Does land titling matter? The role of land property rights in Colombia’s war on drugs

The ‘war on drugs’ has failed. Despite an increase in law enforcement, production levels of coca – the crop used to make cocaine – have hardly altered in the last decade.

A 2017 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca cultivation in Colombia had increased by 52 per cent; thus, there is an urgent need to find alternative policies to counter illicit behaviour. Research by the Institute of Development Studies found that regions in Colombia with a higher level of land titling, where people who have worked land for many years are given formal ownership of it, witnessed a greater reduction in the area of land used to grow coca.