Land Rights publications

Land Rights in Africa publications from various sources

  • January 2024

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  • L. Pappagallo. (Land Use Policy)

This academic article from the open access journal, Land Use Policy uses evidence from field research in southern Tunisia to consider the role of collective management institutions in protecting both land and labour rights within pastoralist communities. The author draws from their research conducted between 2018 and 2022 in the dryland region of Tataouine, in a community called Douiret which has a total human population of around 9,000 but of whom only around 700-1,000 are in permanent residence. The paper describes how flexibility to meet changing environmental and other conditions is permitted through changes in practices that tend to occur within collective land and natural resource management institutions – a common advantage of pastoralism in fragile environments. The author focuses on the particular practice that is locally called khlata, a practice of pooling herds that legitimizes access to a much wider area of the rangeland while also allowing for the labour resources needed for herding to be shared. They argue that where membership of the management group is fluid and rules are not always well defined, this allows for a greater flexibility that makes the overall form of land management highly-reliable in this non-equilibrium environment. The author also argues that this then strengthens mobility options, including outside the community for work outside herding, and helps the local communities to adapt to wider political and economic change. A fascinating read whose conclusions help shed light on pastoral land management more widely, not just in this one part of southern Tunisia.

  • January 2024

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  • P. Sangeyon. (Mokoro WOLTS Project)

This short article, first published by Mokoro in February 2023 and now available on The Land Portal, highlights some of the impacts of the Women’s Land Tenure Security (WOLTS) project’s work in Tanzania from 2016 to 2023. The author, who is a Maasai elder and a trained gender and land champion, describes the work he has been doing in his local area to advocate for the land rights of vulnerable women. He has brought women to community meetings that were traditionally only men-only, and insisted women be allowed to speak in all community meetings. He is also not afraid to speak out about gender-based violence and to educate other men about women’s rights. Because of the training he received, he feels like a lawyer but without the law degree.

  • January 2024

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  • J. T. Appiah (Land Portal)

This blog piece is authored by a land valuation specialist and member of the Ghanaian Institution of Surveyors. It offers the author’s perspectives on potential consequences for the tenure security of different stakeholders from a landmark ruling by Ghana’s Supreme Court. The article provides some context on land issues in Ghana before noting that the Supreme Court judgement has overturned a 1982 Court of Appeal ruling that granted rights over the land in the Teshie area of the Greater Accra Region to the Numo Nmashie Family of Teshie and the Dowuona Family of Osu. The land area subject to the recent judgement included 70 villages, which the Numo Nmashie Family had claimed all land ownership over in a legal saga dating back to 1966. The original claims and the 1982 decision were found to have been based on fraudulent information, thus the Supreme Court has ordered the Lands Commission to expunge related registrations and certificates. The author concludes that this judgement is likely to create major insecurity of tenure for numerous tenant farmers in the affected area, with lease terms and agreements likely to be affected. Some tenants may also choose to take their own legal action, underscoring the importance of having a strong yet transparent and accountable land administration system in Ghana. Lengthy court processes and legal delays are noted by the author as detrimental to this, sowing confusion and putting off investors.

  • January 2024

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  • J. A. Rincón Barajas, C. Kubitza and J. Lay. (Land Use Policy)

This academic article from the open access journal, Land Use Policy, is global in scope but focuses in on evidence from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The article attempts to conceptualise and then empirically assess the socio-economic and environmental risks of large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) in the Global South, including the displacement of local communities in areas where customary land rights remain unformalized and/or are otherwise insecure. The authors note the higher levels of risk for already marginalized groups such as pastoralists, forest-dwellers and many women. The authors compare existing spatial data from Colombia, Cambodia and the DRC. Of these, the DRC case is considered the most highly problematic due to an almost total lack of effective safeguards to protect rights to communal land, and because the data suggest that almost 1 million hectares of communal land overlap with existing LSLAs. They conclude with a two-pronged recommendation, for greater compliance with global standards of land policy and good governance, and more effective due diligence of individual LSLAs.

  • December 2023

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  • Global Witness

This report from the international human rights NGO, Global Witness, is available to read directly on the organisation’s website as well as to download in English and Kiswahili. The report examines allegations of intimidation and repression against civil society activists in connection to the USD 5 billion East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline investment, linking Lake Albert’s Tilenga oil field in western Uganda to the port of Tanga on the Tanzanian coast. This major infrastructure project will create the world’s longest heated crude oil pipeline, at 1,443 km, crossing protected areas, wildlife habits and indigenous lands and will affect an anticipated 100,000 people directly. The report is based on research carried out with local Civil Society Organization (CSO) partners in Uganda and Tanzania. It recounts a climate of fear among those opposed to the infrastructure development, which prevents CSOs and communities from directly challenging it themselves. TotalEnergies, responding to Global Witness through lawyers, strenuously denies all the allegations laid against it. However this contrasts with testimony of local people interviewed during the research that compensation claims have taken excessively long periods to be settled and paid, and even then have seriously undervalued the land that has been expropriated for the project. Among the recommendations made by Global Witness are calls for greater and more transparent debate on the project, more meaningful participation by communities in consultations about the use of their land for the project, and for commitments from the company and the Tanzanian and Ugandan governments to clamp down on abuses of police powers and to open up civic space for debate on major land investments such as this.

