Counter-intuitively, economic growth (a prerequisite for reducing poverty in the world’s poorest countries) and the well-being of the worst-off and most vulnerable populations are often at odds in the developing world. This tension between poverty, equity, and economic growth is most visibly salient in disputes over land—a key resource for the food security and livelihoods of the poor, but also an essential resource for growth-enhancing investments in energy production and industrial manufacturing. Simmering land disputes that pit growth against equity roil just beneath the surface in many countries; just this past week, these conflicts have boiled over for different reasons across continents, from Kenya to China to Myanmar.

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Emerging Voices features regular contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is from Amanda Richardson, an attorney and land tenure specialist with Landesa. She discusses the benefits that secure land rights can bring to women and their communities.

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Recent weeks have seen simmering property rights conflicts around the world: Burmese citizens marching in protest against the government’s seizure of their lands for a hotel zone; Vietnamese villagers contesting the confiscation of their land for an EcoPark satellite city project; and violent clashes breaking out in Panama City over a controversial law allowing the sale of state-owned land in the port city of Colón—Latin America’s largest duty-free zone.

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A new consensus has emerged in recent years that good institutions—especially the fair and predictable rule of law, and accountable governments that effectively serve their citizens—are prerequisites for sustainable and inclusive growth.  In this view, getting governance right is an integral part of reducing poverty. Read more »

Emerging Voices features regular contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is from Stanislav Markus, assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Markus outlines his findings from a recent article on how firms in Russia and Ukraine can use bottom-up methods to protect their property rights in a weak state environment.

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The conventional wisdom has long held secure private property rights to be a critical ingredient of economic growth. At a micro level, secure property rights generate growth by incentivizing efficient levels of investment and ensuring that land and other resources are neither over- nor under-utilized; reducing transaction costs and allowing the reallocation of resources to more efficient users; and facilitating access to credit and the conversion of dead assets into investment capital. At a macro level, secure private property rights—as an essential pillar of individual liberty—create political accountability, which in turn leads to economic policies that are broadly growth-enhancing rather than narrowly beneficial to powerful, rent-seeking elites.

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