Reflects on the experience of DFID land programmes which include land tenure regularisation (LTR) across six countries (Guyana, Rwanda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Mozambique), drawing wherever possible on relevant experiences of programmes driven by other donors. Summarises the drivers of LTR and land administration developments in different contexts experienced to date and includes wider evidence on successful LTR outcomes, factors influencing success and lessons learned in the design, implementation and follow-up of country land programmes and broader land support facilities.

Presents an overview of 15 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa where land and natural resource tenure initiatives have been implemented over several decades by governments, civil society, the private sector and other developmental organisations. Features challenges, strategies and tools for increasing poor people’s access to secure land and natural resources. Allows for comparison between the selected countries to help practitioners, students and researchers to better grasp the complexities of dealing with land and natural resource tenure in these countries.

The globally driven acquisition of land puts rural farmers across the globe at risk and Africa is the hotspot of global land grabbing. Shows the ongoing work of the Remote Sensing Research Group (RSRG), University of Bonn, to map land grabbing events in Southern Africa, with examples from Mozambique and Zambia. Provides an overview of current land grabbing databases, their lack of spatial information and how remote sensing datasets can overcome this lack when being used to detect large scale agricultural production schemes.

Liberia has long maintained a dual land tenure system over statutory and customary lands characterized by unclear terms of ownership. Most rural Liberians depend on common resources for their survival. These are largely communally owned, used and managed. But the Liberian government has effectively treated all un-deeded land as public land to be administered by the State. This has undermined the land rights of the majority. A nearly 100-year history of granting large-scale land concessions to foreign investors and national elites has weakened tenure security with communities’ customary lands often targeted for development by foreign investors. Liberia has made substantial efforts towards land reform but the continued expansion of concession areas, including land acquired for palm oil plantations, has exacerbated tensions between local communities, companies and the State, with increasing documented claims that communities’ lands have been appropriated against their will. Rapid palm oil plantation expansion has been accompanied by charges of human rights violations, deforestation and land grabbing.

Covers: background; vision and driving agenda: land reform for what?; the context; refocusing land reform; summary of views regarding expropriation without compensation; the panel’s recommendations for immediate action, to refocus land reform policy, and towards a consolidated land reform policy framework; critical success factors; and areas of panel disagreement. The Panel’s view is that swift action for policy certainty is key, with improved governance, anti-corruption and transparency. Prioritising state capability and skills development across the board is important. The proposed shifts in property structure and land acquisition strategies open possibilities for inclusive development and maximise opportunities for a diversified industrial base. This accommodates new players and encourages more labour-absorbing activities with empowerment of women, youth and people with disabilities. The proposals push for planning approaches that enhance rural urban linkages, and a space economy that integrates living and work critical for inclusive growth. Not surprisingly, the report has provoked a variety of strong responses in South Africa.

Argues that companies come prepared to take over the land, and communities in West and Central Africa must prepare to resist. Stresses the importance of a community speaking with one voice, and then lists twelve tactics that companies use to obtain access to company land. Considers questions such as:

• How do companies trick communities into agreeing to give them control over their land?
• Why are empty promises made by the company about generating local employment or health and education facilities so effective in convincing communities to allow them onto their land?
• What can communities do to stop the theft of their land, and the destruction of the local water springs, creeks, rivers, forests and other places that are affected by the plantations?
• What can communities do in situations where the company has already taken their land?
• Why do projects promoted by some companies and governments in which peasant farmers grow oil palm under contract for the company result in debt and poverty for participating farmers?

One of the most striking things about some of the study sites in the A1 (smallholder) land reform schemes of Zimbabwe is the amount of small-scale irrigation going on. This is not on schemes or in formalised group gardens, but irrigation by individual farmers, many using small pump sets and pipes. This has been investigated in Masvingo, in Mvurwi in high-potential Mashonaland East, and in Chikobedzi in Chiredzi district in the dry lowveld. It seems to be a widespread phenomenon but is emerging largely unnoticed and unsupported. If the patterns seen in these studies sites are representative, this implies a very large and expanding irrigated area driven by individual initiative, largely unrecognised by agricultural and irrigation policy. This is perhaps the beginnings of a new ‘green revolution’ led by farmers. Contains an article ‘Irrigating Africa: can small-scale farmers lead the way?’. Argues that as Zimbabwe contemplates new land and agriculture policies, farmer-led irrigation approaches must be central.

