Geoffrey Payne outlines five fundamental propositions that are key to his understanding of tenure issues and policy options.
1) That access to affordable land with adequate security of tenure and associated rights is a pre-condition for realising the goal of adequate housing and poverty reduction;
2) the failure in rapidly expanding urban areas to provide planned land on terms and in locations needed by different population groups has forced many millions of people into insecure land and housing, often without basic services;
3) that mainstream policies, such as land titling, are less effective in addressing these issues in urban than in rural areas;
4) a wide range of incremental, short, medium and longer terms options have succeeded in improving tenure security and living conditions, and;
5) such pragmatic approaches enable governments and development agencies to evolve more formal tenure regimes applicable to widely different legal, cultural and institutional contexts.