Innovative approaches through mobile apps to improve tenure security in subSaharan Africa

Due to the affordances of new digital data technologies in conjunction with policy paradigms of efficiency, participation, transparency, and open government, innovative tools and approaches for tenure documentation have emerged in recent years.

The new technologies present a variety of innovative alternative and complementary solutions for development and support of Land Information Systems (LIS). An array of innovative tools for tenure recordation have been piloted and implemented since 2011, for example, through fit-for-purpose land administration initiatives (FIG, 2014; UN-HABITAT 2016). They aim to address the challenge of unavailability of tenure information as well as the concerns of weak administrative and legal statutory environments around the tenure documentation by advocating for openness of land tenure information for informed decision making by third parties (e.g. large scale investors), emphasizing diversity in land tenure systems and rights, with special emphasis on women’s and other vulnerable groups’ rights, aspiring to work with and working with community driven and/or community generated digital data, data collection at scale and the use of such data for strengthening tenure security.