This article assesses the efficacy of best-practice tenure reforms for conflict-affected populations, using a case study of Sri Lanka’s post-conflict Northern Province. In Sri Lanka, as in other conflict and post-conflict societies, increasing tenure security is a policy priority to build peace and foment socioeconomic development. This paper finds, however, that increasing tenure security through land titling in the Northern Province has been difficult, because allocating indefeasible ownership rights is challenging in a context of mass displacement and the erosion of subnational land administration capacity. In contrast, the paper charts the experience of a recent fit-for-purpose land sector intervention, which has enabled rapid increases in tenure security at scale through distributing intermediary tenure documents that confer occupancy rights. The paper argues that the fit-for-purpose land administration model could be strengthened to engender further increases in tenure security in Sri Lanka. It should also be considered as a scalable best-practice alternative to land titling in post-conflict and other challenging contexts.

本文通过对斯里兰卡冲突后北部省份的案例研究，评估了受冲突影响人群的最佳保有权改革实践的效果。在斯里兰卡，与其他冲突和冲突后社会一样，加强保有权保障是建设和平和促进社会经济发展的政策优先事项。然而，本文发现，在北部省份通过土地所有权来增加保有权保障一直很困难，因为在大规模流离失所和地方土地管理能力受到侵蚀的背景下，分配不可取消的所有权具有挑战性。相比之下，本文描绘了最近适合用途的土地部门干预的经验，该干预通过分发授予占用权的中介权属文件，实现了大规模的权属保障的快速增加。该文件认为，可以加强适合用途的土地管理模式，以进一步提高斯里兰卡的保有权保障。它还应被视为冲突后和其他具有挑战性的环境中土地所有权的可扩展最佳实践替代方案。