Land Tenure Systems in Africa PDF

Economic Commission for Africa Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development in Africa...

Economic Commission for Africa Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development in Africa Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development in Africa Please visit http://www.uneca.org for information on the latest ECA activities, initiatives and publications. Contact: The Communication Team Economic Commission for Africa United Nations P.O. Box 3001 Addis Ababa Ethiopia Tel: +251-1-44-58-26 Fax: +251-1-51-03-65 Email: [email protected] Economic Commission for Africa Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development in Africa ECA/SDD/05/09 ECA/SDD/05/09 - Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development in Africa First printed December 2004 © Copyright Economic Commission for Africa For this and other publications, please visit the ECA website at http://www.uneca.org Or contact Publications Economic Commission for Africa P.O. Box 3001 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Tel: 251-1-44 31 68 Fax: 251-1-51 03 65 E-mail: [email protected] Material in this publication may be freely quoted or reprinted. Acknowledgement is re- quested with a copy of the publication. Cover photographs provided by USAID. Layout/Graphics: Seifu Dagnachew Printed at the ECA Printshop in Addis Ababa. Table of Contents Acknowledgements........................................................................... vii Acronyms..........................................................................................viii Foreword..............................................................................................ix Executive Summary......................................................................................... 3 Introduction.................................................................................................... 15 Background and Justiﬁcation............................................................................... 15 Objectives and Scope of the Study....................................................................... 17 Historical Context and Background.................................................................... 17 Conceptual Framework and Methodological Issues................................ 21 Land Tenure: Some Basic Concepts..................................................................... 21 Land Tenure: Food Security Analytical Model..................................................... 26 Land Tenure and Livelihoods in Africa...................................................... 33 Livelihood Options and Land Tenure.................................................................. 33 Land Distribution and Ownership Patterns......................................................... 34 Land Markets and Sustainable Livelihoods.......................................................... 37 Land Tenure and Poverty..................................................................................... 44 Land and the HIV/AIDS Pandemic.................................................................... 47 Land Tenure and Food Security................................................................... 49 Land Tenure, Agriculture and Food Security....................................................... 49 Land Tenure and Land Use in Africa................................................................... 53 Agriculture.......................................................................................................... 53 Protected Areas.................................................................................................... 55 Pastoralism.......................................................................................................... 55 Land-Use Regulations......................................................................................... 57 Tenure and Sustainable Resources Management................................ 61 Land Tenure, Social Vulnerability/Marginality and Environmental Stress............ 61 Good Practice in Sustaining Livelihoods.............................................................. 62 Land Tenure and Environmental Security............................................................ 63 Land Tenure and Natural Resources Conﬂicts: Poaching, Grabbing and Occupations................................................................................. 64 iii Land Tenure and Gender Relations............................................................ 69 The Gender Division of Tasks and Responsibilities.............................................. 69 Women’s Ownership and Tenure of Land............................................................ 70 Gendered Aspects of Poverty and Marginalization............................................... 72 Land Policy Making in Africa...................................................................... 75 Introductory Remarks......................................................................................... 75 Scope and Forms of Land Policies....................................................................... 75 Customary Landholding Systems, Nationalism and Land Market Policies........... 76 Land Redistribution Policies................................................................................ 77 The Making of Land Policies............................................................................... 78 Comprehensive National Land Policies............................................................... 79 Desigining national land policies in Africa.......................................................... 80 Land Policy Implementation Processes................................................................ 82 Sub-Regional Land Policy Experiences................................................................ 85 Limitations of Land Policies and Selection Impacts............................................. 94 Conclusions..................................................................................................... 94 The Way Forward.............................................................................................101 References........................................................................................................103 Endnotes............................................................................................................ 123 Annexes........................................................................................................... 125 List of Tables, Figures, Charts, Boxes and Annexes Tables Table 3.1: Smallholder Land Distribution in Selected African Countries............. 46 Table 6.1: Contribution of African Women to Family Livelihoods...................... 70 Table 7.1: Main Thematic Issues Covered by Land Policies in Africa................... 84 Table 7.2: Arable Land in North Africa............................................................... 93 Figures Figure 2.1: Conventional Conceptual Links between Land and Food.................. 29 Figure 2.2 : Land Tenure and Food Security: The Links....................................... 30 iv Charts Chart 3.1: Responses to Eﬀects of HIV/AIDS from Aﬄicted Families................ 48 Chart 8.1: Analytical Model of Land Policy and Food Security in Africa............. 99 Boxes Box 3.1: Examples of Land Markets in Eastern and West Africa.......................... 37 Box 3.2: Land Sales in Central Côte d’Ivoire....................................................... 41 Box 4 1: Land for Forest or Sugarcane Production? An Example from Uganda.... 56 Box 4.2: Maasai Pastoralists: An Example from Kenya......................................... 58 Box 5.1: Settlement in Forest, Game Reserves and National Parks in Uganda..... 66 Box 5.2: Land Tenure Conﬂicts in Côte d’Ivoire................................................. 67 Box 7.1: Land and Gender Considerations in Selected Countries........................ 82 Box 7.2: Land Problems in Ghana....................................................................... 87 Box 7.3: Objectives of Malawi’s Land Policy........................................................ 89 Box 7.4: Communal Land Rights Bill of South Africa......................................... 90 Annexes Table 10-1: Prevalence of Poverty in Selected Countries (2001).......................... 125 Table 10-2: HIV Prevalence Rates at end of December 1999 in Southern Africa 126 Table 10-3: Production Trends in Agriculture in Africa (metric tonnes).............. 127 Table 10 4: Importance of Agriculture to National Economies........................... 128 Table 10-5: Changes (%) in Quantity of Agricultural Exports............................ 128 Table 10-6: Agricultural Trade in Africa (US$1000)........................................... 129 Table 10-7: Changes in Forests: 1990 and 1995................................................. 129 v Acknowledgements This report is the ﬁrst in a series of research studies that the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) will produce with a view to improving the understanding of the links be- tween land tenure systems and sustainable development in Africa. In a continent where 80 percent of the population relies on agriculture for their liveli- hood, the formulation and implementation of appropriate land policies is a paramount factor in poverty reduction strategies. Research is therefore needed to help policymakers take learned decisions when addressing land tenure issues. This report was prepared by the Sustainable Development Division (SDD) of ECA in collaboration with Professor Sam Moyo, Executive Director of the African Institute of Agrarian Studies (AIAS). We would like to thank all the participants in the expert group meeting held in Addis Ababa from 22-24 April 2003 who reviewed the ﬁrst draft of this report. We especially thank Dr. Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser at OXFAM, Dr. Shem E. Migot-Adholla, Land Policy Specialist at the World Bank, Mr. Christian Graefen, Land Tenure Expert at GTZ, and Dr. Susana Lastiria-Cornhied, Senior Researcher at the Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin, for sharing their ﬁeld experiences during the meeting. We would also like to acknowledge the cooperation of Dr. Frank Place of ICRAF, whose numerous comments were very useful in ﬁne-tuning the report. The ECA team charged with this report worked under the overall supervision of Josué Dioné, Director of Sustainable Development Division, and the coordination of Niang Abdoulaye, Agriculture and Food Security Team Leader. The task team was led by Maurice Tankou, assisted by Joan Kagwanja and comprised Kava Katjomuise, Isatou Gaye, and Kodjo Abassa. We also acknowledge the contributions of colleagues who have since left the Commission, including Don Oben, Mamu Ehui, Kwame Were-Gyekye, Musa Salah and Hewan Dehne for the secretariat assistance. We thank our colleagues, Yinka Adeyemi and Maria Thundu, who edited this report in collaboration with ECA Communication Team. We hope that this report and the subsequent ones will contribute to a better livelihood for the poor in the continent. vii Acronyms AIDS Acquired Immune Deﬁciency Syndrome CA Communal Area CBO Community Based Organization DFID Department for International Development CPA Communal Property Association EU European Union FAO Food and Agriculture Organization FAOSTAT Food and Agriculture Organization Statistical Database KSW Kakira Sugar Works GDP Gross Domestic Product GSDR Government of Somalia Democratic Republic Ha Hectares HIV Human Immuno-Deﬁciency Virus IIED International Institute for Environment and Development IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development. IMF International Monetary Fund IUCN International Union for the Conservation of Nature MDG Millennium Development Goal MNC Multinational Corporation NGO Non-Governmental Organization PA Peasant Associations PC Producers Cooperative RLP Rural Land Plan SA South Africa SADC Southern African Development Community SAP Structural Adjustment Programme SSA Sub-Saharan Africa SDD Sustainable Development Division UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNESCO United Nations Educational Scientiﬁc and Cultural Organization UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa UNFP United Nations Environment Programme USA United States of America $ US United States Dollar USAID United States Agency for International Development TTL Tribal Trust Lands WB World Bank WTO World Trade Organization viii Foreword Inappropriate land policies constitute a serious constraint on economic and social de- velopment. On the one hand, insecure land tenure and dysfunctional land institutions discourage private investment and overall economic growth. On the other hand, skewed land ownership distribution and discrimination according to gender or ethnicity limit economic opportunities for disadvantaged groups and provide fertile conditions for social conﬂict - which often erupt in violence. In Africa, land is vital for poverty reduction; most rural households rely on it for the survival of present and future generations. Unresolved land problems or slow progress towards land reform threaten a household’s survival. Appropriate land policies, therefore, are crucial to ensuring economic survival, for decreasing land-related conﬂicts and putting communities on a steady course of sustainable development. To formulate appropriate food security and poverty reduction policies, we must under- stand the links between access to land and access to other sources of income and capital. We must have a better understanding of the structures of Africa’s agrarian economies as they relate to rural poverty and hunger. We must address the characteristic underutiliza- tion of land resources by some and the intensive, over-use of marginal lands by multitudes of land-poor farmers. The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is seeking to raise awareness among African leaders on the need for land policies that take into account changing national and interna- tional environments; the capacity deﬁcits; gaps in research work and the need for greater sharing of best practices. In most parts of Africa radical land reform is not needed. Many studies have shown that customary land tenure does not necessarily result in ineﬃcient resource allocation. Research in fact shows that indigenous land rights systems do not have to be communal or ambiguous and are often secure enough to meet investors’ requirements. Furthermore, traditional land tenure is often ﬂexible enough to cope with increasing land scarcity and can permit a gradual, “autonomous” individualization of rights. State intervention in land matters is often more harmful than beneﬁcial and should be undertaken only after care- ful analysis of the likely impact. On this evidence, the debate on land tenure should shift from its usual focus on customary/statutory land rights to the broader issues of manage- ment of land-based resources. We hope that this work broadens perspectives on land issues and helps African countries to design and implement reforms that take into account the speciﬁcity of their social, economic, political, and cultural contexts. K.Y. Amoako Executive Secretary, Economic Commission for Africa ix Executive Summary C on cerns over the food security situation in sub-Saharan Africa are reﬂected in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to reduce the number of food insecure by half by 2015. Given that land plays an important role in the livelihoods of the majority of Africans, food security and poverty reduction cannot be achieved unless issues of access to land, security of tenure and the capacity to use land productively and in a sustainable manner are addressed. Recent food security crises in Africa have revived the debate on whether current land ten- ure systems constrain farmer innovation and investment in agriculture. Both direct and indirect linkages between land tenure and food security are suggested. Recognizing the importance of a better understanding of these linkages, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) undertook a study in 2002/2003 on the Impacts of Land Tenure on Food Security and Sustainable Development, with the following objectives: a) To improve the current understanding of the linkages between land tenure sys- tems, food security and sustainable natural resource management in Africa; b) To assess the current land tenure policy reforms in selected African countries using case studies and emphasizing the extent to which these reforms aim to enhance food security and natural resource management and identifyingmajor constraints; c) To draw lessons based on best practices as well as failures of ongoing and past policies and their implementation; and d) To make policy recommendations to assist States in addressing issues of land reform implementation and hence improve their food security situation and the stewardship of natural resources. These fall within the intermediate objective of examining the extent to which ongoing reforms are geared towards the achievement of food security and natural resource manage- ment, and how land tenure issues are being integrated into broader development strate- gies. The study ﬁndings were presented as a background paper to an expert group meeting held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in April 2003, and the ﬁnal paper has been revised accord- ing to the recommendations of this group. The paper develops an analytic perspective of the linkages between land tenure, food security and sustainable development, in the African context. It does this by, ﬁrst, iden- 3 tifying the conceptual premises underlying the discourse on land tenure in Africa and then demonstrating, empirically, how the linkage from these concepts to policy-making in relation to food security and sustainable rural livelihoods has been developed in an historical context. The paper suggests that land is central in promoting rural livelihoods in Africa because access to land and security of tenure are the main means through which food security and sustainable development can be realized because the livelihoods of over 70% of the popu- lation in Africa are mainly linked to land and natural resources exploitation. In the past, the dominant view was that land titling programmes in Africa would en- hance security of tenure and promote investment in agriculture, thus leading to increased growth and development. However, such land reform programmes failed to develop the smallholder agriculture sector as the expectation that ﬁnancial resources would be mobi- lized for investment on the land made were not met. The coexistence of various forms of tenure in Africa - state, communal, customary, indi- vidual - suggests the need to develop complex policy and analytic models focusing on the pertinent relationship between land tenure, food security and sustainable development in Africa. This paper presents a number of models developed to explain these linkages, focus- ing on the analytical model developed by Moyo (1999), based upon Shivji et al. (1998). Although there are sub-regional variations, the African historical context is essentially that of colonialism, and the legacy of colonial land policies is the major framework through which sustainable livelihoods at the individual country level have been conditioned. Whether manifested as the settler type, indirect rule or the plantation type, colonialism introduced new dimensions to the form of land ownership and title, and land manage- ment, as well as to the rights and responsibilities related to land and natural resources. In most cases, existing forms of customary land tenure were either ignored or overridden while, in the case of indirect rule, customary practice was reformulated for the conve- nience of the colonizing power and handed back to indigenous populations in forms that created new and artiﬁcial class and ethnic divisions. It is the resultant dual, unequal and hierarchical system of land tenure, in which freehold and leasehold land rights are treated as superior to customary land rights, that incoming governments inherited at the time of independence and that present land reform initia- tives seek to redress. Concepts and Deﬁnitions This paper deals with a number of basic concepts in the discussion of land tenure, noting that ‘land tenure’ itself is a derivative of the concept of natural resource tenure, while the concept of ‘tenure’ is a social construct, deﬁning the relationships between individuals and groups of individuals by which rights and obligations (with respect to control and use of resources) are deﬁned. The speciﬁc concepts relevant to land tenure are: 4 Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development · ‘Freehold’, a traditionally western concept implying the absolute right to control, manage, use and dispose of a piece of property; · ‘Leasehold’, in which land belonging to one entity is, by contractual agreement, leased to another entity for a ﬁxed period of time; · ‘Statutory allocations’, a particular form of state land where such land, by virtue of some statutory provision, is allocated for the use of some legally constituted body; and · ‘Customary