  • December 2023

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  • D. Naguib and C-T. Bayer. (Land Portal)

This State of Land Information (SOLI) report from the Land Portal assesses the state of land data in Sudan. The report is one of a series produced by the Land Portal, featuring in-depth analysis of the country level land information system, legal frameworks and data accessibility. The authors outline the complex landscape of land information in Sudan, affected by political instability and conflict, and emphasize the urgent need for structured data governance and open data initiatives to support land administration and conflict resolution, making recommendations for targeted interventions to improve compliance with international open data standards. The authors note that the country’s current political instability poses significant challenges for opening up data in Sudan. However, they argue that more open access to land information can support Sudan’s government to transition to peaceful, democratic rule, if done in partnership between civil society and government. The report focuses on the rump state of old Sudan from 2012, not on South Sudan. Although some open data initiatives had taken place after separation, the authors report no open data has been available since conflict escalated in 2023, with the minimum requirement for open data being that it is accessible online. The authors’ report that Sudan’s last Open Data Inventory (ODIN) assessment was done in 2018, with assessment difficulties since 2012 linked to non-functioning national statistical office websites. In 2018 it scored 24 overall and ranked it 159th  worldwide on the ODIN measure. This measure includes some indicators on the built environment and land use but does not specifically assess most land data. Overall, land governance data and information in Sudan are not open.

  • December 2023

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This State of Land Information (SOLI) report from the Land Portal assesses the state of land data in Liberia against principles of land data openness, land information availability and accessibility, and overall good land governance. The report is one of a series produced by the Land Portal, featuring in-depth analysis of country level land information and making recommendations for targeted interventions to improve compliance with international open data standards. The authors note that public access to government information is generally poor in Liberia, despite constitutional and legal protections. The authors cite the Global Data Barometer Liberia score of seven out of 100 in its 2021 land module, compared to a global average of 25 out of 100. Liberia scored zero for the openness of its land tenure data, 12 for its land use data and 15 for its gender and inclusion uses of data. They note that digitized spatial information exists within some government agencies, and some public bodies have proactively disseminated information to meet their legal obligations. For example, the mining cadaster is comprehensive, but that the Liberia Land Authority offers very little information online. The authors find that land registration and information systems keep improving, but there remain serious gaps in data availability, and they argue that there is a need for more robust infrastructure to support land governance. The report’s overall conclusion is that land data is only slightly open in Liberia.

  • December 2023

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  • Norwegian Refugee Council

This 12-page briefing note from the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) highlights critical land issues for those who have been impacted by decades of conflict in the eastern parts of the DRC. Access to land not only triggers and perpetuates conflict but is also impacted by the same conflict – something of a vicious cycle. Landlessness is a key element of the humanitarian crisis in the region, both for displaced communities and communities hosting displaced people. The briefing states that land disputes were the second most common reason for displacement in 2022. It emphasises the importance for humanitarian actors in the region to seek to understand the housing, land and property rights (HLP) context and conduct HLP due diligence so that they a) don’t make matters worse, and b) potentially contribute to solutions even while still operating in an emergency setting. The briefing note observes that humanitarian workers need to identify and engage with different types of local landowners, community representatives and traditional and customary authorities as part of their role, and these can provide information useful for HLP due diligence. However, lack of funding is a key constraint. The document outlines a number of sensible policy recommendations for humanitarian operators, donors, and humanitarian and United Nations leaders, to improve integration of HLP issues across the humanitarian sector.

  • December 2023

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  • R. de Satgé. (Land Portal.)

This Land Portal Data Story, which features one of the Netherlands-funded Land-at-Scale Programme’s projects, visually unpacks links between climate change, conflict and displacement in the Sahelian countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Somalia. It can be downloaded as a PDF file but is best viewed in its interactive online format. The author challenges various common assumptions about the interconnections between drought and famine, war and conflict, refugee and internal displacement, land and property rights, livestock ownership and farming, and rural-urban change. Detailed timelines of all three featured countries, best viewed in full screen by clicking through the links, pinpoint key dates and transitions and help to show how all these different drivers overlap in time. The Data Story uses the example of the Saameynta project in Somalia to illustrate how strengthened land governance and property rights identification can help with amelioration and adaptation to increasing variability in political-economic and climate-related challenges.

  • December 2023

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  • Norwegian Refugee Council

This 2-page flyer from the Norwegian Refugee Council provides a clear bullet-point-style summary of key HLP issues for humanitarian actors in West and Central Africa – what they are, why they are important, and what humanitarian workers in food security, water and sanitation, camp coordination and shelter silos can do to integrate attention to relevant land rights issues to their work. A useful checklist for non-land experts.

  • December 2023

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  • J. Bhanye, R. H. Shayamunda, R. I. Mpahlo, A. Matamanda and L. Kachena (Land Use Policy)

This open access academic article is based on qualitative research in the Caledonia peri-urban settlement, a medium-sized town 30km east of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, which is also one of the fastest growing informal settlements in the country. The authors analyse some of the complexities of peri-urban land politics in Africa and note the range of strategies undertaken by vulnerable settlers to protect against threats to their land tenure, including political rent-seeking, legal action, civil disobedience and religious symbolism. The authors observe that examination of these strategies in practice sheds light on the complex interplay between settlers’ agency and local authority dynamics, given the proliferation of competing claims to urban resources, particularly land, and the emergence of new forms of power in the dynamic environment of a rapidly-urbanising setting. Much has been written on Zimbabwe’s land struggles that focuses on farm land and rural areas, so this article offers a fresh perspective on land struggles in the country in a different context. That said, Caledonia was formerly a private farm that was first occupied by war veterans during the peak of the national land invasions in 2003; it was then gazetted as state land and used for housing and has since grown via informal settlement. The result is a huge mix of tenure types, housing types and means of initial land acquisition among residents, which makes everyone’s tenure fragile. The authors use case study examples to demonstrate how the different strategies noted above have been used to try to shore up tenure security. Conflict and contested authority emerge as key land governance issues, aggravated by plural and fragmented land administration mechanisms and options. A key conclusion that speaks to human ingenuity is what the authors call the “unyielding determination” of settlers to safeguard what they see as their rightful claims to land, and they recommend holistic and targeted interventions to support improvements to tenure security in peri-urban settings.

