Presentation to an international workshop on Making Land Rights More Secure held in Ouagadougou.

The first of 7 Working Papers presented at an FAO regional technical workshop for sub-Saharan Africa on legal empowerment of the poor (LEP) in Nakuru, Kenya, in October 2006. Divided into 7 issues: land markets, individualised land tenure, and land titling; pluralism; informal settlements in urban and peri-urban areas; gender; decentralisation and institutional development; pastoralism; dispute settlement. Each issue is examined through four dimensions: the international, the colonial, the national, and the social.

Position papers distributed to the 2,000 people who attended the South African Government’s National Land Tenure Summit, 4-6 September 2014. Comprises: Strengthening the Relative Rights of People Working on Land; Extension of Security of Tenure Amendment Bill; Communal Land Tenure Policy; Communal Property Associations; Agricultural Landholdings Policy; State Land Lease and Disposal Policy. Also an Oped by Ruth Hall, Secure tenure rights or share-holding for farm workers: will government listen?

Covers land use patterns in the Cotton Belt – joint venture companies, smallholders and privados, research questions and characteristics of the 5 study zones, smallholder perceptions of land tenure security and experiences with conflict in the Cotton Belt. Challenges widely held beliefs about land tenure and access in the smallholder sector in Mozambique. Provisions in the new legal framework will not be sufficient to eliminate or adjudicate land conflicts between smallholders. The research results reveal significant variation in the size of household landholdings.

Presents an example of a biofuels production project and its value chain to argue that there is a need for a land and investment policy to guide communities, investors and stakeholders. The expansion of commercial sugarcane farming and the establishment of an ethanol refinery at Chisumbanje in Chipinge District present both opportunities and risks for rural people. Without clarity on land tenure, investors are faced with challenges when deciding the extent to which they can put their money into agriculture.

The paper discusses the interface of anthropological research on land with policy positions across formative periods – from the colonial period through to the present as land tenure reform has repeatedly become a development priority; and recent research on intensifying competition over land, its intersection with competition over legitimate authority, new types of land transfers, the role of claims of indigeneity or autochthony in land conflicts, and the challenges of increasing social inequality and of commodification of land for analysis and for land reform.

Focuses on communal tenure reform developments (or lack thereof), referring to law, policy and practice in rural areas in South Africa. Shows that communal land tenure is not in a healthy state and discusses the following recent laws and policies that are symptoms of this ill health: the Communal Land Rights Act (struck down by the Constitutional Court); the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act (passed in 2003); and the 2014 Communal Land Tenure ‘wagon wheel’ policy (currently in place).

Malawi, like other countries in Africa, has a new land policy designed to clarify and formalise customary tenure. The country is poor with a high population density, highly dependent on agriculture, and the research sites are matrilineal-matrilocal, and near urban centres. But the case raises issues relevant to land tenure reform elsewhere: the role of ‘traditional authorities’ or chiefs vis-a-vis the state and ‘community’; variability in types of ‘customary’ tenure; and deepening inequality within rural populations.

Addresses the research question, do different land tenure conditions affect farming systems, organisation and performance among Zambian small farmers, and if so, how? Discusses the widespread demand for title, even on customary lands, and concludes that this is a defensive measure, based on a desire for secure possession and for bequeathment and the protection of fixed investments.

Brief summary of 4 presentations at the Mokoro land seminar by Martin Adams (Mokoro) on FAO’s support for tenure, rights and access to land and natural resources: lessons from Mozambique; by Joseph Hanlon (LSE) on The Mozambique land grab myth; by Elizabeth Daley (Mokoro) on Current issues around gender and land; and by Joss Saunders (Oxfam) on Engaging in strategic litigation and working with lawyers on land, gender and access to justice.

Outlines Oxfam’s land research on the Copperbelt in 1998. Updated version of 1998 paper examining how people whose livelihoods once depended on the copper mines have begun looking for land and the problems they have encountered on forest and ZCCM land, with the 1995 Lands Act, and with party politics. Highlights the lack of coordinated responses to the problem and concludes with the main developments following the sale of the mines in 2000 and the attitudes of the new owners towards squatters.

This workshop brought together 75 delegates from governments, NGOs and research institutions and universities from all over Africa. Report covers consultation, process, legislation, tenure, titling, race in Southern Africa, donors, the World Bank, corruption, the future.