systems’, in which tenure rights are ostensibly controlled and allocated according to traditional practice. Colonial powers initiated and nurtured the notion of customary tenure with serious distor- tions around the community rights/individual rights debate, the deﬁnition of customary authorities, and the identity of ‘community’, which was conﬂicted with that of the tribe. Land rights have increasingly come to be perceived as embedded within the broad spectrum of human rights and are related to the notion of rights to food and to existence. ‘Liveli- hoods’ are the way in which households and communities derive food, shelter and clothing to sustain their living. Further concepts arising from the notion of livelihoods are: · ‘Food security’, the capacity of households, communities and the state to mo bilize suﬃcient food through production, acquisition and distribution, on a sustainable basis; · ‘Sustainable livelihoods’, which exist when systems of human livelihood can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, and maintain or enhance their human capabilities and assets without undermining the natural resource base; · ‘Livelihood strategies’ are the ways in which assets or resources are used to generate access to food and other basic needs; · ‘Coping strategies’ are short-term measures applied when a household or community does not have suﬃcient income or food to meet all its essential needs; and · ‘Environmental security’ is the capacity of individuals and groups of people to live harmoniously with nature on a sustainable basis, while meeting their basic needs. Key indicators of unsustainable livelihoods include the extensive humanitarian crises re- lating to food insecurity, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, poverty in general, and the environ- mental insecurity facing numerous communities on the continent. ‘Land policy’, as it relates to the other concepts outlined, is crucial to sustainable liveli- hoods and food security. Land policy-making encompasses the drafting of all aspects of land management and is usually led by the State. Some land reform policies tend to be more radical, being focused on restructuring the distribution of land ownership rights. Land policy reviews have recently been conducted in numerous African countries, leading to new land laws and/or the redeﬁnition of the necessary institutional framework under Executive Summary 5 which land policy is administered, taking into account the existence of various forms of ‘land markets’ initially introduced in the colonial era. However, it should also be noted that land markets existed before colonialism in some parts and have emerged in areas not so much touched by formal law. The Food Security Analytical Model of Land Tenure The land policy generic model developed by Moyo, based on Shivji et al., is derived from ﬁve analytical constructs of land management, namely, land distribution, land utilization, land tenure security, land administration and land adjudication. It posits land tenure as one of the central factors determining food security and sustainable development. ‘Land tenure’ needs to be inclusive and cater to many other aspects of resource-based livelihoods and food security. Maxwell and Weibe’s (1998) model illustrates a causal ﬂow relationship between resources, production, income, consumption and nutritional status. But, it is suggested that a simple linear model does not adequately capture the inter- relationships between consumption and investment decisions, household endowments, production and exchange decisions, and household entitlements. A more comprehensive model illustrates a circular relationship between these four factors, which are further im- pacted upon by tenure institutions and asset markets, and have outputs in terms of envi- ronmental impact, generation and redistribution of wealth. Land Tenure and Livelihoods in Africa The paper discusses the relationship of livelihoods and land tenure in terms of liveli- hood options, land distribution and ownership patterns, land markets and sustainable livelihoods, land tenure and poverty, and the impact of HIV/AIDS on issues of land and livelihoods. Although the agricultural activities and other livelihood options are aﬀected by various factors (climatic conditions, markets, infrastructure, physical conditions), unequal access to land and insecure land tenure have the most profound eﬀect on the livelihoods of smallholders in Africa. Increasingly severe circumstances have created the need for house- holds to balance short-term strategies such as a reduction in consumption in order to pre- serve productive assets, facilitate eventual recovery and maintain future security, against the threat of possible long-term loss of earning and productive capacity due to the health impacts of reduced consumption. The legacy of the oppressive and racially based policies of colonial governments is still reﬂected in dualistic land tenure systems and inequitable land distribution patterns. This problem manifests itself in diﬀerent forms across Africa. The fact that some groups of 6 Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development wealthy people, including foreign multinational companies, beneﬁted from the colonial dislocation of indigenous blacks and the creation of a pseudo-feudal system has also led to extreme tension and animosity over land. The question of whether and how land markets determine investment in land, and, through this, aﬀect food security, remains contentious. A steady increase in the incidence of land transferred through private purchases tends to exhibit a positive relationship with growing or high population pressures and advanced commercialization. Such land trans- actions might have a positive impact on the capacity of individual households to mobilize food for their survival from year to year, but can also be observed to result in households being co-opted into the money economy, through labour provision, and becoming un- able to sustain their livelihoods. On the other hand, land transactions in Africa involve both market and non-market transfers and indigenous land tenure systems are also said to be dynamic in nature evolving in response to changes in factor prices and resulting in a spontaneous individualization of land rights over time. The neoclassical prescriptions of multilateral institutions were an attempt to provide a cure for Africa’s agrarian crisis, incorporating commodiﬁcation of land as an important ingredient in economic adjustment programmes. However, African governments were aware of the political dangers of massive land alienation through titling and tended to act cautiously in this regard. When structural adjustment programmes themselves failed to gain social and political acceptance, the multilateral institutions adopted a less interven- tionist approach, assuming that new property relations and a land market would spon- taneously evolve as population pressure increased and the task of governments would be limited to the formalization of such relationships through titling. Commercialization of agriculture constitutes one of the major driving forces behind the privatization and individualization of rights to land and is a key area of debate. The paper identiﬁes one set of arguments that commercialization results in an increase in cash in- come but a decline in subsistence food at the household level and hence increased market vulnerability and food insecurity. The other side of the debate is that the integration of traditional smallholder agriculture into the exchange economy is part of a successful de- velopment strategy, since the developing world cannot aﬀord the presumed ineﬃciencies of resource allocation that subsistence agriculture entails. Central to the latter argument is the assumption that there is a meaningful place in the exchange economy for those displaced from the smallholder agriculture sector, but this has not always been the case. In addition, the ‘opportunity’ to sell land opens up the possibility of land being sold at below the market value as a survival strategy under distress circumstances, resulting in permanent loss of livelihood. However, the argument above depends on the distribution of land. In southern Africa where land is badly distributed, commercialization has tended to be taken up by large landowners and then the smallholder supplies labour, which can have a positive or negative impact on household food security. In much of the rest of Africa, if it is the smallholder who can directly beneﬁt from commercialization, this is an overwhelmingly positive thing (coﬀee, tea, dairy, cotton, cocoa, vegetables) because the returns to labour and land are many times that of cereals. The example of smallholder tobacco in Malawi is a good one. Executive Summary 7 Farmers used to work on the tobacco estates, by neglecting their own farms (e.g. late plant- ing). When they were allowed to grow tobacco themselves, the returns to their labour were much higher and they also gained from better management of other crops. The literature on sustainable livelihood security suggests that, from a food security per- spective, the calls for uniﬁed, freehold tenure systems are unrealistic. The ﬂexibility of indigenous livelihood strategies has always been one of the means of survival in harsh physical and economic environments. Indeed, indigenous institutions have demonstrated remarkable ability to adapt to population changes, including through the development of land markets under customary tenure, in response to economic or political stimuli. It is, therefore, recommended that they be allowed to remain and evolve as an integral part of a dual (private freehold/customary) tenure system, serving diﬀerent purposes under diﬀerent circumstances. The empirical evidence of poverty trends and tendencies in relation to land tenure insecu- rity is strikingly clear in Africa, but although at least ﬁfteen African countries have focused on developing strategic plans for poverty reduction, most of these plans provide only scant attention to the role of land access and land distribution in addressing rural poverty. In Africa, land is critical in poverty reduction because most rural households rely on this resource for the reproduction of future generations, since the industrial and service sectors do not currently provide alternative opportunities for survival. Unequal control over land is, therefore, a critical factor in formulating poverty reduction policies and in the political process of democratic transition in Africa. In line with the Johannesburg Memo of 2002, the response to poverty should start with the poor being recognized as actors who shape their own lives and whose poverty derives from a deﬁcit of power. Land oﬀers a wedge for the poor to mobilize their own power to chart their development destiny, and any attempt to mitigate poverty ought to be centered on the reinforcement of rights and opportunities arising from land and agriculture. The impact of land reform on poverty should also be considered in terms of the emergence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The entire debate on land reform as an aspect of poverty reduction assumes that land is a scarce resource that can be put to productive use. When HIV/AIDS interferes with a family’s ability to access and use land, this assumption is chal- lenged and it becomes less likely that land reform processes will be as helpful in poverty reduction as has been envisaged. And yet, HIV- and AIDS-aﬀected people are, and will increasingly be, a major part of society, and the issues of concern to them are becoming ever more central to poverty reduction. Land Tenure and Food Security Agriculture in Africa can be classiﬁed as bimodal - divided into smallholder and large- scale/estate agriculture. The underdeveloped state of smallholder agriculture in most Afri- can countries has largely been shaped by economic and agricultural policies which disfa- vour this form but promote the larger farmers. 