Demand-driven or Donor-driven Land Reform?

Photo from a village administration. Maybe a crash course in bookkeeping would help?

Last week I attended a workshop in Dar es Salaam about land in Tanzania. I did a presentation, based on my working paper, which concludes that the implementation of the Village Land Act in rural areas in Tanzania is slow, uneven and project-driven. After the presentation some of the participants raised an interesting question about the political economy of the Tanzanian land law reform; they suggested that the slow implementation could be caused by a land reform agenda which is donor-driven and without Tanzanian ownership.

After having thought about it, I have come to the conclusion that this point of view can not be outright rejected. Still, there is strong evidence that Tanzanian decision makers have the major stakes in the reform.

According to Geir Sundet’s D.Phil dissertation (see his analysis of the Land Acts here), the policy formulation process was started as a response to an increase in the number of conflicts over land and an increased focus on investment promotion in the late 1980s. The Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development established its own policy-making body and, simultaneously, the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters carried out a nation-wide tour of consultations before publishing its final report and recommendations in 1992. Combined, the two bodies prepared the ground for the reform. The National Land Policy from 1995 and, later, the Land Acts from 1999, are based on their recommendations. Tanzanian politicians’ incessant talk of formalisation also indicates that the land reform agenda is very much a Tanzanian agenda.

The implementation projects after the passing of the reform, on the other hand, have been heavily influenced by donors. When the Strategic Plan for the Implementation of the Land Laws (SPILL) was finalised in 2005, it was estimated that it would cost over 300 billion TSH to carry out. Out of this amount only about 3 billion were foreseen to come from the ordinary government budget. Availability of donor funding have therefore, by and large, been decisive for the extent to which implementation projects have been carried out. Still, even these projects have been carried out under the auspices of the Ministry of Lands and of another government-backed agency, MKURABITA.

I do not, in other words, find much evidence supporting the claim that the land reform agenda is donor-driven. I shall suggest asking the question of ownership differently: has the implementation, so far, been top-down or bottom-up? The Land Acts decentralise responsibility for administering land in rural areas to the villages. Still, strikingly little effort has been devoted to enable the village authorities to take care of the new tasks they have been assigned with.

Comments

[Chambi Chachage]

Rasmus the Presidential Land Commission report is readily available at HAKIARDHI/LARRRI,it's main author,Issa Shivji,who co-founded HAKIARDHI has written a lot afterwards,google his valedictory lecture and check out his other writings in Pambazuka News, you cannot just rely on Geir Sundet who did a consultancy for the Norwergian People's Aid (NPA) on MKURABITA at a time when Norway was about to wind up its funding of MKURABITA!And remember the Land Acts were drafted by a Professor from the UK!As I always insist,you,researchers from 'outside' should also pay attention to researchers from 'inside' otherwise you will just continue talking to and among yourselves as if it is now a norm to do so!

[Rasmus]

Dear Chambi,

I have, actually, read quite a bit of what Mr Shivji has written. The way I have understood him, he has been unhappy that not all the recommendations of the Presidential Commission were included in the policies and laws. In particular, he has criticised that land remained being owned by the president and controlled by the state, thus giving the state too big a say over local land affairs.

But if you follow the making of the policies it is clear, that the change happened between 1992, when the Commission delivered its report and its recommendations, and 1995, when the National Land Policy was finalised, i.e. before Patrick McAuslan, the consultant you refer to, drafted the 1999 Land Acts. I may be wrong, but to my knowledge, the 1995 Land Policy was the result of internal Tanzanian negotiations, not foreign interference.

It is right that Geir Sundet wrote a report about MKURABITA in 2008. But, earlier, he has also written an entire dissertation which provides the most detailed and exact analysis of the making of the Land Policy and the Land Acts I have come across.

I would not mind admitting that I am wrong, but the evidence I have come across to far, concerning the making of the policies, does not indicate foreign control over the policy making processes...if you have better evidence ‘from the inside’ I am very interested...

[Chambi Chachage]

Oh,ok,so his PhD dissertation provides "the most detailed and exact analysis of the making of the Land Policy and the Land Acts" you have come across? Well, then you better come across other analyses, why not visit Land Rights and Resources Institute's (LARRRI'HakiArdhi) open library and read from their archive that contains the actual debates on land (law) reforms that occured in the 1990s and in the aftermath? And access the alternative versions of what occured, one of which has been published in a CODESRIA publication which is google-able? Or is it a matter of ideological positionality - to primarily read and listen to those on that side of the story?

[Rasmus]

Dear Chambi, thanks for the literature recommendations! I think it is an interesting debate. I have read the articles, which directly mention the making of the policies. I do not think, however, that they significantly differ from the analysis made by Sundet.

It is clear that the Land Policy from 1995 differed from the Shivji Commission’s recommendations from 1992, but not that these changes were dictated by donors. Salma Maoulidi’s analysis, like Sundet, identifies a policy formulation process which was hijacked and ran parallel with the much more participatory Presidential Commission (p. 8). Sundet points out that the hijacking primarily was done by politicians and by public officials in the Ministry of Land, as the following quote from the Government’s draft position on the recommendations of the Presidential Commission from 1993 suggest. The draft position rejects the Shivji Commission’s suggestion to divest land from the state:
'The President as Head of State is responsible for the development of the country and well-being of the people, and land being an important element for development has to be controlled by the President. If land is vested in [the] Board of Land Commissioners and the Village Assemblies then the Government will be turned into a beggar for land when required for development.'