Includes: why a focus on corporate accountability?; communities at the frontline; corporations: the accountability challenge; the way forward: legislative and policy opportunities; recommendations: action on accountability. Argues that devastating human rights violations will continue to occur with impunity unless we move beyond voluntary approaches and bring in a legally binding treaty on business and human rights. The size, influence and complexity of corporations pose major challenges for states to hold them to account. Impunity regarding human rights abuses by companies is increasing. Communities seeking to protect their human rights from the actions of corporations face growing levels of violence and intimidation. States and corporations often combine to supress communities who oppose large-scale developments on their lands. Growing numbers of human rights defenders are risking their lives.

Two new papers by Sandra Bhatasara and Kirk Helliker on land occupations in Shamva and Bindura Districts, Mashonaland Central, are analysed. They offer nuanced accounts of what happened. As previous studies have shown, the story is not straightforward. Includes history and memory, organising occupations, the occupiers, rise of the party-state, why does this history matter? Concludes that together these two papers shed important light on the land occupation period. The occupations were initially an anti-state/party protest, largely autonomous and decentralised, but the war veterans made strategic bargains – in exchange for police protection, transport, food and so on. The state in turn recognised the need to accommodate the invaders and find space for elite demand for land in the A2 schemes, and so shift tack around the ‘illegality’ of the invasions creating the ‘fast-track’ programme. While the result was certainly a dramtic shift in agrarian structure, the tentative period of radical challenge was quickly undermined.

A new wave of agricultural commercialisation is being promoted across Africa’s eastern seaboard, by a broad range of influential actors – from international corporations to domestic political and business elites. Growth corridors, linking infrastructure development, mining and agriculture for export, are central to this, and are generating a new spatial politics as formerly remote borders and hinterlands are expected to be transformed through foreign investment and aid projects. In this study the authors have been asking: what actually happens on the ground, even when corridors as originally planned are slow to materialise? Do the grand visions play out as expected? Who is involved and who loses out? To answer these questions, APRA research into growth corridors has focused on three key examples: the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), the Lamu Port and South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor, and the Beira and Nacala corridors in Mozambique.

Bilateral development finance institutions (DFIs) play an increasingly prominent role in the international aid architecture. Because of their position between development and commercial worlds, DFIs can be a key player in efforts to align private sector conduct with international norms and standards. However, land rights issues are often complex and the stakes are high, partly due to the close relationship that exists between land and human rights. Several governments are encouraging their DFIs to work in more difficult environments – including fragile states and post-conflict situations – where land challenges are even more acute. So DFIs may need support to effectively address land rights issues. Report reviews the approaches European and North American bilateral DFIs use to address land rights issues in the agriculture sector and assesses whether the policies and practices that the DFIs apply in environmental and social matters adequately address land right issues.

A recent wave of large-scale commercial investments in agriculture, extractive industries and other land-based sectors has compounded the ‘global resource squeeze’ in low- and middle-income countries. But many communities affected by land rights violations struggle to assert their rights or obtain redress. Demand for legal support outstrips resources and what is available is not always appropriate. Pursuing litigation often presents significant obstacles and risks to the communities involved without offering any certain outcomes. To complement litigation efforts, this briefing suggests that an alternative and flexible mechanism to defending land rights is more effective – tailored to the local context and supporting communities to make informed decisions about what forms of redress to pursue. This approach should strengthen land governance processes in the longer term – but requires investment and commitment from donors, local partners and other legal empowerment practitioners.

Covers rights violations in Liberia – responsibility in Switzerland; rubber and Socfin in Switzerland; evictions for plantation expansions; access to food and water; violence on the plantations; limited opportunities for jobs and schooling; conclusions; bibliography.

