African Natural Resources Centre Rethinking land reform in Africa new ideas, opportunities and challenges Rethinking land reform in Africa: new ideas, opportunities and challenges. 1 2 Rethinking land reform in Africa: new ideas, opportunities and challenges. Rethinking land reform in Africa: new ideas, opportunities and challenges. 3 ◀ Transition forest area in Bokito, Cameroon. Photo: Mokhamad Edliadi Acknowledgements Cosmas Milton Obote Ochieng, Director of the African Natural Resources Centre (ANRC) of the African Development Bank led the production of this collection of essays, under the leadership of Célestin Monga, Chief Economist and Vice President, African Development Bank. Our utmost thanks and sincere gratitude to all the authors who contributed to this collection: Thomas Bassett, Sara Berry, Uchendu E. Chigbu, Horman Chitonge, Lorenzo Cotula, Riël Franzsen, Robert Home, Sheila Khama, Michael Lipton, Matthew I. Mitchell, Pauline E. Peters, Howard Stein, and Liz Alden Wily. We are also most thankful and grateful for the excellent work of Fionnuala Tennyson, copy editor for this collection. Maali Harrathi and Eric I. Balogu of the African Natural Resources Centre, provided competent administrative support to the project. Design by Paul Derrick Design. Disclaimer The views expressed in this collection are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the African Development Bank, its Board of Governors, its Board of Directors, or the governments they represent. The African Development Bank and its Board of Directors do not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accept no responsibility for any consequence of their use. By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area, or by using the term ‘country’ in this document, the African Development Bank does not intend to make any adjustments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area. 4 Rethinking land reform in Africa: new ideas, opportunities and challenges. Contents . 6 Notes on contributors Cosmas Milton Obote Ochieng 13 Introduction. Rethinking land reform in Africa: new ideas opportunities and challenges. Michael Lipton 20 Land reform contexts: demography/employment, farms, soil-water resources/authority. Sara Berry 34 On whose authority? Land reform, power and economic uncertainty in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. Lorenzo Cotula 45 The future of land: commercial pressures and the case for systemic law reform to secure rural land rights. Liz Alden Wily 57 Adjusting to new era agrarianism: tackling the troubled interface of public and community property. Pauline E. Peters 70 The significance of descent-based ‘customary’ land management for land reform and agricultural futures in Africa. Howard Stein 85 Institutional transformation and shifting policy paradigms: reflections on land reform in Africa. Riël Franzsen 112 A review of property transfer taxes in Africa. 132 Law in African land reform: contested areas. Robert Home 142 Maps and mapping practices in Côte d’Ivoire’s rural land reform. Thomas Bassett 156 Negotiating land rights to redress land wrongs: women in Africa’s Eugene Chigbu land reforms. Matthew Mitchell 168 Land reform, peacebuilding and the ‘indigenous’ question in Africa: the promise and perils of Free, Prior and Informed Consent. Sheila Khama 178 Land tenure policy evolution and impacts on urban land housing markets: a case study of Botswana. Horman Chitonge 198 Land governance in Africa: the key to unlock improved productivity and promote equitable and sustainable land use. Rethinking land reform in Africa: new ideas, opportunities and challenges. 5 Notes on contributors Dr Thomas Bassett is Professor Emeritus, Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Professor Bassett’s research focuses on the political ecology of agrarian change in West Africa. He earned his Ph.D in Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. His long term research here grapples with the question of why peasant farmers and herders, despite their access to land and labour, remain vulnerable to food insecurity. His research in Côte d’Ivoire traces the transformation of farming and pastoral systems, their interactions with markets and the state, and the multi-scale political ecological dynamics that produce vulnerability as well as opportunities for reducing it. Dr Bassett’s recent publications focus on world market prices and cotton grower incomes in West Africa (World Development), the adaptation concept in the climate change literature (Geoforum), and political ecological perspectives on socio-ecological relations (Natures, Sciences et Sociétés). He also writes on the history of maps and mapmaking in Africa with contributions to three volumes of the six-volume The History of Cartography. Dr Sara Berry is a retired Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and co-founder of its Center of Africana Studies. She has researched and studied issues of land, development, agrarian change, political economy and socio-economic history in sub-Saharan Africa for several decades with primary emphasis on Nigeria and Ghana. Principal publications include Fathers work for their sons: accumulation, mobility and class formation in an extended Yoruba community (1985), No condition is permanent: the social dynamics of agrarian change in sub- Saharan Africa (University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), and Chiefs know their boundaries: essays on property, power and the past in Asante, 1896–1996 (Heinemann, 2001). Dr Uchendu E. Chigbu is a research fellow at the Technical University of Munich, where he also coordinates the University’s PhD programme in land management. His educational experiences are broad and cover the social, management, environmental and engineering sciences. His foundational studies in land management began at the Abia State University Uturu (Nigeria), where he completed a BSc. in Estate Management followed by an MA in Business and Management at the University of Reading in the UK. He then completed MSc and PhD (Engineering Doctorate) in land management at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. His academic research focuses on developing transformative pathways through land administration, land management and land tenure, land-use planning, and land policy 6 Rethinking land reform in Africa: new ideas, opportunities and challenges. and governance. As a practitioner, he led the conceptualisation and drafting of the ‘Tenure Responsive Land-Use Planning Guide’ (a collaborative initiative of the Global Land Tool Network, UN-Habitat and German Development Agency) for strengthening land use rights in countries of the Global South. He is a World Fellow (in urbanisation) of the International Science Council. He is also the Co-Chair of the International Research and Training Cluster at the Global Land Tool Network of UN-Habitat. Horman Chitonge is full professor at the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town (UCT). His research interests include agrarian political economy, hydro-politics, and alternative strategies for economic growth in Africa. He has published extensively on these themes. His most recent books include: Economic Growth and Development in Africa: Understanding Trends and Prospects (Routledge, 2015), Contemporary Customary Land Issues in Africa: Navigating the Contours of Change (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), Social Welfare Policy in South Africa: From the Poor White Problem to a Digitised Social Contract (Peter Lang Inc, 2018), Land, The State and the Unfinished Decolonisation Project in Africa: Essays in Honour of Professor Sam Moyo (Laanga Publishers, 2019); Industrialising Africa: Unlocking the Economic Potential of the Continent (Peter Lang Inc., 2019). Dr Lorenzo Cotula is a Principal Researcher in Law and Sustainable Development at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). He is also a Visiting Professor at Strathclyde Law School, and a Visiting Research Fellow at Warwick Law School’s Centre for Law, Regulation and Governance of the Global Economy (GLOBE). Lorenzo leads research and action on the legal arenas where natural resource governance meets the global economy – cutting across land and natural resource law and governance; international investment law; human rights; political economy of natural resources and foreign investment; and legal empowerment, citizen agency and public accountability. Lorenzo steers IIED’s work on Legal Tools for Citizen Empowerment – a collaborative initiative to strengthen local rights in the context of natural resource investments in low and middle-income countries. He holds academic qualifications in law, development studies and sustainable business from Sapienza University of Rome, the London School of Economics, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge. Professor Riël Franzsen occupies the South African Research Chair in Tax Policy and Govern- ance. He is also a Professor and Director of the African Tax Institute. In 1990 he obtained a doctorate in tax law from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa). He specialises in land and property taxation and regularly acts as a policy advisor for the International Monetary Fund, United Nations, World Bank, and other entities. He has worked in this capacity in Africa Rethinking land reform in Africa: new ideas, opportunities and challenges. 7 (Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda), Asia (Thailand),