LAND, LANDLESSNESS AND POVERTY IN ETHIOPIA Research Findings from Four Regions Proceedings of the workshop organized by the Forum for Social Studies Addis Ababa, 15 July 2016 Edited by Dessalegn Rahmato Forum for Social Studies Addis Ababa 2018 Copyright 2018: Forum for Social Studies and the authors. All rights reserved ISBN: 978-99944-50-64-0 Disclaimer. This study was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of the Forum for Social Studies (FSS) and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of FSS or its Board of Advisors Forum for Social Studies (FSS) P.O. Box 25864 code 1000 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Email: [email protected] Web: www.fssethiopia.org.et ii Contents Forum for Social Studies (FSS) Brief Institutional Profile..............................iv Land, Landlessness, and Poverty Introduction and Context ..............................1 Dessalegn Rahmato Land, Landlessness and Poverty in Amhara Region ..........................................9 Tadesse Amsalu and Birhanu Gedif Land, Landlessness and Rural Poverty In Oromia ...........................................59 Fekadu Adugna A Study of Selected Woredas in the Southern Region ...................................125 Teketel Abebe and Melessaw Shanko Land, Rural Poverty and Landlessness in Tigray ...........................................239 Gebreyohannes Girmay, Zenebe Gebreegziabher and Girmay Gebru iii Forum for Social Studies (FSS) Brief Institutional Profile __________________________________________________________ The Forum for Social Studies (FSS) is a non-government, non-profit institution engaged in conducting and sponsoring policy-oriented research and promoting informed public debate on a wide range of development issues. It was established in 1998 by a group of academics and CSO activists whose aim was to help deepen and broaden a democratic tradition of public debates. Its work is guided by the conviction that enhancing the public-decision-makers’ interface on key social and economic issues can promote a transparent, participatory and all-inclusive policy-making and implementation process. In line with its mandate, FSS operates under four core programs: Policy Research, Public Dialogue, Publications and Media and Communication Outreach activities. These are employed as preferred vehicles aimed at attaining its mission and organizational objectives. As part of its research activity, FSS has in the past successfully launched a number of major book projects, such as ‘Reflections on Development in Ethiopia: New Trends, Sustainability and Challenges’ and ‘Food Security, Safety Nets and Social Protection in Ethiopia’. Since then it has published monographs and research reports on a wide range of development and policy issues, including, poverty and poverty reduction, natural resource management, decentralization, the quality of higher education, culture and development, and environment and climate change. Other social and economic issues it has examined include urban public services in Addis Ababa, the marketing and sale of Arake, the Khat conundrum, Labor migration to South Africa and the Middle East, etc. Its publications have been disseminated to decision makers, institutions of higher education, academics and researchers as well as non-government and international donor organisations to stimulate further discourse and reflection. This publication titled ‘Land, Landlessness and Poverty in Ethiopia’ is a continuation of that tradition, and is intended to examine the complex inter- relationship between land and increasing landlessness and poverty in Ethiopia. Given the current competition over land by different actors, viz. government demands for land to be used for development and infrastructure expansion, foreign and local investors requiring land for agri-businesses, and increasing appetite for land by a fast increasing rural population primarily fueled by a high rate of demographic expansion, this is a must read by policy makers and researchers to stimulate further discourse and design an appropriate policy framework to harmonize these competing demands. iv Land, Landlessness, and Poverty Introduction and Context Dessalegn Rahmato Introduction The contributions in this volume were first presented for discussion at a conference organized by the Forum for Social Studies (FSS) on 15 July 2016. The conference was meant to provide the opportunity for free and open debate and reflectionon the broad subject of rural land, poverty and the problem of landlessness, based onthe findings of four research projects, commissioned by FSS, with financial support from USAID, and undertaken in Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR, and Tigray.A central aim was to underscore an important point, namely that the debate on land will be partial and inconclusive if it confines itself to matters having to do with tenure arrangements, administration, and the legal frameworks pertaining to these. The subject must also be examined in its broader settings, and should include demographic issues, environmental resources, family dynamics and household economy. The main objective of the research project that was undertaken was to explore the extent to which land and poverty are inter-related, and the reduction of poverty depends on addressing the challenges faced by landholders and land users. The research was also meant to explore the state of landlessness at present in the study areas and what the complex causes and consequences that give rise to the problem are, and what has been the response of the landless themselves and of public authorities at the local and Regional levels. Moreover, it was considered important to examine whether and how land registration and certification has contributed to security of land rights and access, and if this has a bearing on poverty and livelihood dynamics. Context It has been a little over a decade since the Federal legislation governing rural land and its administration was issued. The laws in question, Proclamations No. 455 and 456, defined, in broad terms, rights of land use, of transfer, registration, compensation and other related responsibilities and obligations incumbent on both land holders and public authorities, leaving the specific modalities determining these rights and responsibilities to be determined by Regional laws and regulations. A decade in agrarian history is a relatively short period of time, nevertheless, a lot of change has taken place in this time impacting on land, natural resource use and the rural economy as a whole. Since the beginning of the new millennium, the country has undergone rapid socio-economic change with considerable economic growth and increased economic activity. Of particular importance are heavy public sector investments on basic infrastructure such as roads, railways, hydropower schemes, large-scale housing Dessalegn Rahmato programs and mega industrial projects, some of which involve river diversion, dams and irrigation. To attract private investment, particularly foreign capital, the Federal and Regional authorities have set aside land in the form of industrial and agricultural enterprise zones in various parts of the country. Moreover, there has been considerable private sector investment in commercial agriculture, manufacturing enterprises, real estate schemes and other economic projects. These public and private investments have one thing in common: they are all “land hungry”: they all demand access to land and have encroached on peasant farms and pasture as well as pastoral rangelands. It is clear that these developments and their impact on rural land tenure and natural resource use were not sufficiently anticipated a decade ago, and the land laws in force today are now unable to accommodate, much less facilitate, the changing dynamic. In this country, land is a critical natural resource and the output from it provides the greater part of its GDP as well as of its export earnings. Moreover, Ethiopia is, and will continue to be for some time to come, a predominantly agrarian society in which smallholder and, in large part, subsistence agriculture, will remain prevalent. Consequently, rights of access to land, its utilization and management, and the sustainability of the ecosystem resources in question should be at the forefront of the debate on development. The importance of property rights -rights in land in particular- for economic growth and social and political stability has been a major concern of development discourse as far back as the 1950s. What is new at present is that the focus of the debate has come to include considerations of how rights to land can enable countries to achieve the goals of poverty reduction, natural resource management and gender equality. This has led to discussions on such key issues as the policy and legal framework of rights to land, tenure systems and social inclusion, and the role of investors, the land market and commercialization. One of the most important measures taken by the government with respect to rural land was the implementation of a program of land registration and certification. The program has several stages, but the first stage, namely the distribution of certificates of holding to land holders in all rural areas has by and large been completed. Certification has gone hand in hand with “registration”