LAND TENURE ISSUES IN PROJECT DESIGN AND STRATZGIS FOR AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA by John W. Bruce* This paper represents the author's analysis and not the opinion of any of the organizations which have sponsored his research. Funding was provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development under Cooperative Agreement no. DAN-5301-A-00-4-33-00. *Africa Program Coordinator, Land Tenure Center. LTC Paper 128 Land Tenure Center University of Wisconsin-Madison March 1986 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ix INTRODUCTION xxvii 1. UNDERSTANDING INDIGENOUS LAND TENURE SYSTEMS 1 1.1 Is Indigenous Land Tenure "Communal"? 3 1.2 The Vertical Dimension: Social Hierarchy 7 1.3 The Horizontal Dimension: Multi-Tenure Systems 8 1.4 The Historical Dimension: The Pervasiveness of Change 10 1.5 The Personal Dimension: The Farmer's Viewpoint 10 2. A CENTURY OF CHANGE IN INDIGENOUS TENURE SYSTEMS 12 2.1 Colonialism and Tenurial Dualism 14 2.2 Commercialization of Agriculture and Related Forces 16 2.3 Changes in Local Institutions witn Tenure Roles 18 2.4 The Impact of Islamic Law 21 3. IS INDIGENOUS TENURE A DEVELOPMENT CONSTRAINT? 21 3.1 Land Use and Conservation 26 3.2 Security of Tenure and Investment in the Holding 28 3.3 Exclusivity of Tenure and Farm Management 32 3.4 Efficiency in Resource Allocation 34 3.5 Land-Secured Credit 38 3.6 Patterns of Inheritance and Continuity in the Farm Enterprise 40 3.7 Fragmentation and Subdivision of Holdings 43 3.8 Man/Land Ratios, Population Mobility and Citizenship 45 3.9 Equity and Redistributive Reform 48 3.10 Summary 50 4. TENURE REFORM MODELS 51 4.1 The Variety of Tenure Reform 51 4.2 Individualization of Tenure 52 4.3 Cooperativization of Production 59 4.4 Reinstitutionalizing Indigenous Land Tenure 64 4.5 Reforming Inheritance and Its Consequences 68 4.6 Nationalization and Bureaucratization of Land Administration 70 4.7 Understanding Choices Among Tenure Reform Models 72 -iii­ 5. LAND TENURE AND PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION 76 5.1 Neglect of Social Constraints on Farmer Behavior 76 5.2 Miscalculation of Farmer Incentives 77 5.3 Inadequate Framing of New Tenure Arrangements 77 5.4 Tenure Problems Created by Project-Induced Change 81 6. CHARACTERISTIC TENURE ISSUES BY PROJECT ACTIVITY 87 6.1 Components of Broad Agricultural Development Programs 87 6.2 Settlement and Irrigation Projects 93 6.3 Range Management 101 6.4 Forestry, Fuelwood and Resource Conservation Projects 110 6.5 Other Project Contexts 117 7. DEALING WITH LAND TENURE IN THE PROJECT CONTEXT 119 7.1 Recognizing Land Tenure Issues 119 7.2 Options for Response 122 7.3 Land Tenure Reform: Action at +he National Level 124 7.4 Land Tenure Reform: Minimalist Approaches and Action at the Project Level 129 7.5 Tools of Tenure Change at the Project Level 135 8. CONCLUSIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR USAID 139 8.1 The Role of Land Tenure Change in Agricultural Development 139 8.2 Some Conclusions Concerning Reform 143 8.3 Implications for USAID 145 LIST OF INSERTS 1. Why the Term "Communal" is Misleading 2 2. The Hierarchy of Estates in Land Among the Lozi of Zambia 6 3. A Multi-Tenure System in Tigray, Ethiopia 9 4. Pressure on Land and Tenure Change in the Nuba Mountains 11 5. The Farmer's Perspective: Land Acquisition Strategies under the Amnara Rist System 15 6. Tenurial Dualism, Its Origins and Persistence 16 7. The Introduction of Cocoa and Land Tenure Change in Western Nigeria 17 8. The Development of Sales of Land in Nigeria 19 9. Indirect Rule and "Communal" Tenure 22 10. Islamic Law and Land Tenure Change in Northern Nigeria 23 11. Economics and Transitional Land Tenure Situations 25 -iv­ 12. Land Tenure and Land Degradation 27 13. Security and Insecurity of Tenure Under Indigenous Systems 30 14. Conflicting Tenure Rights: Pastoralists and Farmers in Niger 33 15. Indigenous Tenure, Transaction Costs, and Allocative Efficiency 35 16. Indigenous Land Markets 37 17. Allocative Efficiency Under a Traditional Tenure System 39 18. Pledging and Mortgaging of Land in Colonial Nigeria 41 19. Matrilineality and Land Acquisition in an Expanding Economy 44 20. The Case for Fragmentation of Holdings 46 21. The Conflict between National Land Policy and Local Sovereignty over Land 47 22. Indigenous Redistributive Reform in Tigray, Ethiopia 49 23. The Extinction of Family Rights in the Kenyan Reform 55 24. Fragmentation and the Land Market in Emba District, Kenya 57 25. The Effectiveness of Compulsory Registration in Kenya 58 26. The Effects of Tanzania's Ujamaa on Production 61 27. Production Cooperation in Ethiopian Agriculture 63 28. Land Corporations in the Pacific: An Approach Untried in Africa 67 29. Flux in Traditional Land Inheritance Systems in Zambia 69 30. The Experience with Land Consolidation in Kenya 71 31. Land Without Value in Zambia 73 32. Range as State Land in Mauritania 74 33. Tenire Constraints on the Introduction