8 Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development The relative decline of agricultural production for domestic food and industrial require- ments is a major concern in Africa. There has been increased food insecurity and impov- erishment because of the increasing cost of food for the majority of the poor and the con- centration of consumption among the relatively wealthier and better-endowed countries, regions and social groups with access to land and incomes in and outside the agriculture sector. Most of the best agricultural land is used for the production of export, with little of the produce ﬁnding its way onto the local market. Most African countries are charac- terized by dependency on production of a small range of primary commodities and have traditionally been dependent on the export of a single commodity. Agricultural development, in which better productive land and resources are provided to the poor, is key to poverty reduction, but the State, in response to both internal and external pressure, is steadily withdrawing from active involvement. However, some de- velopment organizations and other grassroots organizations have played a critical role in supporting peasant economies through improving land tenure security and other general working conditions of communities. In most of Africa, land-use regulations and planning frameworks, inherited from the colo- nial era, have been ideological tools for maintaining the unequal distribution of land and inequitable security of tenure. The paper stresses that, in analyzing the various forms and types of regulations governing land-use, it is important to go beyond the stated rationale and seek to uncover the true origins and value systems implicit in such regulations. Tenure and Sustainable Resources Management The paper examines land tenure in relation to social vulnerability, environmental stress, environmental security and natural resource conﬂicts. In Africa, the need to increase food production to enable increased food consumption has become more desperate as the demands of an increasing population have not been met. As a result, marginal land has been brought into production, and commercial operations continue to use fertilizers and chemicals for increased productivity, while fallow periods have been reduced. Although such activities are designed to increase productivity, they can result in exhaustion of the production capacity of the land. Climatic variability and change and inappropriate land-use or land tenure policies add to the pressures and mag- nify the impact. The inequitable distribution of land has contributed to the declining state of resources in Southern African countries, thereby creating the conditions that lead to food insecurity. These environmental security problems induce conﬂicts at the inter-state and intra-state levels: the class and racial levels; and at the local level. Environmental security is inextricably linked with human security, with some writers stressing environmental security as the capacity of humans to live harmoniously with nature or to maintain a sustainable environment, while others stress the human security element of individuals and groups being able to meet their basic needs from a sustainable environment. Executive Summary 9 The paper examines ﬁve major issues around which land and natural resources conﬂicts revolve: a) Problems of scarcity of land, which forces villagers to occupy land perceived as vacant; b) Political issues encouraging illegal settlements among villagers in return for political favours; c) The choice of communities to dishonour boundaries or agreements in pursuit of their survival strategies; d) Marginalization of some social groups, forcing them to defy certain rules and regulations; and e) Armed conﬂicts, which often result in the destruction of the environment. Land tenure and land-use conﬂicts have the potential to undermine both environmental stability and food security but investment in institutions for local level conﬂict manage- ment is often the missing dimension in development policies. In Africa, many diﬀerent legal frameworks govern access to land and its use. These compete with one another, pro- viding another source of conﬂict. There are a number of actors whose demands – legitimate or otherwise – contribute to environmental degradation. At the micro level, peasants use various strategies to press for their land demands, and, in recent years, illegal squatting and land occupation have been more inﬂuential in keeping the land redistribution issue on the agenda than the ac- tions of recognized civil society or community-based organizations. At the global level, international corporations undertaking commercial logging operations are a major cause of deforestation, while structural adjustment and other free market policies forced on African countries by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), and World Trade Organization (WTO), have provided incentives for unsustainable exploita- tion of natural resources. The net eﬀect of land and natural resource conﬂicts, the paper ﬁnds, is the destabilization of food production, degradation of the environment and, in the case of armed conﬂicts, creation of open access conditions for natural resources. Land Tenure and Gender Relations Women are recognized as playing a pivotal role in maintaining and strategically using land and natural resources. Thus, in any debate on land tenure and livelihoods, gender requires special treatment, and any set of strategies for sustainable food security must address women’s access to productive resources. Typically, gender relations are governed by the prevailing socio-political structures and religio-ideological value systems. In Africa, the predominance of patriachical systems rel- egates women and children to minority positions, ensuring that women only have access 10 Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development to land and related natural resources through their spouse or male relatives. This division between primary (male) and secondary (female) access may have an impact on the way men and women manage natural resources in communal areas. One of the most serious obstacles to increasing the agricultural productivity and income of rural women is their insecurity of land tenure. Security of tenure is the key to having control over major decisions, such as what crop to grow, what techniques to use, what to consume and what to sell. Without this, women cannot access credit and membership of agricultural associations, particularly those responsible for processing and marketing. Their access to technological inputs is limited; they are frequently not reached by exten- sion services and are rarely members of cooperatives, which often distribute government- subsidized inputs and vital market information to small farmers. In addition, they lack the cash income needed to purchase inputs even when these are subsidized. Land reform and the forces of modernization have had a mixed eﬀect on the status of women in Africa. Few agrarian reform or resettlement programmes have signiﬁcant num- bers of female beneﬁciaries or even pay attention to gender as a beneﬁciary category. In some cases, however, women have gained greater access to land through reform, generally where the participation of rural women is a well- deﬁned state policy. In some countries, agrarian reforms have replaced the feudal system, where women traditionally held a sub- ordinate role in family production. There are also many instances where women’s organi- zations have fought to gain access to land, which they farm collectively. Land Policy Formulation in Africa Land policy formulation in Africa has escalated over the last ten years in response to the persistence of complex land problems, struggles for access to land for agriculture and livelihoods, and to meet varied political, economic, social and environmental objectives. The approaches and strategies pursued vary by country, region and historical experience, but neoliberal policy frameworks, which tend to treat land as a market commodity rather than a public good, have dominated the design of national land policies. The paper covers the scope and form of land policies, the methods of creating a land pol- icy, the elements of a comprehensive land policy, land policy implementation processes, some sub-regional land policy experiences, and the limitations of land policies and their selection impacts. The main aim of land legislation is to protect the land rights of individuals through laws, to deﬁne the rights and responsibilities of institutions, ensure that the ‘rule of law’ is ap- plied when land rights are extinguished or land is sequestered by the State, and to adjudi- cate in cases of conﬂict. The colonial State invented and then rigorously applied the notion that African systems of law and tenure did not recognize individual rights to land and that, therefore, all land occupied by Africans was State land. Such land as was, thereafter, set aside for occupation Executive Summary 11 and use by Africans, and authority over it was vested in the respective African chiefs, al- though it is commonly accepted that, in fact, various State administrative bodies allocate land occupation and use rights. A key feature of land policies in Africa is that the