Fixing
Africa’s land ownership issues, by Makhtar Diop, 7/24/13
Poor land
governance systems are one of the biggest challenges to African development,
but the problem is not insurmountable. Makhtar Diop, the World Bank Group’s
vice president for Africa, discusses ways to improve them.
Many countries around the world have
grappled with the challenge of landlessness and inequality of land ownership.
However, in Africa, which is home to 202 million hectares or half the world’s
total holdings of useable uncultivated fertile land, that problem is
accentuated by extremely low agricultural productivity, high rates of
unemployment and inequality.
Despite the continent’s abundant
land and mineral wealth, much of Africa remains poor and too few countries have
been able to translate their rapid economic growth into poverty reduction or
job growth.
In fact, in some countries in the
region, the gaps in land ownership between rich and poor have become
sufficiently wide to undermine shared growth and social cohesion.
A new World Bank report — Securing
Africa’s Land for Shared Prosperity: a Program to Scale Up Reforms and
Investments — suggests that poor land governance, the system that determines
and administers land rights, may lie at the root of this grievous problem.
The vast majority of African
countries are using land administration systems they inherited at independence,
along with survey and mapping techniques that are antiquated. Not surprisingly,
only 10 percent of Africa’s rural land is registered. The remaining 90 percent
is undocumented and informally administered, which makes it susceptible to land
grabbing, expropriation without fair compensation, and corruption.
These consequences fall hardest on
women farmers who are often the only breadwinners in their families. They make
up 70 percent of Africa’s farming population and yet, for the most part, are
locked out of land ownership by customary laws. Without a title to the land
they farm, women are unable to raise the money needed to grow their small
harvests or to improve living standards.
Undocumented land is also a problem
in Africa’s cities, now increasingly the destination for millions of former
rural dwellers. A profound demographic shift is underway in Africa from rural
areas, and by 2050 half of the continent’s population will abide in cities.
Under this trend of urban migration the issue of land ownership will become
steadily more pronounced. Increasingly, the inhabitants of Africa’s booming
cities will need secure access to land to live and raise crops legally without
fear of eviction.
This is where scaled-up land
registration combined with legal recognition of the rights of squatters on
public lands, would greatly improve the lives of poor families and their ability
to tend communal gardens, improve urban agriculture, and run profitable
businesses.
Fortunately, there are successful
examples worldwide of countries that have improved their land governance and
revolutionised agriculture.
For example, in 1978, China dismantled collective farms and
used long-term leases to confer land rights on households, which launched an
era of prolonged agricultural growth that transformed rural China and led to
the largest reduction in poverty in history.
In Argentina, Indonesia, and the
Philippines, legal recognition of land rights for residents in slum areas have
improved the quality of their housing and the value of their plots.
Based on such worldwide experience
and encouraging evidence from country pilots in African countries such as
Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda, this new report suggests a
series of 10 steps that may help to revolutionise agricultural production and
eradicate poverty in Africa. These steps include improving tenure security over
individual and communal lands, increasing land access and tenure for poor and
vulnerable families, resolving land disputes, managing better public land, and
increasing efficiency and transparency in land administration services.
Although poor land governance is
daunting, the problem is not insurmountable. The last decade has witnessed an
increase in concerted efforts by African countries and development partners to
undertake land policy reforms and to pilot innovative approaches to improve
land governance. Many of these countries either have legislation in place or
initiatives in progress to address communal land rights and gender equality,
the basis for sound land administration.
Technology can also help. New
satellite and information technologies can greatly reduce the cost of land
administration. A growing number of African countries are now using these
systems to reduce the costs of surveying and mapping land, and to computerize
their land registries to improve efficiency and reduce corruption.
Some 26 African countries have
established at least one continuously operating reference station (CORS) and
about 50 CORS are contributing data to the African geodetic reference system,
which, once completed, will provide a uniform coordinate reference system
across the continent.
The time to resolve the continent’s
long-running struggle with land ownership and productivity has never been
better. Surges in commodity prices and
foreign direct investment have increased the potential return on investment in
land administration. We must match the evidence in our new land report with the
political will and leadership to transform African agriculture and Africa’s
development prospects. The time for action is now.
Makhtar Diop is the World Bank Group’s vice president for Africa
Comments
Land
ownership by families is the key to economic stability. Countries who don’t have this have large
populations also have unsustainable poverty.
The responsibility for changing this lies with the governments of these
countries.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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