Revisiting the World Bank's land law reform agenda in Africa: The promise and perils of customary practices

Abstract

This paper revisits the World Bank's land law reform agenda in Africa by focusing on two central issues: (1) land law reform as a tool for resolving land conflicts, and (2) the role of land law reform in addressing gender inequalities. While the Bank's recent land report provides insights for improving land governance in Africa, it fails to acknowledge the exploitative and contentious politics that often characterize customary land tenure systems, and the local power dynamics that undermine the ability of marginalized groups to secure land rights. Using insights from recent fieldwork, the paper analyses the links between land law reform and conflict in Ghana, and the gendered dynamics of reforming land governance in Tanzania. These “crucial cases” illustrate how land law reform can provoke conflicts over land and threaten the rights of vulnerable populations (e.g. migrants and women) when customary practices are uncritically endorsed as a means of improving land governance. As such, the paper concludes with a series of recommendations on how to navigate the promise and perils of customary practices in the governance of land.

Agrarian reforms in Africa 1980–2016: solution or evolution of the agrarian question?

“…The justification for and defence of market agrarian reforms are based on land titling and the creation of a land market (Holden et al 2011;Holden and Otsuka 2014). In this new period of agrarian liberalization, this land titling is trying to revive the role of traditional authorities (which represent social capital that needs to be taken into account in new rural development policies, according to the paradigm of the new institutional economics (NIE)) under the umbrella of international agencies such as the World Bank (Grischow 2008;Collins and Mitchell 2018); this means a return to former colonial policies but in a globalized world (Ece 2008).…”

“…The liberalization of agrarian policies and the implementation of market agrarian reforms have facilitated the expansion of land-grabbingand land-grabbing is cheap because the tenure rights of those who utilize and claim the land (peasants) are recognized neither in law nor in practice. Besides, this is a race in which African states themselves are leading the way (Hall 2012), because, along with customary authorities (Collins and Mitchell 2018), they act as their own sellers. This period of agrarian reform, initiated in the 1980s and not yet complete, has facilitated the acceleration of land-and water-grabbing in Africa.…”

What spatially explicit quantitative evidence exists that shows the effect of land tenure on illegal hunting of endangered terrestrial mammals in sub-Saharan Africa? A systematic map protocol

“…As conversion of land tenure grows in importance on policy agendas, much of the academic research on this topic has focused on whether formalisation encourages agricultural development [30,37]. In terms of the impact that changing land ownership mosaics has on wildlife, the academic literature has largely focused on habitat fragmentation caused by agro-investment and expanding transport networks which negatively affect endangered terrestrial mammal populations through reducing suitable range area [38][39][40].…”

Evolution of Customary Land Tenure Institutions in Zambia: The Case of Lufwanyama District in the Copperbelt Province

“…However, the evolutionary attributes of customary systems, such as ‘negotiability’ and ‘adaptability’ (Peters, 2004, 2013) have been argued to fall in modern environments of rapid population growth and commercialization (see Coldham, 2000; Durand-Lasserve & Selod, 2007; Johnson, 2011; Lastarria-Cornhiel, 1997; Milimo, Kalyalya, Machina, & Hamweene, 2011; Wily, 2007). The recent phenomenon of ‘land grabbing’ by foreign investors has especially shone light on the venerability of customary systems, as is clear from a plethora of recent studies (see Boone, 2015; Collins & Mitchell, 2017; Cotula et al, 2016; Knapman, Silici, Cotula, & Mayers, 2017; Locher & Müller-Böker, 2014; Martiniello, 2017; Nolte, 2013). Thus, a commonly held view is that customary tenure should be converted to Western-style private property rights as the only prerequisite to economic growth and agricultural production.…”