Beyond the land register: information scarcity and adaptive market practices in urban Ghana

Reliable land information is a cornerstone for building functional land markets. However, many developing countries lack complete, accessible, and up-to-date land information systems, creating conditions of uncertainty for land transactions. This paper examines how actors navigate such information opacity in urban land markets – highlighting coping strategies that emerge as a result. The paper argues that these coping strategies emerge and crystalize over time due to institutional constraints, and help market actors to balance risks in acquiring real property. Thus, the study challenges the dominant assumption that frames informality as market failure that can simply be corrected through formalization.