What are the challenges of incorporating the diverse land rights of the majority of South Africans into the existing formal land registration system?

The apartheid legacy of imposing an exclusive private property regime, thereby rendering indigenous forms of tenure invisible, continues to contribute to the high levels of poverty on the continent, and in South Africa, to the extraordinary levels of inequality that persist. In addition, the scramble for Africa’s natural resources that intensified over the last decades have exponentially increased the pressure on these unregistered rights. This is the first of a series of three policy briefs in which we unpack the problem of registering the land rights of millions of South Africans currently not capable of being registered in the formal deeds registration system. We explain why the problem is a complex one that requires a considered response. After discussing the most important existing initiatives that are aimed at addressing the problem in the second brief, we suggest a way forward for policymakers on this issue in the third.