Rural Land Plans: Establishing Relevant Systems for Identifying and Recording Customary Rights

Abstract

"The aim of this paper is not to compare knowledge and information on all the issues raised by the use of the 'rural land plan tool', known in French as Plan Foncier Rural (PFR). Our contribution will focus on what these experiences teach us about the more general question of identifying and recording customary rights, in terms of how they contribute to the securing of these rights. In fact, this is one of the main concerns in the implementation of PFRs, although they are obviously supposed to take account of the legally sanctioned rights encountered in the field, and to contribute to other objectives like rural development and improvement."