A 16 minute documentary film developed by ESAFF Uganda detailing how small-scale farming communities in northern Uganda are using LSLBI tools to raise the awareness, especially of women, to engage with local leaders, produce resource maps, including scoping, negotiating, monitoring and implementation. The training also used drama. The aim is to empower farmers who engage with investors.

Since the arrival of multinational agribusiness company SOCFIN in 2011 as part of a large-scale investment in palm oil in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone, social conflict has raged in the Malen Chiefdom. SOCFIN is controlled by a Belgian businessman (Hubert Fabri) and the French group Bolloré, which has developed a business empire in many parts of Africa. This report found that affected communities who have lost access to and control over their land have been exposed to serious human rights violations and abuses since 2011. Several issues emerged, spanning from the rights to land, food, water and a healthy environment, to workers’ rights, women’s rights, the rights of the elderly and the right to education. Added to this are serious violations and abuses of civil and political rights, including the rights to peaceful assembly and association, physical integrity and clear cases of criminalization of human rights defenders. The report also points to serious allegations of corruption, lack of transparency and non-implementation of corporate social responsibility promises by SOCFIN.

Tenure risk – or the risk of dispute between investors and local people over land or natural resource claims – is endemic in emerging markets. There are hundreds of recorded incidents of tenure disputes creating delays, violence, project cancellation and even bankruptcy at a corporate level. These tenure disputes create lose-lose outcomes for investors, local people and national governments, while robbing emerging markets of the developmental benefits of responsible land investments. However, many investors are unaware of the problem or lack the time and resources to address it. Others lack the means to quantify the risks to business of tenure disputes. This report – based on consultation with business operating across the African supply chain – shines a spotlight on the severity of the issue and shows that tenure disputes can create substantial financial losses. It also presents a new publicly available tool, the Tenure Risk Tool, that investors can use to assess and manage tenure risk.

In advance of the release of the World Bank’s 2019 Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) report, the Oakland Institute exposes the Bank’s new scheme to privatize land in the developing world. It details how the Bank’s prescribed reforms, via a new land indicator in the EBA project, promotes large-scale land acquisitions and the expansion of agribusinesses in the developing world. Initiated as a pilot in 38 countries in 2017, the land indicator is expected to be expanded to 80 countries in 2019. The project is funded by the US and UK governments and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The EBA’s main recommendations to governments include formalizing private property rights, easing the sale and lease of land for commercial use, systematizing the sale of public land by auction to the highest bidder, and improving procedures for expropriation. Countries are scored on how well they implement the Bank’s policy advice. The scores then help determine the volume of aid money and foreign investment they receive.

A new report by the Climate Land Ambition and Rights Alliance (CLARA) has linked land grabbing to worsening climate change, calling on governments to secure community land rights to protect the world’s natural resources such as ‘forests’ that mitigate effects of climate change. It highlights the role of forest communities and indigenous people in protecting forests as carbon sinks and why it is important to recognise their land rights. Land grabbing by multinational corporations mostly for ‘commodity agriculture and mining activities’ is causing a double tragedy: denying indigenous peoples’ rights to own land and failing the battle against climate change as trees are cut. Cites examples of the Batwa people of Uganda and from the DR Congo.

New public policies and changing economic fundamentals have spurred private sector investment in commercial agriculture in low- and middle-income countries. Growing numbers of policies and programmes aim to integrate small-scale rural producers into agricultural value chains, based on concepts such as ‘inclusive business’ and ‘shared value’. But significant questions remain over how best to: recognise the possibly divergent visions, interests and constraints of various actors, and the risks and trade-offs that can arise; address often substantial power imbalances that affect value chain relations; and ultimately support genuine agency among rural producers and their communities – that is, their ability to make choices, take action and influence realities around them. This report explores whether socio-legal empowerment might help address these issues. It develops a conceptual framework to further understand, test and strengthen the contribution of socio-legal empowerment to enhancing the agency of rural actors as they engage with, or are affected by, commercial agriculture.