State has always had an overriding inter- est in access, control and management of rural land, irrespective of the tenure category under which it is held or owned. Other common features have been a response to calls for more decentralisation and good governance, and a strong reliance on donor funds to facilitate both policy formulation and implementation. African countries have used the State, either through parliament or through the executive, to make their land policies. However, the last few years have seen the emergence of NGOs as a powerful force lobby- ing for access to land, on the basis of their general recognition that the structural cause of poverty in the communities in which they work is lack of access to land as the means of social and economic reproduction. The basic premise of designing a national land policy is to ensure that all issues related to land are dealt with within a well-deﬁned scope, so as to limit the transaction costs and en- sure that land is used for purposes in line with national goals. Thus, national land policies often deﬁne who can own land and under what conditions and, in some cases, specify the duties and obligations of those who have access to land, the rules that have to be followed in utilizing the land, the administrative recourse for resolving disputes and so on. Just as the land question is given expression in the problems of administrative and institutional structures and laws, so its resolution calls for restructuring of institutions and agencies to ensure equity, eﬃciency, accountability and participation. The objectives of a national land policy cut across several themes, including land redis- tribution and security of tenure, decentralization and democratization of land reform, land utilization, generation and sharing of land information, and environmental manage- ment. A review of a number of case studies reveals that the tenure reforms implemented in various parts of Africa have been a function of contrasting colonial land expropriation experiences, the nature of the decolonization process, patterns of land distribution and the varied land reform experiences in the post- independence period. They note that land policies are increasingly being engendered. Although development of land policies in Africa has progressed in the last ten years, there are substantial gaps in the content and outcomes of these policies in terms of recogni- tion of ethnic issues, land information systems and monitoring mechanisms. Some policy initiatives lack coherence and are not comprehensive enough to address all the pertinent issues facing a particular country and few make direct reference to food security issues or other related aspects. In addition, the capacity to implement land policies in Africa is constrained by a lack of human resources, technical expertise and ﬁnance. The authors suggest that the huge ﬁnancial requirements often prevent what could otherwise be good policies, from being implemented. 12 Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development Conclusions The paper ﬁnds that there is a clear linkage between appropriate land policies and food security. This expresses itself in various types of problems, each with particular implica- tions for land policy and food security. The analytical model developed in the study maps the dimension and implications of the ﬁve problematic dimensions of land policy (distri- bution, utilization, tenure, administration and adjudication) and the linkages of each to food security and sustainable development. The problems highlighted in each ‘dimension’ focus on the powerlessness of those who are poor, operating on a small scale or operating within customary systems. The implications can be summarized as persistent and wors- ening inequity in land ownership and tenure relations. The linkage to food security and sustainable development is clear, with those with the least power having the poorest access to resources and the greatest constraints in using their resource base productively, facing the greatest risk of food insecurity and having the fewest opportunities to improve their livelihoods. Most of the land tenure problems that exist in Africa have their origin in the colonial period. At independence, most countries attempted to redress the issue of traditional ac- cess rights to land and other natural resources, while at the same time maintaining control of resources. But the land and tenure reforms that have been implemented have largely remained inadequate and have been fraught with tensions between user groups and dif- ferent land-uses. The relationships between land tenure, agricultural investment and production have been thoroughly studied in Africa and there is ample evidence as a basis for the development of improved land policies in support of food security. The land tenure issues that aﬀect food security include manifestations of unequal distribution of land, sub-optimal utilization of land and insecure tenure. Where the security of tenure is weak in general, livelihoods can be constrained. Thus, tenure remains key for improving land management practices. And, where land distribution structures are highly unequal, the negative food security trends are exacerbated. Given the importance of the rural sector in attaining food security and reducing poverty, there is recognition by policy-makers that a vibrant agricultural and rural sector, under- pinned by land reform, will provide the catalyst for improving living standards in Africa. But a number of major challenges facing the agriculture sector, reﬂected through low productivity and worsened by recurrent droughts and ﬂoods, have led to food insecurity in Africa. The most critical challenge is the decline of agricultural production for domestic food and industrial requirements, relative to both the growing needs in relation to de- mographic changes and the growth of production for exports, as a result of concentrated allocation of resources towards raw materials exports. Recent land tenure policy reforms that have been developed from more participatory processes, are more comprehensive in scope, and have generally aﬃrmed more rights for individual citizens and fewer rights for the State. Land policy reforms are more acceptable when a range of stakeholders is included among the beneﬁciary group. Decentralization Executive Summary 13 of land-use decisions has yielded positive results but requires democratized local decision- making and resources for the support of appropriate processes and capacities. Improving land policies in the broadest sense discussed in the paper and ensuring their implementation, together with other appropriate agricultural policies which includes an improved trade regime, an enhanced credit and infrastructure investments, are thus criti- cal for food security in Africa. Land policy reforms that enhance the resource base of the majority of smallholders are key to promoting equitable and sustainable food security and livelihoods on the continent. While there is an increased understanding of the key principles for land tenure policy formulation, tthere is also a lack of understanding of why policies are not implemented, enforced or eﬀective. 14 Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development Introduction Background and Justiﬁcation 1 T he arithmetic of poverty in Africa conveys a clear message. First, with some 40 percent of the people living on less than $ US 1 a day, Africa is the poorest region in the world. Second, poverty in Africa is predominantly located in rural areas, where more than two-thirds of the total population and 70 percent of the poor of the continent live. Third, the livelihoods of the African poor, both in rural and urban areas, depend primarily on agriculture, as at least two-thirds of the total labor force is engaged directly or indirectly in agriculture-related enterprises. Moreover, urban poverty and rural poverty are inter-linked, because the former feeds on the latter through rural-urban migration. Hence, for the majority of poor African households, improving the productivity of the domestic food and agricultural systems (production, processing and marketing) is key to enhancing well-being and getting out of poverty. As the main foundation for agricultural production and rural livelihoods, land is at the core of the challenge of triggering a Green Revolution and getting agriculture moving for food security and poverty reduction in Africa. It can be easily used as an asset for social and regional integration or disintegration, as can be illustrated by many examples across Africa. Consequently, access to, and security of, land rights are prime concerns for poli- cies and strategies aiming at reducing food insecurity and poverty. Rapid population growth, widespread poverty, persistent food insecurity, and alarming rate of environmental degradation have fueled an increasing debate on land tenure sys- tems and land reforms in Africa. Some expert and donor circles have attributed the interrelated problems of rural poverty, poor agricultural performance and low levels of economic growth to the persistence of farming systems based on customary tenure. This view has inspired a variety of land reforms with a general trend toward market-oriented access to, and privatization of, land through private entitlement, on the premise that in- dividualized tenure oﬀers the best certainty in land rights, which provides incentive and facilitates access to credit for investment in agriculture and natural resources and, thereby, contributes to increasing agricultural productivity and improving natural-resource stew- ardship. Yet, other voices are challenging such a single-solution approach on the basis that social relations within and between local communities in rural Africa have traditionally been able to provide secure land rights. 