of Alley-Cropping 78 34. Formal Land Law and Reality in Project Design 79 35. Beneficiaries and Incentives: Tree-Planting in a Food-for Work Program 80 36. Land Issues in the Masai Livestock and Range Management Project, Tanzania 82 37. Framing Tenure Arrangements for Irrigated Perimeters in Senegal 83 38. Tenure Issues on Water Catchment Dams in Mauritania 85 39. Project-Created Tenure Change in Lofa County, Liberia 86 40. Mechanization and Tenant Eviction in the Cnilalo Agricultural Development Unit, Ethiopia 90 41. Insecurity of Tenure in Swaziland 92 42. Displacement and Compensation for Land in Irrigation Projects 95 43. The Dynamics of Plot Allocation on a Sudanese Irrigation Scheme 97 44. Land Tenure Preferences in New Lands Settlements 99 45. The Future of Pastoralist Communal Tenure 104 46. An Evaluation of Commercial Ranches in Botswana 106 47. An Evaluation of AID's Group Ranch Effort in Botswana 107 48. The Group Ranch Experience in Kenya 109 49. Insecurity-Encouraged Tree Planting in Bong County, Liberia 112 50. Tree Tenure and Agroforestry Projects 114 51. Community Woodlots in Lesotho 116 52. AID Rural Road Building and Beneficiary Displacement in Liberia 118 53. Land Tenure and Project Design in IBRD Projects 121 54. A Phased Approach to Agroforestry to Avoid Tenure Issues 123 55. Women and Tenure Niches in Agroforestry Projects 125 56. The Limits of Law as. a Tool of Tenure Reform in Kenya 130 _V_ 57. A Presidential Commission's Recovmehdations on Incremental Change 132 58. The Hema Systc¢m as a Range Management Alternative 134 59. Tswana Tribal Legislation 136 60. Project-Stimulated Tenure Change% AID'S Ada Project, Ethiopia 138 61. Size of Holding and Economies of Scale 141 62. Unimodal and Bimodal Development Strategies 142 63. Project-Initiated Land Tenure Change in Lesotho 146 64. Foreign Advisors and Reform on Pre-Revolutionary Ethiopia 148 NOTES 151 BIBLIOGRAPHY 175 -vi­ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper was prepared at the request of USAID, thanks to Ray Love, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Africa Bureau, and Lane Holdcroft, then Head of Africa Bureau's Tecnnical Resources Division, with whom the idea originated. The author has very much appreciated the consistent support for this effort from David Atwood (Bureau of Science and Technology/R.,l Develop­ ment), Pat Fleuret (Africa Bureau/Development Programming) and Curt Reintsma (Africa Bureau/Technical Resources). Pat Fleuret and David Atwood provided very detailed and helpful critiques of early drafts, and the paper has also benefited from coments by Curt Reintsma, John Grayzel (Near East Bureau) and Joan Atherton (Policy Planning and Coordination Bureau). At the Land Tenure Center, Peter Bloch, Marion Brown, Carol Dickerman, John Harbeson, Don Kanel, Jane Knowles, Steve Lawry, anc Jim Riddell have contributed helpful comments at various stages. In many parts of this paper I have built upon the fine work of these colleagues. From outside the Center, much appreciatea comments on all or parts of the paper have come from John Cohen (Harvard Institute for International Development), Louise Fortmann (Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of California-Berkeley), and Allan Hoben (Department of Anthropology and African Studies Center, Boston University). Several research assistants made valuable contributions: Solomon Gashaw gathered many of the sources cited here; Jill Cantor assisted with the excerpts from the literature; and Joy Green winnowed AID documentation for examples from the project experience. My thanks to them and to Patty Grubb, Kathy Torok and Jane Dennis-Collins, who typed this report, and especially to Patty Grubb, who cheerfully bore the major burden of multiple revisions. Finally, I wish to express my deep gratitude to the many colleagues, friends and students from Ethiopia, Sudan, Botswana and elsewhere in Africa, who have over the years enriched my understanding of African land. tenure. Any errors of fact or opinion which remain in spite of so much good advice and assistance are my own. John W. Bruce 24 March 1986 -vii­ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Seriously skewed land distribution is unusual in Sub-Saharan Africa, aside from situations created by European settlement and largely eliminated at the end of the colonial period, and so interest in land policy tends to focus less on redistributive land reform than on the adequacy or inadequacy of existing land tenure systems in responding to the demands of development. Redistribu­ tive land reform is relevant in certain limited contexts, but every country in the region faces the issue of whether reform of its land tenure institutions is necessary, and if so, what shape should be taken by the reform. Land tenure reform alters the substantive rules and institutional arrangements of indigenous land tenure systems, seeking to induce changes in land use in the interest of productivity, equity, and similar objectives.