Land registration and titling in Africa are often advocated as a pro-poor legal empowerment strategy. Advocates have put forth different visions of the substantive goals this is to achieve. Some see registration and titling as a way to protect smallholders’ rights of access to land. Others frame land registration as part of community-protection or ethno-justice agendas. Still others see legal empowerment in the market-enhancing commodification of property rights. This paper contrasts these different visions, showing that each entails tensions and trade-offs. The analysis helps explain why land law reforms aiming at legal empowerment may be controversial or divisive in African countries.

© 2018 UNU-WIDER. Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

A book covering six countries, including South Africa, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Community paralegals seek to demystify law and empower people to advocate for themselves. Each chapter contains vivid accounts of paralegals helping communities to take on injustice. Explores questions such as: how have community paralegals adapted to and influenced their changing political contexts, from repressive regimes like apartheid South Africa to newfound democracies and, in some cases, back towards repression? Is it possible for paralegals to receive public funding without sacrificing their independence? What are five qualities of the most effective paralegals, and how can organisations nurture those qualities?

A functioning land administration sector is the foundation for economic growth. Unfortunately, effective land registry and cadastral systems with national coverage exist in only a fraction of the world’s countries. Cadasta Foundation is working to overcome this challenge by developing simple digital tools and technology to help partners efficiently document, analyse, store, and share critical land and resource rights information. By creating an accessible digital record of land, property, and resource rights, Cadasta works to empower individuals, organisations, communities, governments, and businesses with the information they need to make data-driven decisions and put vulnerable communities and their needs on the map.

This article underlines the risks in using conventional valuation methods to estimate compensation when customary land is expropriated. Those unfamiliar with land valuation and compensation concepts will find a good overview,  including how different forms of compensation affect ‘the expropriated’. The paper notes how property valuation methods are rooted in western ideas of market values and private property with well-defined  bundle of rights held by individuals or firms. Customary rights by contrast are ‘less defined and mostly inalienable’. Thus valuation requires competitive markets that provide the valuer with ‘full information about the market and comparable properties’. These conditions are missing in customary contexts, where land is held collectively for ‘living people, dead people and future generations’; and is ‘a social fabric that protects people through cultural membership’ with a meta-physical and cultural importance. Conventional valuation tools are of little use here; and the assumption that those expropriated can find new, equivalent land is untenable. African valuers are inexperienced, their training ‘rarely covers customary or native rights’, and they serve political and economic actors who stand to gain from expropriation. The result is nearly always ‘inadequate compensation and impoverishment of affected people’. The authors propose research into methods that assess customary rights in their entirety and do ‘not treat them as private ones’. Training must be revised; new curricula should move away from seeing valuation as the privatisation of customary properties, and include customary systems and contexts.

Money from pension funds has fuelled the financial sector’s massive move into farmland investing over the past decade. The number of pension funds involved in farmland investment and the amount of money they are deploying into it is increasing, under the radar. This unprecedented take-over of farmland by financial companies has major implications for rural communities and food systems, and must be challenged. Leaving it to the companies to police themselves with their own voluntary guidelines is a recipe for disaster.

Pastoralists in Isiolo county in northern Kenya feel under siege, with their way of life under threat. Isiolo has been the home of the Waso Boran pastoralists for many decades, but attacks from neighbouring Somali herders, encroachments by agriculturalists from Meru, expansion of conservancies and planned road, pipeline and resort city mega-projects are affecting all pastoral livelihoods, creating many new risks and environmental uncertainties. Droughts are occurring more frequently. Market uncertainties are important, regarding access to milk, meat and live animals. But political and institutional uncertainties dominated discussions with locals. Disputes with neighbours and the planned expansion of investments, including the LAPSSET corridor and the Northern Rangeland Trust conservancies were hot topics.

Report provides an alternate response to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s request to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to analyse impacts of warming to 1.5°C and related greenhouse gas emission pathways. Covers strengthening indigenous and community land rights, restoring forests and other ecosystems, and transforming agriculture. Confines solution pathways to low-risk land-sector approaches that protect, restore and sustainably manage natural ecosystems, while respecting human rights. Asks what level of climate ambition can be based on approaches that are already available, and that safeguard food security and food sovereignty, land rights, and biodiversity?

