Land Affairs

Are Rights the Answer to Underdevelopment?

Are human rights universal, indivisible and equally applicable everywhere or may local contexts and local decision-making matter more in some situations? This is a hotly debated topic among policy makers and development practitioners. In my country, Denmark, it is currently up for debate because the new Minister for Development Cooperation, Christian Friis Bach, wants to reform Danish development assistance, introducing Human Rights-Based Approaches. That has met resistance from some scholars and in the development community. Typically, the minister’s insistence on a set of values defined in the North is seen as neo-colonialism. Furthermore, it is argued, the approach is unlikely to work. You can read a recent example of the critique on this newly established blog, The Political Economy of the Development in Africa.

I experienced a similar discrepancy between high principles and local priorities first hand a couple of years ago when I visited remote villages, in which NGOs worked to secure women’s rights to land. The women usually appreciated the support of the NGOs. But then they raised the question: Now what? What is the use of land ownership if we have no money to buy seeds? What is the use of a title deed if roads are shoddy and we can not transport our crops to town?

Dorothy L. Hodgson, in the anthology Gender and Culture at the Limit of Rights explores similar dilemmas about the potential and the limitations of the “women’s rights as human rights” framework. In her chapter, These are not our Priorities: Maasai Women, Human Rights and the Problem of Culture, she describes the dilemmas Maasai women activists in Tanzania face when they do fundraising. Western donors and Tanzanian elite groups, based in the cities, typically offer funds for the fight against female genital modification (FGM). The Maasai activists know, however, that if FGM is the main thing on their agenda when they visit Maasai villages, they are unlikely to achieve anything. Instead, they deem support for girl’s education and income generating activities more important. Things which can make women better able to make their own decisions. The activists do not defend female genital modification. But they believe they can achieve more, also in the fight against FGM, using other means.

A colleague of mine has termed the dilemma between high principles and what works on the ground ‘a conflict between the human rights people and the development practitioners’. The disagreement is over means more than over ends. Both groups see a great value in human rights. The question is how to get there. Maybe, the development practitioners suggest, when resources are scarce – and they are in most developing countries – they should be used for what works. And what works may not always be the rights based approaches. It is a dilemma, is it not?

Traditional Authorities: Do they Deliver Justice in Land Disputes?

The District Land and Housing Tribunal in Tanga.

Policy makers in developing countries face difficult choices when it comes to designing court institutions for settling land disputes. On the one hand, the state court systems are often overburdened with cases. They are often also too expensive to access for most citizens, in particular for women. In other words, to increase the number of courts and reducing the fees may not be a real option in cash-strapped countries with poor populations. Different approaches are required. However, the alternatives may be easier to access, but they often have other unintended consequences.

I was reminded about the dilemma when I read the article Government must consult rural women on the Traditional Court Bill, which criticises the South African government’s decision to vest responsibility over land disputes in customary authorities. A similar critique is raised in the book Land, Power and Custom: Controversies Generated by South Africa's Communal Land Rights Act by Aninka Claassens and Ben Cousins. It describes the customary authorities as being patriarchal and criticizes them for drawing on a repertoire of practices that discriminate against women. Another scholar, Richard Crook, based on his research in Ghana, also warns us against the romanticisation of traditional or customary institutions in his conference paper The state and local justice in Ghana: hybridity, legitimacy and popular values.

In Tanzania, the government in the 1999 Village Land Act and the 2002 Courts (Land Disputes Settlements) Act chose a middle way, prescribing the establishment of village land councils made up, not of professionals, but of appointed laymen and women. The acts also recognized the role of traditional authorities in settling land disputes, but prohibited all gender-discriminatory practices. In theory, these laws and regulations are sound and pragmatic. What the authorities do in practice, however, may be a different matter.

Encouraging Land Reform News from Rwanda

Sub-Saharan African countries have introduced a ‘new wave’ of land reforms in the last couple of decades (read about the reforms in this review). Unlike previous, more state-centric reforms, these new reforms decentralise responsibility for the administration of land to the local level and streamline disparate land law regimes. For instance, customary tenure and fully individualised freehold tenure may get converged into a single, more formal tenure system. Typically, reforms also aim at protecting the land rights of women and vulnerable groups.