William Olenasha, in his article, mentions some foreign consultants who were involved in the policy formulation and he generally emphasizes foreign influence to a greater extent. But I do not think he presents any evidence that they were controlled by donors or that their recommendations differed from the Tanzanian government’s and the Ministry of Land’s positions. In a parliamentary debate 9 February 1999 the then Minster of Lands stated:
'…the whole process of preparing Policy and Bills for land laws was initiated and carried out by the Government only, without any kind of pressure from outside the country' (according to Kennedy Gastorn, a Tanzanian scholar, 2008 p. 12).

According to Kennedy Gastorn, President Mkapa in 1999 declared that the new land laws aimed at generating internal and external investments and, thus, to help the country get out of aid dependency (p. Kennedy Gastorn 2008 p. 158).

I am not claiming that donors were not involved in the land reform processes. They were, as they are in a lot of other things in Tanzania. But I have still not come across empirical evidence which proofs that the donors hijacked the policy formulation processes. On the other hand, there is evidence (quotes, etc) from the period, which indicates that the new Land Policy reflected the views of Tanzanian decision makers. It is in order to avoid ‘ideological positionality’ that I look for such empirical evidence.

[Chambi Chachage]

I wonder what are your definitions of these terms: 'donor'; 'donor thinking'; 'donor influence'; 'donor discourse'; 'donor ideology'; 'donor aid'. In fact I also wonder what is your view/position on the relationship between 'donor countries' and 'consultants from those donor countries'; 'donor states' and 'NGOs from those donor states'. If I may get a bit personal here, how independent, both intellectually and financially, are you from the Danish government that is so interested in land issues in Tanzania now (refer to the meeting with De Soto that you attended in Copenhagen)to the extent that it has released a lot of funds to that end? In both theory and practices how independent are you from the Danish NGOs that are working on land matters in Tanzania and who fund these INGOs and to what end - pure philanthropy? In the final analysis I think the problem is 'ideological' that's why what you and Geir see/saw might not be what Ole Nasha and some if not many of us here see/saw.

[Chambi Chachage]

By the way, if you are so obsessed with the so-called 'empirical evidence' why not ask the donors for all their personal communiques on the matter - will they 'empirically' give you that on a silver platter? Such private emails, letters, calls etc says a lot than the public evidence we tend to rely on.We don't need Wikileaks to tell us that (Ref: to leaked communiques on Norway's involvement in Mkurabita)as we know very well that matters of foreign policies (read actual foreign interests) tend to be disguised or/and concealed!No wonder we need investigative journalists/researchers to unearth them. Is that what you are doing or you are just an academic in search of a PhD?

[Rasmus]

Dear Chambi,
You are right, maybe it could be interesting to go through donor officials’ personal communication from the period when the policies were passed. That, however, is not the focus of my PhD project. Doing a PhD in three years’ time, I have to focus. My focus is on the present; on the implementation of the acts and on the establishment of the land administration structures in the rural areas, which are prescribed by the Land Acts. To my knowledge, this aspect has not been analysed thoroughly by any scholar so far. If I wish to do so properly, that also means that there are other topics which I can not research in-depth. The details of the policy formulation processes in the 1990s for example. I did not see that as a problem, though, because these processes have been analysed and debated quite in-depth by other scholars and stakeholders. As a researcher you have to rely on other scholars’ work.

As I wrote earlier, I am not saying that donors have not been involved in the processes. I just do not see much evidence that the policies differ from what the views of the leading Tanzanian politicians and public officials, then and now. However, this debate with you of course makes me think twice: has something been overlooked? I am willing to change my mind, if you can present some solid evidence that the Land Policy was imposed on Tanzania from the outside.

Concerning the issue you raise about funding and my personal integrity, these are tricky questions indeed. Except for the very few, who are from very rich families, most scholars rely on the state or on other sources for funding. The crucial question is how we deal with this fact? I find that transparency is very important when it comes to funding.

Yes, I have been awarded a scholarship by the Danish state. But I have defined my area of research myself and no one has interfered with my research (except from my supervisors with whom I discuss the quality of my research). The Danish Minister of Development you refer to, who is very interested in land issues, was appointed Minister after I was awarded my scholarship. The Danish Government was not really interested in land issues before he was appointed. The theme of research I applied for funding from back in 2009 was ‘Food Security’. It was my own idea to focus on the land reform in Tanzania with a special focus on the tenure security of women and vulnerable groups.

As you indicate, there is a balance to strike in regard to cooperating with NGOs and other organisations. I find it important to disseminate the knowledge I have gained through my project to as many people as possible, in Denmark as well as in Tanzania. Being funded by taxpayers’ money, I find that this is my duty. To me, NGOs, conferences, newspapers, lecturing, etc., all provide platforms for such a dissemination of information and knowledge. I would, for instance, not have met you, had it not been for such an event. Of course it is a balancing act. Do you compromise your independence when you participate in such contexts? There are no easy answers to that question. I can only say that, so far, they have respected my independence and they have not interfered with my research.

But if you see everything as ‘ideological’, as you indicate in your last comment, I guess I am wasting my time answering your questions. If you see my writings as ‘ideological’, I imagine that I am disqualified from the outset. Because of who I am (an outsider from the North), not because of what I do or what I write? I would find that conclusion a pity, however. I believe that debate makes us wiser. Personally, I have learnt a great deal from the discussions here on this blog and, not least, the ones with you. I hope that we can continue, both here and face to face the next time I come to Dar.