  • December 2023

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  • F. S. Siangulube, M. A. F. Ros-Tonen, J. Reed, K. B. Moombe and T. Sunderland (Land Use Policy)

This open access academic article focuses on the role of multistakeholder platforms (MSPs) in integrated land and natural resource management, at national, district and local levels. MSPs have become increasingly important to land governance globally since the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Forests and Fisheries – MSPs are one of the main vehicles for implementation of the guidelines, which have been strongly promoted international donor organisations in selected countries in the Majority World. MSPs are also much promoted within the environmental management space. The authors of this paper focus on the Zambian experience with MSPs. They note that national level MSPs benefit from a broad range of actors and opportunities to lobby for policy and institutional change. Legally instituted MSPs at the district level provide a bridge between national policy development and local resource governance. At local level, informal and formal MSPs can effectively address resource conflicts and foster community coordination and customary regulations but the authors find they are less successful in influencing policy change due to weak linkages with formal governance institutions. These weak linkages between local and national governance levels lead to implementation issues, with policies not taking root at the local level. The authors conclude that MSPs have much potential to improve stakeholder dialogue in land governance but need to be supported by deliberate feedback loops and enhanced linkages between local, district and national level stakeholders to achieve more collaborative, equitable and effective landscape governance.

  • November 2023

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  • Moraa Obiria (The Nation)

This open access online article published by the East African newspaper, The Nation, was first published in September 2023 and then updated in November 2023. The article features the story of a Tanzanian woman Maasai pastoralist who in 2020 received a rightful ownership certificate for 20 acres of land that her husband had allocated to her. The article recounts the transformative impact this has had on her life. She has been able to farm 5 acres herself with maize and sunflowers and rents out the rest for income. She has also accumulated 70 cows and 50 goats and sheep, and has been able to acquire a bank loan to build a three-bedroom brick house that provides better shelter from heavy rainfall than her previous mud house. The article also reports on the situation around land rights for women from other indigenous communities, in Tanzania and elsewhere, and was produced with support from Journalists for Human Rights.

  • November 2023

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  • Namati (UNDP)

This clear and well laid out guide has been put together by Namati with UNDP funding after consulting widely on inputs, pre-testing in four chiefdoms, and validation by stakeholders. The guide is packed full of colourful illustrations and written in simple language, with direct reference made to relevant legislation or customary practice for the points made on each page. The guide was put together to help overcome issues of lack of consent, lack of access to information, and lack of awareness of processes for community consultation in respect to large-scale land acquisitions for agriculture or mining. The guide is aimed at companies and investors, local communities in the areas affected, and government agencies regulating the land sector. It provides guidance for before, during and after negotiations, and includes space at the end for notes. A valuable, well-tailored tool.

  • November 2023

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  • Neil Sorensen (LandPortal)

This short recap on the Land Portal summarises key highlights from the webinar of the same title organised by Land Portal with the FCDO-funded Advancing Land-Based Investment Governance (ALIGN) project. The recap piece includes the link to the full recording of the webinar, where one can hear first-hand the arguments put forward by participants. The webinar was one of the first – if not the first – global webinar to tackle head on the important subject of traditional leaders’ roles in improving governance around land-based investments, with relevant experts on the panel. Moderated by a (male) academic from the University of Cape Town, panellists included Liberian and Kenya government land officials (both male), a (male) landowners’ leader from a traditional chiefdom in Sierra Leone, and the (female) Founder and Director of COLANDEF, a Ghana-based NGO.

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  • International Organization for Migration, the Global Shelter Cluster, Norwegian Refugee Council

Not a document, instead this is a 40-minute interactive online experience, developed collaboratively in 2023 by various global housing, land and property rights (HLP) experts to illuminate critical HLP issues in displacement and refugee settings. Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, it is cleverly done and well-illustrated, making it sufficiently captivating to work through all four modules in one sitting for those (like this Land Rights in Africa curator) who are so inclined. Try it out yourself!

  • November 2023

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  • Sindooi Limijo (Mokoro WOLTS Project)

This short article, first published by Mokoro in February 2023 and now available on The Land Portal, highlights some of the impacts of the Women’s Land Tenure Security (WOLTS) project’s work in Tanzania from 2016 to 2023. The author, who is a widow and a trained gender and land champion, describes the confidence she has gained to speak up for the land inheritance rights of vulnerable women in her traditional Maasai community. She has also found her voice to speak up against gender-based violence, supporting her daughter to divorce and helping another woman to gain support from the village government to control her household’s income in place of her an abusive husband.