So far, evidence has been scarce and land reform debates have largely been based on findings from past reforms. Slowly, however, results start appearing. And they are more positive than what many scholars expected. Recently, I received a Working Paper, Environmental and Gender Impacts of Land Tenure Regularisation in Africa, which presents evidence from pilot implementation projects in Rwanda, which is to carry out a nation-wide land tenure regularisation program. Its outcomes were positive, though I do not think they herald a revolution.

The paper concludes that Legally married women were significantly more likely to have their informal ownership rights documented and secured after registration. But women who were not legally married saw diminished property rights, in accordance with the law (p. 14). It is important that the pilot project has improved most women’s access to land. Titling programmes effect on gender equality was an important criticism in the past. Old-fashioned land reforms typically registered land in the name of the household head – the husband – and reduced women’s control over land (read, for instance, this working paper p. 19).

A joint title or seperate property?

The Rwandan findings are largely in line with my findings from implementation projects in Tanzania. But based on my research I would also emphasise that there are significant differences within the groups of married and unmarried women. Single women, I would say, may even be in better off than married women if they get registered as household heads. Women who get single due to divorce, on the other hand, may be worse off. Reform, in other words, polarises women’s positions.

Bottom-line is that new wave land reforms seem to improve most women’s access to land. It does not happen automatically, however. The authors of the working paper warn that ‘careful design based on local conditions, and continued monitoring during implementation’ are required. It is also my impression that the approach of implementers – whether they emphasise women’s rights to land during training sessions and implementation – is important.

Despite these significant findings, the working paper has a serious methodological weakness. It seems to me that the conclusion is based on changes in perceptions only. In other words, the researchers have been looking at whether more women are ‘entitled’ to equal ownership rights (p. 13). It does not tell us whether their actual ability to defend their rights if they have to, for instance in case of divorce. If you have more information about the Rwandan land reform and whether it has actually improved women’s tenure security it is most welcome.

Property Hierarchies

My feminist friends talk about ‘white heterosexual men’ when they want to point out how certain traits in society favours some groups and disadvantages others (read examples of it here and here). I have come to realise that the perspective is also applicable to land affairs. Here, too, hierarchies are at play which structure access to land and property, though things, of course, are a bit more complex than the slogan indicates.

I realised that the ‘white heterosexual men’ perspective was applicable within land and property studies, when I read a press release from European gay activists welcoming a communiqué by the European Commission on property rights of married couples and registered partners. The communiqué, so they argue, is breaking new ground because it treats homosexual couples and heterosexual couples equally when it comes to property rights. That has been a normal practice in countries in the northern part of the European Union for well over a decade now, but in some of the member countries in the eastern part of Europe, homosexuals still face discrimination when it comes to inheritance. There, a person may not inherit the partner’s property despite having shared a life together with him or her. A communiqué at the European level puts these people in a better position.

The situation of these homosexuals, in some ways, reminds me of the situation of women in some rural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa. They, too, face eviction or loss of property when their husbands die. Most of the new wave of land reforms, which have been carried out in many countries the last couple of decades, prohibit gender discrimination. But the traditional practices are often too strong and the laws are not implemented.

Pastoralists are also disfavoured in many African countries. The new book Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous, by Dorothy Hodgson, describes Tanzanian Maasai’s political struggles over the last couple of decades. One of the Maasias main aims has been to get recognised as a group with a specific culture and lifestyle. Another aim has been to find ways to protect their rights to land. The long history of land expropriations that pastoralist groups in Tanzania have experienced did not stop with independence. Post-colonial authorities continued the practice. At the same time, people from other parts of Tanzania now settle where the pastoralists used to graze their cattle. Land which is not under the plough is considered vacant and, thus, a potential object for farming and investment. In 2007, according to a memo quoted in the book, President Kikwete stated that the livestock keeping, using mobility as its key strategy, has no future for pastoralists in the country (Hodgson 2011, 172).

