From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWER‘breathe life into dead assets’ by using their houses or land as collateralto obtain credit and kickstart a business. He even puts some ratherdubious numbers on such assets, extrapolating from studies in fivelarge cities to arrive at an eye-popping global estimate of $9.3 trillionin ‘dead capital’ owned by the poor – a figure on a par with thecombined value of the world’s 20 largest stock markets. 86De Soto’s thinking has been taken up with enthusiasm by politiciansacross the spectrum. A 2005 housing policy document from the SouthAfrican government, ‘Breaking New Ground’, complains that the 1.6million new houses funded by the state since 1994 have not become‘valuable assets’ for poorer people, and emphasises the need forimproved access to title deeds so that poor people can participate inresidential property markets. 87What many of De Soto’s followers fail to appreciate is his insistencethat effective property-rights systems grow out of customary law orother initially non-statutory systems, such as those developed bysquatters and settlers. His more zealous acolytes too often ignore thesubtle and complex forms of land use and implied property rightsalready in operation among poor people and impose legalistic ‘offthe-shelf’regimes.In Papua New Guinea (PNG) over 97 per cent of land is under suchtraditional ‘customary’ title, and there is a significant push, includingfrom the Australian government and the World Bank, to reform landownershipsystems on the premise that customary title is an impedimentto development. However, research from the Australian NationalUniversity shows that in recent decades agricultural production inPNG – both domestically marketed food and export crops – hasexpanded steadily under customary tenures, while mostly decliningunder registered titles. Individual land titles have not helped producerswith the problems and shocks they faced (including declining worldprices, inability to switch from one commodity to another as themarket changed, poor transport infrastructure, and security issues),whereas smallholders under customary tenure systems have been ableto adapt more readily to changing circumstances and constraints. 88Customary laws did not develop in a political or social vacuum,however. They often reflect the interests of the more powerful groupsin society, and are determined by many of the same structures that72