  • November 2023

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  • D. H. Dinko, M. Kansanga, H. Nyamtaki-Frimpong and I. Luginaah (Land Use Policy)

This open access academic article is based on literature review and fieldwork in five communities across three districts of northern Ghana’s semi-arid Upper West Region. The authors observe the commonality of links between resource scarcity, livelihoods and conflict throughout the world, and seek to unpack this in the context of struggles over control of African Rosewood, a timber resource much sought after by investors from Asia. Forest management and ownership in northern Ghana is intrinsically linked to land management and ownership. Customary land tenure practices are summed up in the article by one interviewee as follows: “no one owns the land or trees, land is communally owned. Once you’re from this village, you can go into the forest and harvest anything to use at home except sacred trees. For example, when rosewood is found on your land it belongs to the community”. The authors describe how tree tenure arises from the prevailing land tenure, and use rights don’t equate to exclusive rights. Different people or institutions may own the trees and the land they stand on. Local Chiefs following mostly undocumented customary law have great powers over Rosewood trees, and external commercial demand for these same trees results in power struggles, especially in areas where boundaries between different customary groups (clans and lineages) are not clearly defined. The foreign investors then become a third power player alongside national state and local elites, adding fuel to the resource conflicts when logging takes place under statutory licence from the Forestry Commission. Critically, the authors conclude that: “Inconsistencies in ownership rights between statutory and customary resource tenure were also found to be an important determinant of disputes escalating into violence”. The authors call for resolution of underlying structural issues around land control to achieve a sustainable solution to these resource conflicts. The article provides yet more evidence of the links between land and identity, especially in customary settings, and of the importance of involving local people in consultations with external investors.

  • November 2023

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  • Dr. Marie Gagné (Land Portal)

This Land Portal Data Story, prepared within the Netherlands-funded Land-at-Scale Programme, provides a visual overview of land formalization efforts in Africa, illustrating how land data can be used to tell stories about key land governance trends and issues. It can be downloaded as a PDF file but is best viewed in its interactive online format. After introducing land reform and land formalization efforts in Africa in general, the author focuses on evidence from Ethiopia, where a land formalization model has been used that has been much-praised globally. The Data Story summarises findings from different attempts to quantify the impacts of land formalization on tenure security, as well as from the PRINDEX survey data of people’s perceptions of their own tenure security, noting that the 26% of Ethiopians who still perceive their tenure to be insecure is not very different from the proportion of people sharing that perception in countries that have not undergone land formalization. A key observation is that land formalization allows state governance institutions to permeate to local levels that previously had greater autonomy to govern their land under customary arrangements. Insecurities from this state penetration may therefore offset increased security of tenure from formalization of land ownership rights. However, the author highlights increasing tenure security for women through joint certification of land has emerged from several qualitative studies cited in the Data Story.

  • October 2023

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  • Rosa Olokweni (Mokoro WOLTS Project)

This short article, first published by Mokoro in December 2022 and now available on The Land Portal, highlights some of the impacts of the Women’s Land Tenure Security (WOLTS) project’s work in Tanzania from 2016 to 2023. The author, who is a gender and land champion in her Maasai community, explains the confidence she has acquired from undergoing WOLTS training to help her protect her community’s land and resolve a difficult dispute with a neighbouring village.

  • September 2023

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  • Milya Samberu (Mokoro WOLTS Project)

This short article, first published by Mokoro in December 2022 and now available on The Land Portal, highlights some of the impacts of the Women’s Land Tenure Security (WOLTS) project’s work in Tanzania from 2016 to 2023. The author, who is a traditional Maasai leader and a trained gender and land champion, describes some of the work he has done to promote the land rights of women in his community.

  • September 2023

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  • Cultural Survival and First Peoples’ Worldwide

This visually appealing guide has been written to support indigenous peoples all over the world who are defending their lands, territories and natural resources. Its goal is to provide clear guidance to communities and their leaders to exercising the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) concerning any land-related investment or expropriation. The guide provides both strategic and technical guidance on what to do, how to do it and in what order. It suggests things that can be done by communities in preparation for negotiations with outsiders, as well as clarifying how to ensure their meaningful and effective participation during any such negotiations or consultations, and steps for following up afterwards. The guide is general in nature but will be of great interest to all those working with indigenous communities in countries across Africa. The guide is in English, with translations in French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese and several unnamed indigenous languages promised in coming months.

  • September 2023

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  • Solange Bandiaky-Badji (Rights and Resources Initiative)

This opinion piece from the Coordinator of the global coalition, the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), discusses links between resource extraction, and associated poverty and human rights violations, and a wave of recent military coups in Western and Central Africa. The author notes that all seven African countries that have experienced military takeovers of national governments have economies largely dependent on resource extraction – Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Sudan, Niger, Guinea, and Gabon. Stronger land governance and a more equitable approach to natural resources is offered as the only way to protect community land rights and build countries that will become less vulnerable to coups.

  • September 2023

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  • International Land Coalition Africa

Sometimes pictures tell the best stories. This photo essay from the International Land Coalition’s Africa team showcases the pilot work of the National Land Coalition in Togo to implement the country’s Land and Property Code at grassroots level. The Code, adopted in 2018, advocated for secure, equitable rural land rights, combating land grabbing, advancing community land registration, and improving policies and practices related to land and natural resource management, small-scale farming, and food security. The photo essay includes a link to a 4 minute video clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUA2SmCITas) about the importance of local land and natural resources to people’s livelihoods, and the greater food security that implementation of the Land Code has led to, via improved tenure security from conflict resolution through mapping and boundary demarcation.

  • September 2023

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  • Orji Sunday (farmlandgrab.org)

This investigative article published by Mongabay looks back 10 years at the travails of five communities in Nigeria’s Cross River State, whose land was allocated to Wilmar International for palm oil production, despite strong local opposition. The land in question was originally leased by the communities to the government in 1962, but its Ibiae oil palm plantation, around 5,600 hectares, was then abandoned in 1970s and the land began again to be used by local residents. Local residents accuse Wilmar of encroaching on their farms and contaminating their watercourses with wastewater. The company has been subjected to multiple protests and legal claims, including an unsuccessful appeal to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, and the company denies the veracity of the accusations. Academics and CSOs are critical of Wilmar’s local outgrower schemes, arguing that they contribute to further deforestation. A key issue looked at in the article is that of who owns the land of the original plantations that were abandoned in the 1970s, with local communities citing government failures to pay rent for the original leases after the plantations were abandoned effectively ending the leases. The continuation of disputed claims and challenges to the investment by Wilmar underscore the ongoing relevance of ‘land grabs’ for local communities across Africa, and the complexity of resolving issues arising from them in the face of multiple legal spheres and weak land administration.