Tanzanian decision makers may be right that the pastoralist lifestyle is under threat. The competition for land is fierce. And pastoralists are, after all, also modernising. What makes their statements slightly problematic, however, is that they put the blame on the pastoralist instead of seeking to protect their rights to land. Most other groups in Tanzania, I believe, would get treated differently if their land was being taken.

That brings me back to the reason why I find the ‘white heterosexual men’ perspective too simplistic. The people accumulating land in Tanzania are not all white. On the opposite. The investors I heard about during my research in Tanzania's rural areas were all elite Tanzanians from the major cities. And the Tanzanian decision makers, who are responsible for the policies which make the land alienations possible, are certainly not white. That was, indeed, also pointed out by two Ministers in the article Investment debate grows more fierce in the Guardian, on July 3rd, in which they made it clear that the formulation of the right policies is a Tanzanian responsibility. Finally, the ones benefitting from the current state of affairs may not even be male.

To focus on the privileges of ‘white heterosexual men’ is, in other words, misleading when it comes to land affairs. But, the perspective - that there is a hierarchy among groups, whose rights are not equally well protected – is still worth pursuing.

Property Hierarchies

My feminist friends talk about ‘white heterosexual men’ when they want to point out how certain traits in society favours some groups and disadvantages others (read examples of it here and here). I have come to realise that the perspective is also applicable to land affairs. Here, too, hierarchies are at play which structure access to land and property, though things, of course, are a bit more complex than the slogan indicates.

I realised that the ‘white heterosexual men’ perspective was applicable within land and property studies, when I read a press release from European gay activists welcoming a communiqué by the European Commission on property rights of married couples and registered partners. The communiqué, so they argue, is breaking new ground because it treats homosexual couples and heterosexual couples equally when it comes to property rights. That has been a normal practice in countries in the northern part of the European Union for well over a decade now, but in some of the member countries in the eastern part of Europe, homosexuals still face discrimination when it comes to inheritance. There, a person may not inherit the partner’s property despite having shared a life together with him or her. A communiqué at the European level puts these people in a better position.

The situation of these homosexuals, in some ways, reminds me of the situation of women in some rural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa. They, too, face eviction or loss of property when their husbands die. Most of the new wave of land reforms, which have been carried out in many countries the last couple of decades, prohibit gender discrimination. But the traditional practices are often too strong and the laws are not implemented.

Pastoralists are also disfavoured in many African countries. The new book Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous, by Dorothy Hodgson, describes Tanzanian Maasai’s political struggles over the last couple of decades. One of the Maasias main aims has been to get recognised as a group with a specific culture and lifestyle. Another aim has been to find ways to protect their rights to land. The long history of land expropriations that pastoralist groups in Tanzania have experienced did not stop with independence. Post-colonial authorities continued the practice. At the same time, people from other parts of Tanzania now settle where the pastoralists used to graze their cattle. Land which is not under the plough is considered vacant and, thus, a potential object for farming and investment. In 2007, according to a memo quoted in the book, President Kikwete stated that the livestock keeping, using mobility as its key strategy, has no future for pastoralists in the country (Hodgson 2011, 172).

Tanzanian decision makers may be right that the pastoralist lifestyle is under threat. The competition for land is fierce. And pastoralists are, after all, also modernising. What makes their statements slightly problematic, however, is that they put the blame on the pastoralist instead of seeking to protect their rights to land. Most other groups in Tanzania, I believe, would get treated differently if their land was being taken.

That brings me back to the reason why I find the ‘white heterosexual men’ perspective too simplistic. The people accumulating land in Tanzania are not all white. On the opposite. The investors I heard about during my research in Tanzania's rural areas were all elite Tanzanians from the major cities. And the Tanzanian decision makers, who are responsible for the policies which make the land alienations possible, are certainly not white. That was, indeed, also pointed out by two Ministers in the article Investment debate grows more fierce in the Guardian, on July 3rd, in which they made it clear that the formulation of the right policies is a Tanzanian responsibility. Finally, the ones benefitting from the current state of affairs may not even be male.

To focus on the privileges of ‘white heterosexual men’ is, in other words, misleading when it comes to land affairs. But, the perspective - that there is a hierarchy among groups, whose rights are not equally well protected – is still worth pursuing.

Land and Sexual Violence (4). A Report from Cote d’Ivoire...

