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conditionality of local community development.These procedures could be regulatedand implemented on the basis of multilateralcharters. 27 In the case of state co-ownershipof fossil energy reserves, the local populationsshould be included in the chain of value additionby tradable shares in general public funds.Distributing among the poor shares or otherforms of ownership participation in state ownedcompanies that exploit the natural resourceswill provide them with capital that, inter alia,can propel the expansion of small businesses.Another option is distributing titles to specialfunds created by governments to invest profitsyielded by commodities. 287) Utilise Modern Technology. Manual systemsof land registration are highly labour intensiveand lead to significant error and duplication.Moreover, the costs of manual land survey andregistration processes are often prohibitive.Recent advances in technology, including thewidespread availability of satellite imageryand handheld GPS devices, together with institutionalarrangements that put local actorsin charge of systematic adjudication, can significantlyreduce the cost and effort of issuingland registration documents. Moreover, moderntechnology can help to improve transparencyand at the same time make land administrationmore accessible. 29 There are caveatsto this process, identified in the report.Based on these principles, developing countrygovernments, supported by the internationalcommunity, must devise a series of innovative,pro-poor land reform policies that are distinctlyfocused on ensuring that more of the benefits ofproperty systems accrue to those at the very bottomof the economic ladder. A careful stocktakingof such efforts already underway in various partsof the world, including analysis of conditions thatgave rise to such efforts, and possibilities for theirexpansion, will be instructive. We can developtransitional reform mechanisms from experiencein the Philippines, for example, where the nationalgovernment employs intermediate instruments ofland tenure, such as land proclamations, to assurethe poor that they will not be evicted fromland they occupy, and that social services will beimproved while plot ownership is formalised. 30Or we consider how the South African experiencewith Mzansi accounts, providing low-fee bankingfor poor people working in the informal sector,could be replicated elsewhere. 31 Modalities exist toempower the poor through property rights, but wemust now scale up and catalyse them.ConclusionLegal Empowerment of the Poor through propertyrights requires sustained efforts. Property systemsthat exclude large segments of the global populationfrom property rights have to be discontinuedand we must expand the zone of legitimate landtenure through improved access and security.Developing country governments must enter intoa compact with their own citizens and with theinternational community to support this reform.The aid community understands that propertyrights must be a central tenet of any efforts toreduce poverty, and allocates funding on thisbasis. Today, the key challenge is to consolidatethinking and draw good practice from effectiveinterventions to date to improve pro-poor outcomes,develop effective land management institutions,establish clear rules for the managementof public land, and strengthen the institutionalframework and mechanisms for land transfer andaccess. Property rights are too central to humandignity and prosperity for current thinking andpractice to continue. Only with empowermentthrough property rights can we truly seek to reduceglobal poverty and reduce inequality.72