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The Stakes of Land Ownership

Events in recent years have shown all too clearly that land access is an economic and political issue lying at the heart of many conflicts in ACP countries. All too often, the question of land tenure sparks rivalries and social unrest. In Côte d'Ivoire, the return of young rural dwellers who had mistakenly hoped for a better life in the towns, is causing ethnic discord, as they find their parents' land has been ceded to immigrants from Burkina Faso and Mali. The worst affected are small-scale farmers, for whom land is, in IL-he words of the World Bank, "a strategic asset".
Population growth, immigration, unemployment, urbanization and the degradation of the environment have all contributed to making land rights a critical issue in the development of agricultural production and the conservation of natural resources.
It is a headache in some countries, for the systems governing access to land and natural resources are many, and they differ from one region and ethnic group to another.
Ail these systems co-exist, making the legal picture hazy. The strongest and the wealthiest take advantage of the confusion to grab land, while the variety of arbitration authorities makes it hard to have any effective recourse. In French-speaking Africa during the 1980s, land privatization was proposed by international organization as the solution.

Information for Agricultural Development in ACP Countries, Number 111, June 2004