  • September 2023

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  • D. Fitzpatrick, F. Rafininarinharina, F. Ramamonjy, C-T. Bayer, M. de los Santos, J. Diaz, M. Flores, J. Rojas and K. Booth (Land Portal)

This State of Land Information (SOLI) report from the Land Portal assesses the state of land data in Madagascar against principles of land data openness, land information availability and accessibility, and overall good land governance. The report is one of a series produced by the Land Portal, featuring in-depth analysis of country level land information and making recommendations for targeted interventions to improve compliance with international open data standards. The report identifies that land legislation establishes fragmented land data and information in Madagascar, despite the country’s Constitutional commitment to “transparent administration of information concerning land” (Art. 34). The most important land data stakeholder is identified as the Ministry of Territorial Planning and Services (MASTF), which delivers land certificates. The Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development manages forests and protected areas, and the Ministry of Mining and Strategic Resources manages mining licences. The report examines the availability of land data and information they provide according to six key land data categories. Madagascar’s legal framework for data governance and for opening up information is reviewed, and Madagascar’s international and national commitments to access to information and its instruments for data and information governance are examined. The report concludes with an evaluation of the openness of land data and information in Madagascar by assessing it against 10 international best practice criteria. Much data is not available online, and there is limited to no use of metadata and data standards. The report concludes that, overall, land data in Madagascar is often incomplete and inaccurate, with a large percentage of land data either not available or requiring improvement to meet open data standards. Madagascar’s overall score is Slightly Open. A detailed Open Data Action Framework is offered to provide practical guidance for the Government of Madagascar to help with promoting collaboration and stakeholder capacity for improving the management, utility and accessibility of land data in the country.

  • September 2023

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  • Kenya National Land Commission and Namati Kenya

This report is the result of a collaborative study by the Kenyan National Land Commission and Namati Kenya. The study was conducted to track progress on the implementation of the landmark 2016 Community Land Act, with its provisions for securing tenure for Kenya’s indigenous peoples and local communities through changes to leadership structures and mechanisms for improving community engagement in land governance. The report highlights challenges and identifies lessons for ensuring that this progressive piece of legislation, which allows undissolved group ranches to transition to registered community land, is not watered down in its implementation. Key findings are that more public education is needed on the process of registering community land under the 2016 law, and that registering community land is a resource-intensive process that requires government, civil society and development partners to be involved, as well as communities. The study considered the involvement of women, youth and other minority groups during the process of transferring registration to community lands. This was found to be low, especially that of women, while the overall process of implementation was found to be slow. Sixteen undissolved group ranches were studied, and recommendations made to fast-track implementation and ensure inclusion.

  • September 2023

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  • Simon Manda and Lizzy Banda (Land Use Policy)

This research-based article in the academic journal, ‘Land Use Policy’, looks at the role of state actors in exerting pressures on customary land in Zambia, including by direct involvement in land grabbing and by facilitating conditions for doing so. The authors’ collected qualitative data from the rural district of Mafinga in eastern Zambia, including from semi-structured interviews and group discussions with local actors. A key finding is that land conversion through the acquisition of customary land has been heightened by the creation of new districts across the country. This has led to some chiefs being co-opted into new councils as agents of development, with land then converted from customary to statutory land in the name of this same development. This is done using both formal and informal policy and legal tools and processes. The authors argue that these processes are shifting the risks and burdens of mainstream development paradigms to rural customary spheres, as customary lands in effect get co-opted into the modern state, leaving customary tenure systems fractured as per the article’s title. The authors remind us that ‘the state’ is never a neutral actor, and posit that stronger local capacities are needed to challenge these processes of change.

  • September 2023

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  • E. B. Nchanji, T. Chagomoka, I. Bellwood-Howard, A. Drescher, N. Schareika, J. Schlesinger

This open access article in the academic journal, ‘Land Use Policy’, reports findings from an ethnographic study and a food and nutrition survey carried out from October 2013 to November 2014 in Tamale, in the Northern Region of Ghana. The study was designed to examine the land access and food production challenges faced by urban and peri-urban populations, and their abilities to maintain resources to meet long-term needs. The authors report that food insecure households were more likely to mention lack of land than anything else as the primary reason for their inability to grow their own crops. Agricultural needs competed with infrastructural developments for land, and the shortage of agricultural land was more pronounced in urban than peri-urban areas. Coping strategies for dealing with the lack of land to grow food included buffer zone cultivation and urban to peri-urban to rural migrant farming. The article also explores various mechanisms utilised by women to circumvent their lack of access to land and provide food for their families. In one case cited in the article, a woman informant reports that strangers are kinder than family members to women with no land, and that cultivating personal relationships through giving gifts or crops after every harvest is a key strategy to being able to borrow land securely. Other strategies used by women include maximising their rights to gather resources such as shea nuts and dawadawa fruits on communal land that can be processed into oil and spices for consumption or sale.