15 Hence, there seems to be no strong consensus on the type of tenure that would yield greater security and eﬃciency in terms of agricultural productivity or natural resource management. Moreover, the lack of adequate institutions for land regulation and admin- istration has been a major constraint to the implementation of new land policies. Yet, in the midst of these unresolved controversies, many African countries have embarked on state-led land reform programmes aimed at providing equity, reducing poverty, fostering economic growth and improving the management of natural resources. Most of these reforms have yet to bring about the expected results, most likely because of ﬂaws in either their conception or their implementation. There is, therefore, a clear need to take stock of experiences and draw lessons from past land policy development and reform strategies and processes in order to address the challenges that African countries face in this area. It is in this regard that ECA has undertaken, in collaboration with the African Institute of Agrarian Studies (AIAS), this study on Land Tenure Systems and their Impact on Food Security and Sustainable Development in Africa to better understand the linkages between land tenure, food security and natural resource management with a view to as- sisting policy-makers of African countries in formulating and implementing land reform policies that are relevant and appropriate to the various African social and cultural con- texts. However, attention is drawn to the fact that this study is the ﬁrst in a series of stud- ies to be carried out on emerging issues of land tenure. Therefore, it should be seen as a discussion paper rather than a policy paper. Indeed, in conceptualizing the study, it was recognized that sustainable development is broadly encompassing, including social, economic and environmental aspects. In view of this, it would be diﬃcult, if not impossible, to examine all the diﬀerent facets of sustain- able development within the conﬁnes of the present study, hence justifying the need for a clear focus. This paper raises many issues with their policy implications that in some cases will require further investigation. Following careful analysis of the overall goal of the study, it has been decided that focus should be on natural resources management aspects of sustainable development given its central role in Africa’s socio-economic development. In order to draw up more meaning- ful relationships among the diﬀerent elements of the study, natural resources has been further narrowed down to land resources (forests, farmland, soils and grazing land). Indeed, it is well recognized that the integrated approach to the planning and manage- ment of land resources is key to sustainable development. This is one of the programmatic areas of Agenda 21, whose broad objective is to facilitate allocation of land to the uses that provide the greatest sustainable beneﬁts. Therefore, ECA’s Sustainable Development Division’s (SDD) programme on land policy is intended to promote the transition to a sustainable and integrated management of land resources. 16 Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development Objectives and Scope of the Study The objective of the paper is to provide the underlying approaches and conceptual prem- ises that inform the discourse on land tenure in Africa and inﬂuence policy-making in relation to food security and sustainable rural livelihoods. It begins by identifying these conceptual premises and demonstrates empirically how the linkages between land tenure, food security and the management of natural resources have been historically developed. Finally the paper proposes alternative conceptual tools and approaches to enable a better understanding of the linkages between land tenure and sustainable livelihoods. The paper argues that land is central in promoting rural livelihoods in Africa because ac- cess to land and security of tenure are the main means through which food security and sustainable development can be realized. Land tenure and struggles over land have been growing in the last decade in a context of growing poverty, landlessness, homelessness and distress in Africa. The last few years have witnessed the increased organization of politics around land and the literal, physical assertion of attempts to gain land rights by some communities. The essence of the argument of this paper is that, although the land ques- tion in Africa varies across the sub-regions, there are common tendencies and empirically based data that demonstrate similar linkages between the land tenure relations on one hand, and food security and sustainable livelihoods on the other. The analytical model developed by Moyo (1999), based upon Shivji et al. (1998), is used to explain the link between land tenure, food security and sustainable development. The paper also presents other models developed to explain these linkages in order to compare the eﬃcacy of diﬀerent sets of perspectives on the evolution of land tenure in Africa and its role in politics and development in the historical evolution of land problems. While the notion of tenure security tends to be equated with the individualization of landhold- ings, in Africa the existing complex tenure relations suggest that there is no single tenure form that oﬀers absolute security. The coexistence - even association in some cases - of various forms of tenure, including state, communal, customary, and individual rights, suggests the need to develop more complex policy and analytic models. To derive meaningful propositions about the respective merits of diﬀerent forms of tenure in terms of speciﬁed criteria can, in fact, be irrelevant, as the detailed literature and case studies presented here show. The paper thus focuses attention on the pertinent concepts of land tenure, food security and sustainable development in Africa and reviews past land reform programmes as a basis for providing experiences and lessons that could be used to develop policy options on the land tenure-food security nexus. Historical Context Most of the land tenure challenges facing Africa are legacies of the colonial period. The history of colonialism in Africa varied among the regions and in relation to colonizing policies (Amin, 1972), created varied land questions. In some countries, settler colonialism Introduction 17 was entrenched via massive land alienation and proletarianization, leading to protracted armed liberation wars. In others, indirect rule led to the promotion of peasant farm- ing for exports without land expropriation, generating multiple export enclaves, which built diﬀerentiating indigenous elite alongside the peasantry. And, in a few countries (e.g. Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon), the plantation economies of the European merchant capitalists coexisted with peasantries in a bimodal agrarian context. The legacy of the colonial land policies is the major framework through which sustain- able livelihoods at the individual country level have been conditioned. The genesis of the land problem in Africa is a political economic structure established through conquest, mostly by Europeans seeking to extract resources from Africa. However, the diversity of the historical experiences of Africa’s colonialism means that land tenure systems vary considerably, albeit with some commonalities. Land scarcity, denial of access to natural resources by landlords and the State through laws which exclude many, and privatization of land, have contributed to human distress and poverty. In some situations (e.g. North Africa), it is access to arable land that is at stake, while in others (West Africa), it is the land administration and decision-making conﬂicts between the State and local communi- ties and various interest groups (men, women, urbanites, civil servants, youths and poor households) that are problematic (Amanor, 2003). In former settler colonies, the chal- lenge of land redistribution and related land struggles predominate. The current land tenure complexities have their roots in the administrative and resource rights systems imposed during the colonial period. An understanding of the systems ob- tained in the pre-colonial states and the transformation process they went through as a result of colonialism is necessary in order to appreciate the linkages between land tenure, food security and natural resource management. Colonialism introduced new dimensions to the form of land ownership and title, and land management, as well as to the rights and responsibilities related to land and natural resources. In this context the meanings of food security, security of tenure and sustainable natural resource management were also changed through the processes of marketization of land and food, and the commodiﬁca- tion of natural resources. Africa was colonized through a combination of military conquests and unjust treaties and agreements (Mamdani, 1996; Berry, 1993). The process of colonization was driven by the economic imperatives of establishing markets for European goods, exploitation of mineral resources and the establishment of European agriculture. A unique feature of colonialism in Africa is that it deﬁned land as a communal and customary possession (Mamdani 1996). Thus, customary tenure related to both personal relations (marriage, succession, movement) and access to productive resources (land). This was further complicated by the fact that colonial ‘custom’ was not voluntary or socially sanctioned but was enforced by the colonial government using various methods available to the State, including the military option. Thus the concept of ‘custom’ was designed to tighten the control of the colonial state on the natives, through what Mamdani (1996) calls ‘containerization’ of the subject population. Following conquest, and having ﬁrst declared the indigenous black population ignorant of any ownership concepts, the colonial state arrogated land to white settlers on the basis of freehold tenure, thereby giving them virtual absolute ownership and the greatest bundle 18 Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development of rights. The displaced population was then settled on the worst lands and governed by administrative discretion, while land rights were held in trust by state bodies justiﬁed by a paternalist colonial ideology. Customary laws, as modiﬁed by the colonial state, governed relations among the indigenous communities themselves. At the time of independence for most African countries, a dual, unequal and hierarchical system of land tenure was inherited, with freehold and leasehold land rights being treated as superior to customary land rights (Shivji et al., 1998; Moyo, 1998). It is this dilemma that most land reform initiatives are trying to redress and that continues to manifest itself in today’s debate on land tenure security, natural resource management and food security. Introduction 19 Conceptual Framework and Methodological Issues Land Tenure: Some Basic Concepts 2 L and tenure is a derivative of the concept of natural resource tenure, which in es- sence refers to the terms and conditions under which natural resources are held and used (Bruce 1986; Moyo, 1995; Shivji et al., 1998). The concept of ‘tenure’ is a social construct that deﬁnes the relationships between individuals and groups of individuals by which rights and obligations are deﬁned with respect to control and use of land.The centrality of land in all