How can people negotiate complex land rights in West Africa?

Land is an increasingly scarce resource in West Africa. As access to land becomes increasingly regulated, conflicts are becoming more common. Who wins and who loses in the struggle to gain access to land?

Land provides a major share of income and employment in many countries, particularly to poorer people. Whilst many livelihoods depend on several activities, access to land and the use of common land is frequently a key component. Land is also important for political reasons and a major asset for people in authority.

Research from the International Institute of Environment and Development, UK, looks at how land rights are changing in West Africa. Most land is regulated by a mixture of local, customary and government rights, often with a lot of confusion and contradiction. Deciding land rights often involves negotiation, with each group using whatever resources, rights and bargaining power they have.

Primary land rights - the ownership of land - are claimed in many different ways. These range from customary claims, which are based on who settles first in a region, to the direct allocation by governments, often through development projects or irrigation schemes.

Secondary land rights - rights to use land owned by others - are also complex, but rental and shared farm arrangements are common. The research shows that in nine sites across six West African countries, more than sixty percent of people are involved in a land transaction of some sort. In many cases, people lease land to one person and rent it from another.

Migrants often rely on secondary land rights. In the 1970s and 1980s, five million Sahelian migrants grew coffee and cocoa in Ivory Coast. These sectors now face difficulties, however, and many Ivorians are seizing back the land they lent or sold to migrants.

Across West Africa, conflicts such as these are having an impact on land rights.

• Land that used to be available on long-term loans at little or no cost is now being rented out for annual payments.
• Land is becoming more focused on monetary payments; where people used to pay ‘in kind’ (for example through work), land owners now demand cash.
• In many areas, land is being used as an asset, for example being mortgaged to raise credit.
• Local people are increasingly asserting their land rights, even when this disagrees with legal systems.
• Contractual arrangements for different plantation crops, such as coffee, cocoa, citrus fruits and palm oil, are all changing.

Although these trends are complex and vary between regions, they all create difficulties for poor people trying to gain access to land. The researcher concludes:

• Donors focus their attention on primary land rights, but this may further exclude people who rely on secondary rights. It is important to recognise the range of rights associated with land and natural resources in West Africa.
• Secondary land rights must be built on the wide diversity and flexibility of local arrangements.

Source(s):
'Negotiating Access to Land in West Africa - Who is Losing Out?' by Camilla Toulmin, in 'Conflicts over Land and Water in Africa', James Currey: Oxford, edited by Bill Derman, Rie Odgaard and Espen Sjaastad, 2007

Funded by: UK Department for International Development; French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

id21 Research Highlight: 25 March 2008

Further Information:
Camilla Toulmin
International Institute of Environment and Development
3 Endsleigh Street
London WC1H 0DD
UK

Tel: +44 207 3882117
Fax: +44 207 3882826
Contact the contributor: camilla.toulmin@iied.org

International Institute of Environment and Development, UK

Other related links:
'Improving access to land for poor rural people'

'New approaches to land management and security in Africa'

'Balancing old and new land rights in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire'

'Family first: land transfer rights in West Africa'

See id21’s links for land