  • August 2023

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  • M. Gabobe, A. Ahmed Aden and O. Anyadike. (The New Humanitarian)

This news feature piece from The New Humanitarian takes a close look at the land and resettlement needs of Somalia’s numerous IDP camp residents. The authors observe that three decades of conflict and humanitarian disasters have contributed to rapid urbanisation, with more than four million people, roughly a quarter of Somalia’s total population, having been displaced at least once. Most IDPs have ended up in overcrowded informal settlements in the capital, Mogadishu, and in other major towns, ramping up urban and peri-urban land issues. The authors argue that such informal settlements need to be thought of as permanent settlements, with initiatives in urban planning, infrastructure and tenure rights all required to make that feasible. However, there is a lack of donor funding for pilot projects to address these issues. People’s tenure security is influenced by the type of informal settlement they end up. There are two main types around Mogadishu, one longer established and in abandoned government buildings or private land in the city centre, the other more recent displacement camps on the city’s outskirts. The latter are managed informally by ‘gate-keepers’. Different clans, militias and businessmen have to be negotiated with across the city in any efforts to find durable solutions for the IDPs, and care has to be taken not to increase land values to the point where evictions will occur. Pastoralists who have lost their animals have no future but to stay in the cities, but some of those working with the IDPs still favour returning to be the best long-term option for farmers.

  • August 2023

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  • B. Buzzard, J. Chick and E. Sulle (Maliasili)

This paper from Maliasili is based on an online survey with 49 participants across 18 countries and in-depth interviews with leaders of 23 conservation organisations from 11 Sub-Saharan African countries. It overviews the current partnership landscape and highlights issues facing local-global partnerships, making suggestions for strengthening them for both local CSOs and INGOs. The paper is well presented with helpful graphics and is clearly written and structured. The authors identify core issues around expectations, clarity of roles, communications, sharing of credit, and administrative procedures, and gives specific guidance on key elements for improving partnerships in these areas.

  • August 2023

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  • Gideon Sarpong (farmlandgrab.org)

The troubles of Socfin have frequented reports of land grabbing in Africa over the years. This article based on three months of investigative journalism by Gideon Sarpong and Robert Abunaw looks back on the past 10 years of Socfin’s legal struggles over its palm plantations in Cameroon. Socapalm, Socfin’s Cameroonian subsidiary, embarked on oil palm development in 2006, in Dibombari, an area of lush rainforest. The investment has been beset by allegations of forcible land displacement, pollution of vital water sources, decimation of delicate ecosystems, and sacrilegious intrusion into ancestral lands. Socfin has been fighting Sherpa et al vs Socfin in the French courts, after failing to implement mediated agreements reached in 2013 or address issues raised in a report it commissioned at that time from the Earthworm Foundation. Despite serious allegations around local peoples’ land loss and deforestation remaining unresolved while the legal proceedings continue, Socfin secured a Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification in 2022 for its contested operations in Dibombari. This article is a sobering reminder that, though perhaps less in the limelight than they were 10-15 years ago, negative impacts of land investments on community land rights and environments continue on.

  • July 2023

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  • D. P. Sullivan and A. B. Halakhe. (Refugees International)

This research report from Refugees International is one of series on internal displacement. It was prepared in response to the armed conflict in Sudan since mid-April 2023, between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). The report focuses on the situation for former refugees from South Sudan who are spontaneously returning in large numbers, with no coordination or resettlement and repatriation planning. The violence in Sudan is noted to have displaced over three million people between April and July 2023, with over 700,000 seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, and 170,000 of those in South Sudan. Most of the returnees lack any means to travel to their communities of origin and many have been away a long time; property disputes in those areas are rife after a series of natural disasters and internal conflicts, so most of the new returnees lack a clear home to go back to. The report makes a series of recommendations for the Government of South Sudan, UN agencies, and the US and other donors, to deal with the crisis in the short-term, and it provides a useful background to understanding the longer-term issues around land and property rights that will need to be carefully addressed.

  • July 2023

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  • F. Mpiana & P. Malasha. (USAID)

This Practice Note shares lessons learned from two USAID-funded land projects in Zambia for making land administration and land governance more gender-responsive at community level. The Practice Note was designed to meet a gap in the current documentation, whereby local authorities do not have well-documented standards for implementing inclusive land administration. The result has been subjective and inconsistent implementation of Zambia’s land laws and policies. Whilst government regulations are ultimately needed, the Practice Note is offered as a part of the solution, to help local authorities be more inclusive in land allocation and administration. The Practice Note was developed in consultation with four district authorities, to complement other land administration capacity building efforts. It is suggested as a reference material for training, for guiding everyday land management, and to provide information and education.

  • June 2023

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  • NLC Togo (International Land Coalition)

This 17-page summary of the contributions made by the CSO member organisations of the National Land Coalition in Togo, since its founding in 2012, provides a clear and well-illustrated example of successful collaboration behind land rights. The document outlines the state of land in Togo and uses a timeline to show how the NLC’s efforts have progressed to pilot implementation from 2022 of the country’s Land and Property Code at grassroots level. The Code, adopted in 2018, advocated for secure, equitable rural land rights, combating land grabbing, advancing community land registration, and improving policies and practices related to land and natural resource management, small-scale farming, and food security. The document highlights strategy objectives, theory of change, and major outcomes, including support for the new Code and strengthening of dialogues on land between government and CSOs. Key challenges are also highlighted for the promotion of gender equity and justice. The summary concludes with key lessons learned in this successful partnership.