In June 2018, the President of Burkina Faso enacted a new agriculture investment code, aiming at promoting productive investments in livestock, fisheries, forestry and fauna management. It establishes an enabling environment and creates incentives to boost investment in the targeted sectors. Despite some shortcomings that can be fixed through implementation, the code is an important step in the right direction to attract responsible investment. It also provides more clarity and coherence for investors while strengthening the existing legal and regulatory system governing issues such as land and labour rights, environmental protections, and tax obligations.

In recent decades, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have pursued national water permit systems, derived from the colonial era and reinforced by “global best practice.” These systems have proved logistically impossible to manage and have worsened inequality in water access. This study traces the origins of these systems, and describes their implementation and consequences for rural smallholders in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The authors  propose a hybrid water use rights system to decolonize Africa’s water law, lighten the administrative burden on the state and make legal access to water more equitable. This would strengthen smallholder irrigation, which is vital for boosting Africa’s food production and making it more resilient in the face of worsening drought.

There are many misconceptions about farming in southern Africa, and one of the most insidious is the notion of ‘viability’. A narrow economistic version has predominated that is based on a normative vision of farming based on full-time, large-scale commercial production. But taking a wider view, what is viable can take different forms more appreciative of the diverse ways farming is intertwined with wider livelihoods, and across different scales. Too often the dominant framing has been allied to strong normative, racially-inflected, colonial assumptions, supported today by well-articulated political and commercial interests, hooked into a long history of the assumed benefits of a dualistic agrarian system where modern, large-scale agriculture is seen as the ideal. Shedding these blinkered perspectives can be tough, but is certainly necessary.

An analysis of the recently approved Land Rights Bill. The law now divides all Liberia’s lands into four categories, private land (deeded land owned by one or more than one person), government lands (land owned by the government and used for government activities) public lands (all lands that are not government, customary or private lands) and customary land (land owned and managed by a community according to their customary norms and tradition). The local Sustainable Development Institute is pleased to announce that the most progressive aspect of the Bill is granting customary land rights to over 80% of the population.

The shortcomings of the current land reforms suggest that voluntary, market-based transactions of land might not be a suitable measure to redistribute land, not to speak of wealth and power. The “policy” of national reconciliation has delivered one-sided benefits. The politics of national reconciliation are used to justify the status quo – an avoidance strategy to address the structural problems in Namibia. A more radical approach must be considered to redistribute land and capital. Only then will formerly disadvantaged people become equal co-owners of Namibia’s land and wealth.

An analysis of women’s ongoing struggles to secure their land rights in Malawi, where women own only 17% of documented land.

Namati and the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) have published two new guides to help communities prepare for interactions with investors and, if they so wish, negotiate fair, equitable contracts.  Namati’s Rachael Knight and CCSI’s Kaitlin Cordes describe why and how these guides came to be.

Publication shows how addressing land issues can mitigate conflict, facilitate solutions to it, improve the likelihood that people can return to their homes after the violence is over, and contribute to peace overall. Draws on cases in nine countries in the Arab States, Africa and Latin America, with a range of conflict parties: farmers, herders, landlords, villagers, mining companies, host communities, displaced people, gangs, and various levels of government. The cases and analysis describe how various land-related approaches have been used throughout the conflict cycle, from conflict prevention through humanitarian assistance, recovery and development. While each conflict is different, the emphasis is on practical tools and methods that can be adapted to suit the situation. The African countries are: DR Congo (interventions to prevent evictions of subsistence farming communities), Somalia (land tenure agreements to protect internally displaced people in Baidoa from eviction), Sudan (intercommunal reconciliation of land disputes in Darfur), and South Sudan (migration dialogues to prevent conflict between host communities and pastoralists).