dimensions of rural life in the context of Africa means that the analysis of land tenure issues should be broadened from its traditional links with issues such as land-use, agricultural production eﬃciency, access to credit, conﬂict management mechanisms, fragmentation of landholdings and so on, to include all aspects of power/ politics and social position. European settlers in Africa came with their own laws on land ownership. In Southern Africa for instance these were derived mostly from Roman-Dutch law. The settlers cre- ated for themselves the legal regime of ownership that best protected them and gave them the largest bundle of rights possible under the imposed legal regimes. Such was the system of tenure based on freehold and leasehold. ‘Freehold’ land is considered to provide absolute ownership rights, implying the right to own, control, manage, use and dispose of property. Such land rights, while being held in perpetuity, may however be sequestered through state intervention when land is targeted for expropriation for clearly public interest (e.g. expansion of urban areas, damming of rivers, etc.). Freehold tenure is a traditionally western concept of individual property ownership. In Africa, freehold and leasehold land rights have mostly been identiﬁed with large-scale farming and elite land ownership regimes. Land tenurial and racial segregation was reproduced in both rural and urban areas to delineate white from black residential and commercial activities. Given the protection freehold land tenure received from the State and its institutions in terms of the received law, it has tended to be presented as the most secure form of tenure. ‘Leasehold’ lands are based on the notion of rentals for long periods. Land belonging to one entity - either the State or an individual - is, by contractual agreement, leased to another entity. Such leases can be long or short. In practice, the issuing of 99-year leases is considered to be as secure as a freehold tenure system. The lease agreement is then reg- istered against the title of that land to create real land rights that are enforceable. ‘Statu- tory allocations’ were a particular form of state land where such land, by virtue of some statutory provision, was allocated for the use of some legally constituted body. Through 21 the issuing of licences, state land can also be put to private use through contractual ar- rangements with private individuals or institutions outside the framework of leasehold, subject to the conditions of the lease. In some cases, there is state land, which has not been allocated to any individual and/or has not been placed under the control and use of a statutory body. This category of land is referred to as ‘unalienated’ state land. Contrary to indigenous tradition, Africans living in areas under ‘customary systems’ or forms of land tenure tended to occupy lands by the permission of the State, which was the ultimate owner or the holder of radical title. Their occupation and use of land was controlled by criminal law and sanctions while they had no legally entrenched rights, in contrast to the state as an owner and those holding land under received law. Among themselves, they were allowed to continue to relate to each other under the customary law that also governed their land relations and tenure but, whenever the state so desired, the permission to occupy and use land could be withdrawn by administrative ﬁat (including forced removals) and African lands appropriated without resort to law. Thus customary law tenure was insecure and fragile, and was presented and perceived as such. Within weak and fragile customary land rights there were further inequalities and inequities. Constructed in the shadow of colonial power structures and struggles, the real practices of customary law perverted its supposed original content based on harmonious and fairly homogenous communities. In reality, the ‘community’ is diﬀerentiated along both social and gender lines and reproduces unequal and inequitable access to and use of land, most particularly for women. The colonial power initiated and nurtured the notion of customary tenure with three key distortions. First was that the notion of community rights became so one-sided that it was not in agreement with the concept of individual rights. Secondly, the deﬁnition of customary authorities who would exercise the right to allocate community land for household use mixed up ritual powers with proprietary rights. The third serious distor- tion was the identiﬁcation of the community with the tribe, such that all migrants who did not belong to the particular tribe were viewed as strangers and perceived as having no traditional right to access land (Moyo, 1993; Cheater, 1988). This contrived form of customary land tenure was however contrary to practices that prevailed in pre-colonial African societies, where status and wealth accrued to those who could attract dependents or followers. Strangers were welcome and, sooner or later, social relationships developed (e.g. marriage, settlement etc.) and contributed to the prestige and often the labour force of the head of household, kin group or community. As a result, communities were gener- ally multi-ethnic. The imposed ownership and inheritance rules discriminated against women and weaker ethnic minorities. Furthermore, in most countries, customary lands are essentially state land, managed on behalf of clans and cannot be transferred through the market system. Outside of freehold systems, access to land in Africa varies between men and women and even between married and unmarried women. The discriminatory role of customary ten- ure along social and gender lines is a direct product of colonial manipulation. Land rights have increasingly become perceived as being embedded within the broad spectrum of human rights (Moyo, 2001), and are related to the notion of rights to food 22 Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development and to existence, which has to be sought in land as the foremost means of social and economic reproduction. In Africa, rural livelihoods are characterized as having a secure place to live, free from threat of eviction, and with access to productive land and natural resources. Customary land tenure systems house the livelihoods framework that supports rural populations. These systems include the possession of land exclusively by individuals or households for residential use, farming or some other business activity within a given community. In addition, they incorporate the ‘commons’ - land shared by multiple users for grazing and for gathering ﬁeld and tree products (fuel, construction poles, medicinal plants, fruits, grass) found in controlled and open access areas. Land policy, as it relates to the above concepts, is thus crucial to sustainable livelihoods and food security as the empirical evidence in this paper will show. Land policy is a process of drafting all aspects of land management, including setting the benchmark for acquisition/disposal of land; the social and legal tenure regimes; the distribution structure and mechanisms; the regulation and forms of land-use, management; the administration systems; and the adjudication of land disputes. Land policy-making is usually led by the State through the pronouncement of speciﬁc laws and policy statements, and drafting by technocrats and/or popular assembly in consultation with broader stakeholders. Land policy reviews have recently been conducted in numerous African countries, leading to new land laws and/or the redeﬁnition of the necessary institutional framework under which land policy is administered. Some land policy tends to be of a more radical nature, termed ‘land reform’, this being a process of restructuring the distribution of land ownership rights. This includes the acquisition (voluntarily and/or compulsorily) of land from the state or current owners for redistribution to other groups of people who have historically been dispossessed or disadvantaged. There are several approaches to land reform which include: a) Land redistribution and resettlement through compulsory acquisition or markets; b) Land nationalization through vesting control of all land in the state and asserting the power of the state over individuals and traditional leaders; c) The introduction of land registration and titling through the issuance of land ownership certiﬁcates on demarcated land; d) Collectivization of land ownership through the encouragement or compulsory creation of collective cooperatives; and e) Land development through the proclamation of large development projects (conservancies, forest areas, dams), which restructure land use and ownership rights. Thus land tenure reform is one of a range of planned changes in the terms and condi- tions under which land is held, used and transacted through converting informal rights to formal rights and establishing mechanisms for recognition and management of land and natural resources. Colonialism in Africa was followed by the creation of ‘land markets’ of various types. These provide a framework within which land is disposed of between private persons Conceptual Framework and Methodological Issues 23 (natural or corporate), without recourse to state bodies, except for purposes of registration and notiﬁcation of the transactions. Thus transactions in the land market are not abso- lutely ‘free’, as the State administrative structures retain intermediatory functions through the land registry, land administrative courts and other entities, which proscribe such land transactions. In redistribution programmes, there are diﬀerent versions of the land market approaches that have been developed. These include: a) ‘Willing seller-willing buyer’, in which there is no hindrance in land sales; b) ‘Market assisted’ land reforms, in which resources are mobilized from the state and donors for land acquisition and settler placement; c) ‘Market led’ land reforms, in which the ‘open market’ determines land transfers; and d) ‘State led’ market based approaches, in which the state, as the leading buyer of land on the open market, uses donor ﬁnance for both acquisition and settler placement. However, land markets also vary depending on the form of laws underlying the freehold concept (e.g. Roman-Dutch laws as opposed to English common law) and in relation to various land regulatory processes, such as land taxation, land use directives, rules regard- ing land sizes and environmental management controls. Access to land and land tenure relations are critical where communities depend on control of land to ensure their food security. ‘Food security’ is the capacity of households, com- munities