebuilt three times over the past decade after successive cyclones and floods. Recently, her family received community land certificates through a fit-for-purpose mapping initiative.

In countries like Mozambique, where climate, development, and humanitarian challenges converge, rethinking how we measure tenure security is essential. New, outcome-oriented approaches can better capture its role in driving resilience, food security, and sustainable development. (Photo: Nzewi Confidence)

For the first time, Verónica has legal recognition of her land rights — and with it, a newfound sense of security. This shift has empowered her to rebuild using durable materials, plan for her family’s future, and invest in her community.

Verónica’s experience illustrates a broader truth: secure land tenure is not an end in itself. It is a catalyst that enables wider development outcomes — from climate adaptation and disaster resilience to food security, housing affordability, and fiscal stability. Yet, as the 2030 marker for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approach, the ways in which tenure security is measured often fail to capture its true impact.

Traditional Metrics: Valuable but Limited

Over the past decade, international efforts to measure tenure security — within the framework of the SDGs — have relied on a mix of legal, administrative, and perception-based indicators.

Global SDG indicators provide a baseline: one measures the proportion of adults with legally recognized documentation and those who perceive their tenure as secure, while another focuses on women’s ownership or secure rights over agricultural land.

National programs supplement these through parcel registration, titling campaigns, legislative reforms, and household surveys. Donor initiatives add further layers, tracking administrative efficiency, investment levels, dispute resolution, and gender outcomes.

These tools have increased visibility and created a shared language for progress. Yet they are often process-oriented rather than outcome-focused. Counting titles or issuing certificates does not reveal whether tenure security translates into climate-resilient farming, safer homes, stronger public finances, or better access to housing and credit.

For actors outside the land sector — multilateral organisations, private investors, and philanthropies — these procedural metrics may fail to communicate the broader development value of tenure security.

The Urgency for Change

With just a few years remaining to achieve the SDGs, the land sector faces a pivotal moment. The global development agenda now emphasises interconnected priorities: climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, food security, resilient and affordable housing, sustainable urbanisation, fiscal reform, and digital transformation.

As highlighted during UNGA80’s high-level week, the global agenda is shifting toward interconnected priorities—from climate adaptation to resilient housing and digital transformation. Rethinking how we measure tenure security is critical to positioning land rights at the center of this development push. (Photo: Manuel Elias)

Tenure security is central to each of these domains, yet current measurement approaches rarely communicate its cross-cutting impact. What is needed is a practical, scalable framework that links land rights directly to sector-relevant outcomes.

Innovation in Measurement

Recent innovations offer promising pathways.

Spatial monitoring technologies — including satellite imagery, drones, and digital twin models — allow real-time tracking of land use changes following tenure interventions. In parts of East Africa, remote sensing has shown whether newly certified land is being invested in — through tree planting, irrigation, or permanent housing — providing evidence of behavioral change at scale.

Participatory and fit-for-purpose mapping methods have also expanded. By involving communities directly in mapping and validating land rights, these approaches capture customary, communal, and informal tenure arrangements. Success is measured not only by coverage but by community validation, inclusivity, and durability over time.

Elsewhere, tenure data is being linked with climate and resilience indicators. Some programmes track deforestation, watershed improvements, and adaptive land management, making land tenure metrics directly relevant to climate finance and policy instruments.

The digitisation of land administration has created additional measurement opportunities. Governments can now track interoperability, accessibility, transaction speed, and transparency. These indicators connect land governance to fiscal reform and digital government goals, showing how secure, efficient land systems strengthen public finances and service delivery.

Persistent Gaps

Despite progress, significant challenges remain. Fragmentation of metrics across agencies, governments, and donors makes global comparison difficult. Many frameworks fail to capture cross-sectoral impacts, leaving questions about whether tenure security truly contributes to climate resilience, agricultural productivity, or safer housing.

Customary, communal, and informal tenure arrangements remain underrepresented, while gender and intersectional dimensions are inconsistently recorded. Few programs track whether gains in tenure security endure over time, and the technical language of the land sector can limit engagement with climate negotiators, financiers, and urban planners.

The solution lies in a new generation of outcome-oriented, inclusive, and development-aligned tenure metrics. Such a framework should link tenure security directly to climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, food security, housing resilience, fiscal stability, and digital transformation.

It should be simple enough for consistent application across contexts, inclusive of diverse tenure systems, interoperable with global reporting mechanisms, and communicated in language that resonates with decision-makers across sectors.

This approach is not merely technical — it is a strategic repositioning of the land sector within the wider development landscape.

Looking Ahead: From Certificates to Impact

Verónica’s certificate in Beira is more than a legal document. It is a catalyst for climate resilience, secure shelter, and long-term investment. Her story reminds us that tenure security is best measured by the ripple effects it sets in motion: safer homes, more resilient landscapes, thriving farms, stronger public finances, and inclusive governance.

As 2030 approaches, the global community has the opportunity to adopt a shared, practical, and outcome-driven measurement framework—ensuring that secure land rights take their rightful place at the heart of development.