Examines the political economy of agricultural commercialisation in Malawi over the past three decades, which has been influenced to a very large extent by the changing configurations of political elites and their underlying interests, incentives and motivations, including using the agricultural sector as a source of political patronage, fraud and corruption. The contemporary vision of large-scale agriculture as the primary driver for agricultural commercialisation has not been effectively implemented due to pervasive chronic food security challenges since the late 1990s, epitomised by the implementation of the Farm Input Subsidy Programme and the political sensitivity of the land question upon which its success depends. The commercialisation agenda is further dictated by the primacy of politics over ideas, which makes it extremely difficult for policymakers to forge ahead with the practical implementation of certain ideas because they are generally seen as being less politically expedient.

In 2008, the world food crisis shifted agricultural investment to countries with productive land and cheap labour. The Nacala Corridor, one of the most fertile and populated areas of Mozambique, was heavily affected. At least 38 companies linked to large-scale agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry settled in the region. Thousands of peasant farmers were dispossessed of their land and are still waiting for the promises of a better life to come true. This web documentary seeks to give a voice to some of those affected by this land grab.

Research in Sierra Leone reveals that the role of Paramount Chiefs and MPs in approaching communities for negotiations compromised Free, Prior and Informed Consent. Companies and local authority figures used vague references to ‘development’ to convince landowners to sign. There are a number of investments that could be classed as ‘speculative’ while customary decision-making regarding the agreement to lease land excluded women, junior men, and members of non-land-owning families. Concludes with policy recommendations.

The Netherlands Land Academy (LANDac), the Food & Business Knowledge Platform, CIFOR and Shared Value Foundation (SVF) jointly set out in 2017 to design and implement 3 multi-stakeholder Learning Platforms around investment hubs in Mozambique (the Beira Corridor), Tanzania (Kilombero Valley) and Uganda (the Jinja-Kampala Corridor). Land-based investments have shown that deals often lead to conflicts between investors and local populations, which negatively effects local livelihoods and food security. A main issue in these conflicts is the lack of information at and knowledge about the local level. Hence the project aimed to bring different stakeholders together, improve the quality and flow of information between these actors, and generate new ideas for creating shared value. Over the course of one year, SVF conducted in-depth, local research, organized multi-stakeholder meetings and conducted follow-up activities for implementation and monitoring. The final synthesis report presents the methodology, the outcomes as well as the experiences and lessons learned throughout the project. It is accompanied by the 3 country reports.

Report shows that Dutch-based banks continue to finance deforestation and land grabbing in Liberia. Thousands have lost their homes, local communities have been intimidated or imprisoned, and large swathes of forest have been cleared or burnt down. Milieudefensie argues that it is time for the banks to fulfil their sustainable banking promises, and to withdraw their investments in the industrial palm oil sector as soon as possible.

Indigenous and community lands, crucial for rural livelihoods, are typically held under informal customary arrangements. This can leave the land vulnerable to outside commercial interests, so communities may seek to formalize their land rights in a government registry and obtain an official land document. But this process is often time-consuming, complex and costly and, in contrast, companies can acquire land relatively quickly and find short-cuts around regulatory burdens. Report maps these inequities in 15 countries (including Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda) and offers recommendations on how to level the playing field.

A history of the successful resistance by Mozambican villagers and the farmers’ union UNAC against Africa’s biggest agro-industrial programme, ProSavana, which was an attempt, funded by Brazil and Japan, to transform northern Mozambique’s Nacala Corridor into Brazil’s Mato Grosso, despite the glaringly obvious differences between the two.

GRAIN has documented at least 135 farmland deals for food crop production that have backfired between 2007 and 2017. They represent 17.5 million hectares. These are not failed land grabs, since the land almost never goes back to the communities, but failed agribusiness projects. While higher standards of due diligence and stronger forms of liability are surely needed, the real challenge is to get the land back to the communities. No one should rest until that is achieved. The enormity and number of these failed farmland deals tell us that they should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. Investment is needed in policies and initiatives to support food production by local communities, not opening the doors to agribusiness.

