Land: Governance, Digitization and Human Rights – a Comparative Study

The digitization of land records is being promoted by the World Bank at scale, especially in developing countries. Efficiently maintaining land records can improve tenure safety and food security, reduce poverty, and aid democratic urbanization. While the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development encourages the use of new technology to administer land, it also forewarns that such initiatives ought to factor in digital divide. These evolving processes tend to have a detrimental impact on the tenure rights of marginalized people who are devoid of both access and understanding of such modernization efforts. Through this paper, we examine digitization and associated land governance processes from a human rights perspective. To bring them to light, we compare digitization initiatives in both India and South Africa and draw lessons from them to address issues of equity, inclusion, and good governance in an increasingly digital world.