The brainstorm with World Bank colleagues and IOM staff helped walk through the idea of soft land rights and the concept of “land claim as story” to enable households and communities to best use the information and documentation at their disposal (which is incredibly variable) to better face crisis and displacement.
Key Takeaways
- “Soft” View of Property Ownership: use information that is currently available to identify ‘soft’ claims for land rights.
- Three Elements (property, claim, owner): Each claim is defined by a flexible view of the property, the ‘owner’ (which may a person, family, community, etc), and the nature of the property right.
- Supported by Available information: descriptions of the property, owner, and claim are supported by currently available evidence (testimonies, family records, photos, community leaders, etc)
- The Claim is a Story: Instead of the claim being limited to a hard set of formal records, each claim is a story based on currently available evidence and tailored to the situation.