  • June 2023

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  • Chloe Ginsburg and David Kroeker-Maus (Rights and Resources Initiative)

This update of Rights and Resources Initiative’s (RRI) previous assessments of the state of land ownership globally includes comprehensively and collaboratively researched data for the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region, updated since the first edition came out in 2015. RRI is a global Coalition of 21 Partners and more than 150 rightsholders organizations and their allies dedicated to advancing the forestland and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, local communities, and the women within these communities. While headlines and key messages are pitched at the global level, legislative developments in Kenya and Liberia are highlighted as outcomes of sustained advocacy and civil society engagement on land rights and tenure security. For SSA as a whole, the total area owned by Indigenous Peoples, Afro- descendant Peoples, and local communities is reported to have increased from 128.08 million Ha in 2015 to 165.49 million Ha, equivalent to an increase from 7.42% to 9.59% of the total SSA land area. The data covers only 23 countries in SSA, and the authors note that most of the increase came in Kenya and Liberia, as a result of the passing of the 2016 Community Land Act in Kenya and the 2018 Land Rights Act in Liberia. This may be indicative of how more secure tenure rights for local and indigenous peoples across the continent can be achieved by continued civil society engagement with governments to achieve policy, legal and regulatory reforms. The authors note, however, the shrinking of civic space that has occurred in many countries as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, as an area to be watched. Also noted is a new law recognizing the rights of Indigenous Pygmy peoples in the DRC, adopted in 2022 and whose impact has yet to be seen. The detailed endnotes spanning 33 pages of the report contain invaluable references to data sources on the 23 SSA countries covered in the research.

  • June 2023

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  • L. Sungirirai, C-T H Bayer and K Booth (Land Portal)

This State of Land Information (SOLI) report from the Land Portal assesses the state of land data in Botswana against principles of land data openness, land information availability and accessibility, and overall good land governance. The report is one of a series produced by the Land Portal, featuring in-depth analysis of country level land information and making recommendations for targeted interventions to improve compliance with international open data standards. The report identifies the various public sector sources of land data and information in Botswana, including the Department of Surveys and Mapping, and the Ministry of Lands Management, Water and Sanitation Services, both of which provide data only on request; the State Land Integrated Management System and the Tribal Land Integrated Management System, neither of which is publicly accessible); and the Botswana National Archives and Records Service (BANARAS) and various academic institutions, all of which are publicly accessible. The report examines the availability of land data and information they provide according to six key land data categories. Botswana’s legal framework for data governance and for opening up information is reviewed, and Botswana’s international and national commitments to access to information and its instruments for data and information governance are examined to assess for transparency about the purpose for collecting, storing and disseminating information. The report concludes with an evaluation of the openness of land data and information in Botswana by assessing it against 10 international best practice criteria. The report concludes that, overall, the state of land information in Botswana is only slightly open.

  • June 2023

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  • State of Land Information in Zambia – An Open Data Assessment

This State of Land Information (SOLI) report from the Land Portal assesses the state of land data in Zambia against principles of land data openness, land information availability and accessibility, and overall good land governance. The report is one of a series produced by the Land Portal, featuring in-depth analysis of country level land information and making recommendations for targeted interventions to improve compliance with international open data standards. The report identifies the various public sector sources of land data and information in Zambia, including the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, the Ministry for Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development, the ZAMSTATS website of the Zambian Statistical Agency, and the Zambian Geographical Portal, and examines the availability of land data and information they provide according to six key land data categories. Zambia’s legal framework for data governance and for opening up information is reviewed, and Zambia’s international and national commitments to access to information and its instruments for data and information governance are examined to assess for transparency about the purpose for collecting, storing and disseminating information. The report concludes with an evaluation of the openness of land data and information in Zambia by assessing it against 10 international best practice criteria. The report concludes that, overall, the state of land information in Zambia is partially open.

  • May 2023

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  • A. B. Halakhe and S. Miller (Refugees International)

This research report from Refugees International is one of a series on internal displacement. It looks closely at the urban dimensions of internal displacement in Somalia and makes a series of recommendations for the federal government and for the international community, to support durable long-term solutions for IDPs in urban informal settlements. The report explores the drivers behind displacement in Somalia as well as its changing nature. It highlights how climate-related challenges and events have become an increasing cause of displacement in recent years, more so than conflict, and how urbanization is changing the landscape of Somalia as a whole. The authors note that Somalia has more than 2,400 IDP sites, of which some 85% are informal settlements on private land in urban centres. They acknowledge the progress that has been made on paper in recent years, with several new laws passed to support IDP rights providing a positive foundation for policy change. Yet these laws remain to be implemented and thus have little impact yet on Somalia’s millions of IDPs.

  • May 2023

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  • By L. Persha, A. Soloyveya, S. Siddiqui, A. Rigaux & J. Wallach. (USAID)

The final impact evaluation report of USAID’s Tenure and Global Climate Change project in Zambia looks not just at impacts for livelihoods, food security, agriculture and women’s empowerment, but importantly at tenure security and land governance outcomes. The project operated in four chiefdoms of Zambia and activities focused on formalisation of customary land rights and on agroforestry. The evaluation was conducted seven years after the start of the project, and two to five years after participant households received their Customary Land Certificates (CLCs). It therefore allows for a slightly longer-term assessment on impact than is the case for evaluations of land administration projects that are carried out immediately after they end. The evaluation used a cluster-randomized controlled-trial approach to assess average impacts of the project activities. Substantial positive impacts on household tenure security are reported to be sustained, as is greater confidence in land governance. However, there little evidence was found of any improvements in household livelihoods or women’s empowerment from the project’s activities, despite more women having documented proof of land rights and greater awareness of CLCs.

  • May 2023

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  • T. Robustelli (USAID)

This short policy brief from USAID highlights some findings from the USAID-funded Mapping Approaches for Securing Tenure (MAST) programme’s activities in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, of relevance to issues of scaling and long-term sustainability. Examples of how the MAST approach has been adopted, scaled, and sustained in the land administration of each country are provided, and a number of recommended practices and key lessons for further scaling and sustaining are highlighted.

