Land Tenure Reform Crucial Component of Future Peace in Africa: Part I

By Katherine Hubbard

Many of Africa’s bloodiest conflicts have been blamed on tribal or ethnic politics, but according to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, there may be a different issue at the heart of these conflicts: land.  Some experts believe that Africa’s most famous tragedies could have been prevented with changes in national land law and better systems for conflict resolution over land disputes.  This first part of a two-part series on land tenure will examine the history of land disputes in Africa.

Without a formal land tenure system or a means of conflict resolution, what starts as a seemingly small land dispute can sometimes escalate into war or genocide.  There are numerous examples of land disputes that have led to larger conflicts.  Many argue that Rwanda’s civil war had more to do with dwindling available land in Africa’s most densely populated country than with ethnic conflict.  The wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia were largely the result of land grabs by warlords eager to exploit the countries’ resources.   The violence following Kenya’s 2007 election reflected generations of dissatisfaction with land policies that favored particular groups, and the genocide in Darfur has much to do with a broken land tenure system that has created conflicts over soil which is increasingly unproductive due to climate change.

The land issue stems from the fact that in Africa many people have no documentation of their ownership of land.  Instead, communities believe that they own their plot of land because they have lived there for thousands of years.  According to the United Nations Development Program, 90 percent of rural Africans own their land because their ancestors did, and they put their faith in this traditional system to give them the space they need to build their homes and grow crops.

But outsiders who arrived on the continent either didn’t understand this system, or chose to ignore it completely.  When Europe divided up Africa in the 19th century, they treated the continent as empty land free for the taking and introduced the concept of private property.  Under this system, the title to land beat out tradition, and those who acquired the legal deeds were frequently not the same people who had lived and worked the land for generations.  In most places, the question of whether title or tradition should take precedent has never been resolved, and this uncertainly leaves the door open for countless conflicts that can quickly turn violent.

Western development officials have traditionally supported the title-based system because of the prevailing wisdom that land can be used to obtain credit, which can be used to generate more wealth.  Land titles, however, often involve high transaction costs.  This means that although they may benefit farmers of high-value commodities, they are usually impractical for poor subsistence farmers.  In addition, the links between titling and tenure security, credit availability, and investments have not been well established in Africa.

The problems with this chaotic system can be illustrated with the case of Liberia’s first civil war.  During the 1970s Liberia’s presidents converted land from communal to private holdings in order to boost agricultural exports.  This policy disrupted local economies by throwing farmers off their land and undermining the authority of traditional rulers.  The reforms also created opportunities for the already powerful warlords to gain control over large portions of the country.  For example, in 1977 the twenty largest Liberian-owned logging companies owned properties that covered 8,500 square feet, or 20% of the surface of Liberia.  These warlords maintained a patron-client relationship with President Samuel Doe throughout the 1980s while the vast majority of Liberians who derived no benefit from the arrangement had no reason to support Doe’s regime.  When Charles Taylor arrived in 1989 to lead a guerilla war against the regime, many Liberians were willing to support him simply on the basis of his rejection of Doe.

The case of Liberia is only one example of how troubles with land tenure can lead to war.  
Land tenure reform is needed to prevent future conflicts in Africa, but it is also needed in areas that have recently emerged from conflict in order to prevent recurrences of violence.  The second part of this series will address the issue land tenure reform in post-conflict societies.

Flickr photo by geoftheref used under a Creative Commons license.