September 2025

The LandMark platform was recently updated to add more information about national land tenure and property laws in the dataset Indicators of Tenure Security in National Law, which can be found in the left-hand layer panel under National Level Maps. This global dataset was first produced for LandMark in 2015, and this version incorporates updated information for 53 countries in Africa.

About the Indicators

The Indicators of Tenure Security in National Law dataset is composed of ten questions that assess the security of land tenure for Indigenous Peoples or local communities in a country’s national laws. Given that some countries have laws that apply differently for Indigenous Peoples and local communities, there are subcategories for Indigenous Peoples’ Land and Resource Rights and Local Communities’ Land and Resource Rights.

The ten indicators and questions listed in Table 1 were identified as the most important to assess the strength of laws in recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ land and natural resource rights. And each of the indicators and questions in Table 1 were evaluated according to the scoring criteria presented in Table 2. The assessment of each indicator is based on a review of relevant national laws, including the constitution, statutes, regulations, and high court cases, to the extent they are available. Any international conventions signed or ratified by a country are included in the assessment only to the extent that they are incorporated into domestic law and enacted as local statute. There is no attempt to assess the implementation or enforcement of the law, or the government’s, local community’ or Indigenous Peoples’ perceptions of the security of their land rights.

An average score for the entire country is presented on the map and in the country profile panel based on the collective scores for each of the ten indicators. A higher average score indicates overall weak laws, and a lower average score indicates stronger laws that better protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples or local communities. More information about the indicators and methods for evaluation are available in the LandMark Indicator of Tenure Security Guidelines.

How to View the Data