and the state to mobilize suﬃcient food, through production, acquisition and distribution, on a sustainable basis. Food security thus depends on the land resources available to the household or community and their ability to mobilize resources for the production and/or distribution of food to achieve an active and healthy life. ‘Food en- titlement’ is a concept derived from the entitlement approach developed by Amartya Sen (1981) following the severe Ethiopian drought in the early 1980s. He argued that famine conditions exist not because there is no food, but because the individuals lack adequate income to acquire food. This has subsequently been used to broaden the interpretation of access to land and natural resources. In 1986, the World Bank deﬁned ‘food security’ as “access by all people at all times to enough food for an active and healthy life”. They identiﬁed two essential elements of the food security equation as “the availability of food and the ability to acquire it” (World Bank, 1986). Rukuni and Eicher (1987) identify that food availability in Africa is, through domestic production, storage and/or trade, while access to food is through home production, the market or food transfers. ‘Livelihoods’ are the way in which households and communities derive food, shelter and clothing to sustain their living. Diﬀerent dimensions of the livelihood concept have been developed by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), mostly from an income mobilization perspective. Chambers (1988) deﬁned ‘livelihood’ as adequate stocks and ﬂows of food and cash to meet basic needs. Security of livelihood includes ac- cess to the means to produce the food or generate the income to meet those needs (Fran- kenberger, 1995; Chambers, 1995). In this study, access to land and land tenure security are regarded as key to human livelihoods. ‘Sustainable livelihoods’ exist when systems of human livelihood can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, and maintain or 24 Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development enhance their human capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not under- mining the natural resource base. ‘Livelihood strategies’ are the ways in which assets or resources are used to generate access to food. Maxwell and Wiebe (1998) argue that food security is a subset of livelihood security, the latter being a necessary and often suﬃcient condition of the former. Thus, systems of livelihoods determine whether households or communities are vulnerable or not. ‘Vulnerability’ is the degree of exposure of a household or community to life threat- ening conditions (either natural or human made). The resilience of a household or commu- nity depends on the structures of control and management that it puts in place to minimize the shocks, predetermined or otherwise. Household vulnerability is highly sensitive to the macroeconomy, the rainfall regime and to the degree of functionality of community insti- tutions. The risk of livelihood failure largely determines the vulnerability component of food security and, in any rural agrarian economy, access to and rights in land and natural resources are central to an analysis of livelihood strategies and livelihood security. The terms ‘livelihood strategies’ and ‘coping strategies’ have been used in relation to the way in which households and individuals cope with circumstances when they do not have suﬃcient income or food to meet all their needs. Davies (1993) notes the diﬀerence between coping strategies (dealing with short- term insuﬃciency) and adaptive strate- gies (adjusting to longer-term changes in the physical or economic environment through changes in production or income generation). Corbett (1988) emphasizes the crisis faced by households and individuals experiencing an eminent shortfall in access to food - the forced choice between current consumption and future access to food. Under circum- stances of transitory (usually unpredictable) food insecurity, resources are allocated in such a way as to provide the greatest assurance of surviving the food-insecure period. This might involve changes in production strategies, the dispersal of livestock, inter-household reciprocal exchanges, diversiﬁcation of income sources (including non-farm income), and managing food stocks (rationing consumption). Increased reliance on credit and disposal of assets (including productive assets) is a common strategy under circumstances of severe food insecurity (severe drought or production disruption, severe inﬂation, or militarized conﬂict). Destitution often marks the ﬁnal stage of severe food insecurity. Key indicators of unsustainable livelihoods include the extensive humanitarian crises re- lating to food insecurity, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, poverty in general, and the envi- ronmental insecurity facing numerous communities on the continent. The conventional measurement of ‘poverty’ is derived from income indices such as the ‘poverty datum line’, based upon an income of less than $ US 1 per day. However, various qualitative measures of deprivation, including social marginalization and exclusion, and various disadvantages that limit human capabilities to tackle basic livelihood challenges, are also key measures of poverty. Limited access to land and tenure insecurity are directly and causally linked to poverty in Africa. According to the ‘Johannesburg Memo’ (2002) authors, the politics of poverty eradication is loaded with misconceptions. Popular myths include the suggestion that (a) the poor cause environmental destruction; (b) economic growth removes poverty; and thus (c) economic growth is the recipe for the elimination of both poverty and en- vironmental degradation. The authors believe, as we do (Moyo, 2001), that each link in this chain of arguments is ﬂawed, making policies that are based on it counterproductive. Conceptual Framework and Methodological Issues 25 Admittedly, poor environmental refugees are often pushed to deforesting and overgrazing land as they seek a livelihood but, in general, they have proven to be careful guardians of resources and ecosystems. Since the poor depend on soil fertility, ﬁsh from lakes and es- tuaries, plants for medicine, branches from forests, and animals for subsistence and cash, they have a very down-to-earth incentive for conserving their resource base. ‘Environmental security’ is the capacity to live harmoniously with nature on a sustain- able basis, including the capacity of individuals and groups of people to meet their basic means. Given that 75% of the population in Africa lives and is dependent on the land and agriculture, including access to natural resources for their livelihood, their environmental security has to be sought in land. Resource scarcity leads directly to competition over resources and weakens the management regimes of resources, creating insecurity, tension and violent conﬂicts. Increasingly, social movements and civic organizations struggling for social justice identify development with improving land and resource rights for the poor and powerless. Putting both perspectives into one conceptual shell has tended to lead to confusion on what sus- tainable development is or should be. Some of the conceptual confusion derives from the vague meaning of the concept of ‘development’. Not surprisingly, the meaning of ‘sustain- able’ development also remains elusive. What exactly should be ‘sustained has remained elusive. ‘Sustainable development’ has tended to be based upon conserving large areas for nature development through parks, forest, vleis, and so on, under public or private control, to the exclusion of the weak. By adding development to sustainability concepts, various actors, governments, proﬁt and not-for-proﬁt corporations, indigenous peoples and urban-based action groups, are enjoined to participate in resource use and sustain- able development. With ‘development-as-growth’ embedded in it, it has been diﬃcult to escape the shadow of the growth ideology in using the term ‘sustainable development’. Land Tenure: Food Security Analytical Model The main analytic model used in this study is the land policy generic model developed by Moyo (1999), based on Shivji et al., (1998). The model is derived from ﬁve analytical con- structs of land management, namely, land distribution, land utilization, land tenure, land administration and land adjudication (see Chart 2.1). In this model, land tenure is one of the central factors determining food security and sustainable development. Sustainable development and food security in the resource dependent primary economies of Africa emerge in the context of equitable access to and ownership relationships of land, the use of which is adequately incentivized (and regulated). Appropriate land administrative and adjudicatory instruments are crucial to the eﬀective distribution, use and management of tenure relations. Given the powerful coalition of interests, such as agri-business, land tenure administration is critical in determining rules of access and use, and systems of monitoring and sanction. In terms of land distribution, the major problem relates to unequal access to land ac- cording to race, gender, class, and ethnic distinctions. In some countries, multinational 26 Land Tenure Systems and their Impacts on Food Security and Sustainable Development companies and the State also own large areas of land. The limited land rights for some groups of people have brought into sharp focus the question of access to land, rights and how land transfers take place under both market and customary systems. In general, there is a tendency for land to be unequally distributed, with the population pressure under which customary systems often operate, meaning that most groups of people in such sys- tems have limited land rights. In some instances, the State, private companies (local and international) and a few individuals, hold more land than they are able to fully utilize. Yet the discussion on food security is largely tabled from the production point of view, where access to good quality land becomes a prerequisite for households to produce food for their own subsistence and for sale. Essentially it is the equity and eﬃciency aspects of unequal land distribution that underlie concerns with policy on food security and agri- cultural development. The second analytical construct relates to land utilization and how this has been economi- cally and socially constructed. There is a tendency to view small farms as ineﬃcient and large farms as highly eﬃcient in terms of yields p

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