Includes the indigenous peoples of Ethiopia; Ethiopia’s dire context; food insecurity; land grabs, conflicts and food security; development by displacement I: Ethiopia’s land investment policies; table of land deals with foreign companies in Gambela since 2007; development by displacement II: Ethiopia’s villagization programme; Voluntary Guidelines; time to close the door on land grabbing in Gambela. Concludes that it is time for change.

A video showing how Lutheran World Federation is working with rural communities, village chiefs, local and national administration to raise awareness and to support people in claiming their legal rights in a context in which a land law was passed to protect small-scale farmers and rural communities but often the legal procedure is not respected and farmers lose the land on which their livelihood depends.

Explores the reconfiguration of rural authority in the aftermath of Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme, particularly the way chiefs were able to deploy ancestral autochthony as a way of contesting state hegemony. Argues that chiefs cannot simply be viewed as undemocratic remnants of colonial rule; instead, a nuanced understanding of their role in rural governance is required.

Debates on Zimbabwe’s agricultural development have centred on different framings of agriculture viability and land redistribution, which are often antagonistic. Across the divide, commercialisation of agriculture is seen as efficient and poverty-reducing. Explores how contrasting debates have played out in Zimbabwe over time, and what interests are aligned with different positions. Locates the discussion in a critical examination of the politics of agrarian change and presents a review of winners and losers. Explores power, political and institutional incentives driving commercialisation in the post-2000 period. Argues that competing interests within the state, the ruling party, opposition movements, the agricultural bureaucracy and across fractions of capital have shaped land and commercialisation over time. Posits that these ongoing contests are influencing the outcomes of the land reform of 2000, illustrated with an examination of two value chains linked to agricultural commercialisation in Mvurwi area of Mazowe district.

Argues that the institutionalization of ethnic federalism and the persistence of neo-customary tenure result in considerable ambiguity, particularly regarding the land rights of non-indigenous minorities. Highlights tensions between these three sets of land tenure institutions – state ownership, ethnic federalism and neo-customary tenure – and their implications for minority land rights. A case study of land-based conflict in Oromiya region, based on fieldwork conducted in 2009-10, demonstrates the continuing relevance of these land tenure institutions and associated ideas in land debates in Ethiopia, both in terms of the use of these ideas by protagonists as means of justifying land claims, and the ambiguous state response to the conflict, which goes well beyond the provisions of the land policy. Many of the key issues regarding ethnicity and land mirror debates taking place across the continent.

Examines the link between land and water grabbing, the people that are most impacted by this, and legal frameworks related to both land and water rights. Describes the impacts of land and water grabbing in Kenya and Ethiopia. Examines integrity risks in the Ethiopian government’s leasing of land and water resources to foreign investors, and the land reform process in Kenya after the launch of the 2010 Kenyan Constitution. This summary document identifies how powerful actors are taking control of land and water resources at the expense of poorer, local communities. Corruption in land governance plays a huge role in land grabbing, and integrity risks manifest through bribes, flawed decision-making processes, circumventing official procedures, and institutional fragmentation.

What can an analysis of power in local communities contribute to debates on women’s legal empowerment and the role of paralegals in Africa? Drawing upon theories of power and rights, and research on legal empowerment in African plural legal systems, this article explores the challenges for paralegals in facilitating women’s access to justice in Tanzania, which gave statutory recognition to paralegals in the Legal Aid Act 2017. Land conflicts represent the single-biggest source of local legal disputes in Tanzania and are often embedded in gendered land tenure relations. Argues that paralegals can be effective actors in women’s legal empowerment where they are able to work as leaders, negotiating power relations and resisting the forms of violence that women encounter as obstacles to justice. Paralegals’ authority will be realised when their role is situated within community leadership structures, confirming their authority while preserving their independence.

Study contributes to the understanding of the dynamics of pastoralism and farming in Dar Sila in relation to its natural, social, and economic environment. Reviews the history of the development of pastoralism in Chad, looks closely at pastoral systems in eastern Chad, reviews the policy and institutional context for pastoralism in Chad, and offers recommendations for practitioners working with pastoralist communities in Dar Sila and nationally in Chad.