One in every five person around the world fear losing their homes, a global survey of perceptions of property rights shows. Prindex, a ground-breaking global survey, measures how secure people feel in their land and property rights. Having previously published data and analysis for 33 countries, Prindex released its full global dataset of 140 countries, on July 15 in an online event. 
The average rates of insecurity are highest in the Middle East and North Africa (28%) regions, and also in sub-Saharan Africa (26%), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (21%). Not surprisingly, it is the lowest in Europe (12%) and North America (14%), and also Central Asia (12%), East Asia and the Pacific (15%).
When interpreting these averages, regional population matters, the report notes. For instance, East Asia and Pacific, with 275 million people, and South Asia, with 269 million people, jointly account for around 56% of the global population. Together, they are home to 57% of those who perceive their property rights to be insecure. Policy interventions targeting these regions could have a high development impact and facilitate progress toward achieving SDG 1.4.2 and other global development goals, the report said.
Even within these countries, insecurity may vary across different parts of the country or between groups. Overall four groups stand out as being particularly vulnerable — Women in sub-Saharan Africa; urban dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa and the Philippines; young people, especially those with basic levels education or low incomes in high income countries; and renters, especially in the Middle East.
“The global pandemic has made having a stable, safe place to live an urgent issue,” said Malcolm Childress, Director of the Global Land Alliance, a Washington-based think tank, and Co-Director of Prindex. “While many governments have moved to enact temporary protections, longer-term policy solutions are needed to avoid crisis in many, many countries,” he added.
Incidentally, those most likely to feel insecure about their housing are also those that have been hit the hardest economically by COVID-19.
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Property rights and development issues interlinked
Other than the pandemic, the study also found that there are growing links between insecure property rights and other development issues such as armed conflict or and the climate crisis. Those who feared for their future property rights cited factors including lack of funds to pay rent, family disagreements, or land seizures by governments, businesses, or others. Women were more likely than men to expect to lose their home in the event of a divorce or death of their spouse.
it would be interesting to point out that not all countries conform to the average within every region and may also need to be the focus of policy interventions to strengthen land and property rights. There are also countries where people appear to be particularly vulnerable, such as Turkey (31%) in Europe and Central Asia; Guatemala (33%) in Latin America and the Caribbean; Iran (42%) in the Middle East and North Africa; Burkina Faso (44%) in sub-Saharan Africa; and the Philippines in East Asia and the Pacific, where nearly half of the adult population (48%) feel insecure. Conversely, there may be positive lessons to learn from Rwanda, whose population enjoys high levels of confidence in the security of their land and property rights, with just 8% feeling insecure.
“These rates of insecurity are alarming. People living in the shadow of eviction struggle to plan for their future, make productive investments, or get an education – with dire ramifications for community development and economic growth,” said Anna Locke, Director of the Sustainable Environments and Societies Programme at ODI and Co-Director of Prindex.
Prindex works on how people worldwide view the security of their right to retain use of their homes and other property, in order to encourage and empower governments, business, and civil society working to build a world where tenure rights are securely protected. It is supported by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and PlaceFund — formerly Omidyar Network’s property rights initiative and now a venture fund with which the Thomson Reuters Foundation has a partnership on property rights coverage.