  • May 2023

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  • T. Robustelli (USAID)

This short policy brief from USAID highlights some achievements for women’s land rights from the USAID-funded Mapping Approaches for Securing Tenure (MAST) programme’s activities in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. A number of recommended practices and key lessons for MAST implementation are also highlighted, to support women’s land rights as this major land programme continues.

  • May 2023

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  • Steven Lawry, Rebecca McLain, Margaret Rugadya, Gina Alvarado, Tasha Heidenrich

This book examines the impacts of land tenure reform interventions implemented in Benin, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe. Since 2000, many African countries have introduced programs aimed at providing smallholder farmers with low-cost certificates for land held un-der customary tenure. Yet there are many contending views and debates on the impact of these land policies and this book reveals how tenure security, agricultural productivity, and social inclusion were affected by the interventions. It analyses the results of carefully selected, authoritative studies on interventions in Benin, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe and applies a realist synthesis methodology to explore the socio-political and economic contexts. Drawing on these results, the book argues that inadequate attention paid to the core characteristics of rural social systems obscures the benefits of customary tenure while overlooking the scope for reforms to reduce the gaps in social status among members of customary communities

  • April 2023

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  • Joyce Ndakaru (Mokoro WOLTS Project)

This short article highlights some of the impacts of the Women’s Land Tenure Security (WOLTS) project’s work in Tanzania from 2016 to 2023 and has been published in English and Kiswahili on various websites. The article explains the important role of trained gender and land champions, chosen from local communities, in building local confidence and critical mass to protect community land and especially promote the land rights of vulnerable groups such as widows and women who have not borne children. The author reflects on personal experience of visiting different communities with some of these champions and seeing the impact they were having on those they met.

  • April 2023

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  • Institute of Development Studies (IDS)

The author of the seminal 2009 book on Land Reform in Developing Countries – Property Rights and Property Wrongs, IDS Emeritus Fellow Michael Lipton, passed away in early 2023 and the link here includes a wide range of tributes to him and his work. Michael Lipton was a scholar of rural development and poverty from the 1970s onwards, writing early articles and chapters on land reform before land rights was the major subject it is today.

  • March 2023

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  • João Feijó (Observatório do Meio Rural)

Destaque Rural is a series produced by the Mozambican NGO Observatorio do Meio Rural (Rural Environment Observatory). This paper looks at the return of displaced people in the northern province of Cabo Delgado which has been badly affected by violence attributed to Islamic insurgents. While not explicitly about land rights, it paints a useful picture for understanding the links between conflict, widespread poverty despite significant private sector investment, and the abuse of local rights by state agencies including the police, army, and local government.  A slow but encouraging post-violence recovery is happening in areas abandoned during the worst of the violence in 2021 (when it reached Palma, a key coastal town and operational base for the massive TotalEnergies natural gas project). Yet even as local government re-establishes itself and services are gradually restored, there is still a persistent “asymmetry of access to State resources (jobs, subsidies and economic support)” and “suspicions of little transparency in resource management”. The paper calls for a holistic response including institutional strengthening, support for small farmers, and the defence of human rights. The fact that the State appears to have learned little from the violence and destruction – the mix of mistrust and inequality will continue to cause resentment and feed conflict – is a lesson for land and resources governance reforms in  post-conflict situations.

  • March 2023

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  • Martin Adams (Mokoro)

This tribute to Robin Palmer was authored by his long-time friend, collaborator, and fellow member of Mokoro, Martin Adams. It speaks to his tremendous contribution to land rights and land tenure security for all, not least through this website. The article includes selections from some of the many messages and tributes received by Mokoro after Robin’s passing from colleagues across the world.

  • March 2023

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  • Ian Scoones (Zimbabweland)

This tribute to Robin Palmer was authored by the land rights scholar and activist Professor Ian Scoones of the University of Sussex’s Institute of Development Studies. Robin and Ian shared a common interest in land rights in Zimbabwe and the southern African region. The article tracks Robin’s academic and publishing history alongside the progression of his career supporting land rights in Africa and globally.

  • March 2023

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  • Craig Castro (Oxfam - From Poverty to Power)

This tribute to Robin Palmer was authored by his fellow land rights collaborator at Oxfam, Craig Castro, and was published on Oxfam’s From Poverty to Power blog. The article shares lessons from Robin’s many achievements and the impact and influence on the many people he met and worked with over the years.

  • March 2023

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  • Charl-Thom Bayer, Edward Chikhwenda and Keitha Booth (Land Portal)

This State of Land Information (SOLI) report from the Land Portal assesses the state of land data in Malawi against principles of land data openness, land information availability and accessibility, and overall good land governance. The report is one of a series produced by the Land Portal, featuring in-depth analysis of country level land information and making recommendations for targeted interventions to improve compliance with international open data standards. The report identifies the various public sector sources of land data and information in Malawi, including the Ministry of Lands, the Ministry of Local Government, the Malawi Spatial Data Platform (MASDAP), the Malawi Housing Corporation, Traditional Land Administration Management offices, and the Malawi National Statistical Office, and examines the availability of land data and information they provide according to six key land data categories. It also reviews several private sector holders of land information in the country. Malawi’s legal framework for data governance and for opening up information is reviewed, and Malawi’s international and national commitments to access to information and its instruments for data and information governance are examined to assess for transparency about the purpose for collecting, storing and disseminating information. The report concludes with an evaluation of the openness of land data and information in Malawi by assessing it against 10 international best practice criteria. The report concludes that, overall, the state of land information in Malawi is only slightly open.