Changes in ‘Customary’ Resource Tenure Systems in the Inner Niger Delta, Mali

Cotula, Lorenzo; Cissé, Salmana

doi:10.1080/07329113.2006.10756689

Cited by 27 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…As for the former, in many parts of Africa the effectiveness of customary land management systems has been eroded by social, cultural, economic and political change. In the Inner Niger Delta of Mali, for instance, the authority of the local Fulani chiefs ("jowros") has been eroded by the declining influence of pastoral interests vis-à-vis agricultural ones, and by agricultural encroachment on pastoral lands (Cotula and Cissé, 2006). But in some places customary authorities have established relatively effective and accessible systems of land administration, including "secretariats" that employ professional surveyors and lawyers.…”

Section: The Role Of Traditional Authoritiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Securing land and property rights in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of local institutions

2009

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Section: The Role Of Traditional Authoritiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Securing land and property rights in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of local institutions

2009

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“…The system survives into the 21st century, because it has not been forcibly extinguished by superimposed property systems, and because its community-based character allows ready adaption of norms as each generation finds necessary. This keeps it vibrant and relevant, including to changing land uses and social relations within the community [34]. Therefore, the rules by which customary tenure operates are a hybrid of traditional and contemporary practices.…”

Section: Customary Tenure In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Community Land Act in Kenya Opportunities and Challenges for Communities

Wily¹

2018

Land

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Kenya is the most recent African state to acknowledge customary tenure as producing lawful property rights, not merely rights of occupation and use on government or public lands. This paper researches this new legal environment. This promises land security for 6 to 10 million Kenyans, most of who are members of pastoral or other poorer rural communities. Analysis is prefaced with substantial background on legal trends continentally, but the focus is on Kenya's Community Land Act, 2016, as the framework through which customary holdings are to be identified and registered. A main conclusion is that while Kenya's law is positive and even cutting-edge in respects, legal loopholes place communities at risk of their lands not being as secure as promised ahead of formalization, and at risk of losing some of their most valuable lands during the formalization process. This is mainly due to overlapping claims by the national and local government authorities. Political will to apply the law is also weak. The truism that the law is never enough on its own to secure social change is illustrated. With or without legal protection, the assistance of non-state actors will be needed to help communities secure their lands under formal collective entitlements. The need for judicial interpretation of disputed legal provisions may also be required to ensure new constitutional principles are delivered.

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“…as articulated in Article 44) was that governance structures, such as secure land tenure, could encourage agriculture to develop more sustainably, and was especially important when considering the economic sustainability of agriculture. Similarly, the importance of land rights has been discussed frequently by international organisations, such as the World Bank (Byamugisha, 2013), the U.N. (Economic Commission for Africa, 2004) and the IIED (Cotula, 2007). It has been suggested that a lack of land rights contributes to the continuation of poverty by discouraging investment in agriculture and encouraging discrimination based on ethnicity and gender (ECA, 2004;Lawry et al, 2014).…”

Section: Governance Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable intensification – “oxymoron” or “third-way”? A systematic review

Mahon

Crute

Simmons

et al. 2017

Ecological Indicators

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Sustainable Intensification (SI) is a term that has been advanced to capture a concept that some consider as the 'third paradigm' for global agricultural development. However, the term has become subject to intense debates as well as scepticism and confusion regarding its meaning and the characteristics of production systems that could indicate SI (defined as "indicators"). This has resulted in a proliferation of literature. We have conducted a systematic review of a sample of this literature analysing the most commonly suggested indicators of SI in order to investigate the extent to which the critiques of SI are valid in their viewpoints that SI is an oxymoron, underpinned by a productivist agenda, and to identify the critical issues in the development of a comprehensive and unambiguous set of SI indicators. From 633 articles identified by a search of relevant databases, a sample of 75 articles were selected and analysed using the NVIVO™ software. The results were organised according to a Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) framework comprising seven sub-systems or components − resource system, resource units, governance system, resource users, interactions, outcomes, and environment. A total of 218 indicators (both positive and negative) were identified. Most of these indicators focused on the 'outcomes' of agricultural systems with the majority being related to agricultural production. Few indicators were identified as relating to the economic and societal dimensions of food systems. Whilst this potentially suggested a productivist bias in the current interpretation of SI it was difficult to draw a black and white conclusion, since for the other system components, the majority of the indicators suggested appeared to take a more holistic point-of-view and emphasised both productivity and sustainability of agricultural systems. Our analysis suggests that a key reason why SI may be viewed with scepticism is a lack of specificity and elucidation of the rationale, scale, and farm type for which SI is proposed. Moreover, a number of the indicators were so loosely defined that the interventions they imply could be enacted without due consideration of the social impacts of their adoption. We conclude that there is need to develop SI indicators according to specific farming types and scales and also with more consideration of the social and political dimensions of food systems in order to promote a constructive dialogue around the concept of SI to take place. Unless the concept of SI is described and measured in such a holistic and inclusive manner, it is unlikely to be accepted as a valid descriptor of sought-after agricultural practices by players in the Third Sector.

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Changes in ‘Customary’ Resource Tenure Systems in the Inner Niger Delta, Mali

Cited by 27 publications

References 5 publications

Securing land and property rights in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of local institutions

Securing land and property rights in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of local institutions

The Community Land Act in Kenya Opportunities and Challenges for Communities

Sustainable intensification – “oxymoron” or “third-way”? A systematic review

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