People on the run from the severe post-election fighting. March 2011. © Alexis Adélé/IRIN.

This week, a report appeared about the use of sexual violence as part of the post-election conflict in Cote d’Ivoire. Again, there seems to be some kind of relationship between political conflict, land, and rape as a weapon of war.

In Cote d’Ivoire, the atrocities started in November 2010 when the incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down after having lost the national elections (read about the conflict here). Soon, what started off as a dispute over the election outcome activated ethnic and religious cleavages.

According to the report from the UN news agency, IRIN, there is a link between ethnicity, land and sexual violence:
Most refugees are reporting that the violence is ethnically and politically driven, say NGOs and rights groups. The political fault-lines in this region are largely along ethnic and religious grounds. Violence in the west has also been linked to longstanding clashes over land that have pitted local communities against outsiders. Waines, just back from talking to refugees in Nimba Country, said: “There is a large ethnic dynamic to this violence - targeted ethnic killings and attacks are driving the dynamic.”

The article only reports that these crimes have taken place. Unfortunately, it does not provide much insight into the behind lying ethnic conflicts and exactly how they relate to land issues.

Agricultural Productivity a Threat to Women’s Land Rights

A threat to productivity?

Recently, I realized that there may be a contradiction between governments’ emphasis on the productive use of land and most people’s secure rights to land in developing countries. In particular women’s access to land is at risk. Again, it was the experiences from the Zimbabwean land reform, which made things clear to me.

It is an established truth that the focus on productivity is a threat to the tenure security of pastoralists. Read Once Intrepid Warriors by Dorothy L. Hodgson and you’ll come across several stories, both from before and after independence, about Tanzanian authorities alienating Maasai land in order to give it to more productive farmers. Ironically, the expected improved productivity did often not materialize. If you read the final version of the Tanzanian governments plan for the implementation of the 1999 land laws, SPILL, from 2005, you will find a similar disregard of pastoralist productivity.

In her book, Gender and Land Reform, Allison Goebel concludes that the same focus on productivity may threaten women’s land rights. In her analysis of the experiences from Zimbabwe’s land reforms she starts off with a very positive story from the early 1980s. Back then, the Zimbabwean government’s land reform policies were still aiming at redistributing land to the landless and thus promoting social justice. Women were also eligible for resettlement land, in particular if they were single women. Over the years, however, the government increasingly shifted its focus. Increasingly, it emphasized that settlers should be able to make productive use of the land. First, training courses were made a prerequisite for being resettled on vacant land. Later, criteria became even stricter and applicants should own a schotchcart (a wooden, wheeled cart) and a plough (p. 24). Obviously, it was much harder for women to meet these requirements. Simultaneously, large tracts of land were given to the new black elite for large-scale farming.

I do understand politicians’ focus on economic growth. It is, after all, the only way for their countries to escape aid-dependency. Still, it triggers me that there is so much talk about productivity and so little debate about how to distribute land and resources. Goebel’s analysis makes it clear that the increased focus on productivity may threaten women’s access to land. Just as it may threaten a lot of other groups’ rights to land.

Land and sexual violence (3)

In previous blog posts, I have written about rapes related to major conflicts over land and in land conflicts at the local, everyday level. I was reminded about the link between land and sexual violence again this week when reading about Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform.

According to the book Gender and Land Reform - the Zimbabwe Experience by Allison Goebel, election campaigns and the land seizures were accompanied by state-sanctioned rape:

...state-sanctioned violence that accompanied the 2003 pre-election campaign, the presidential elections, and the seizure of white-owned farms has taken an especially heavy toll on women and children. It is alleged that wives and daughters who sympathized with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) or who were connected to MDC supporters, as well as women farm workers were victimized by ZANU youth brigades. Although the youth brigades were particularly intent on silencing vocal opposition to the ruling party, who were disproportionately male, there was a clear gendered dimension to their violence. Women believed to be associated with the opposition were not beaten, but were instead often raped or gang raped by members of the youth brigades and state functionaries (Mary J. Osirim according to Goebel).

Though she mentions it, the author does not elaborate much on the relationship between land and the use of sexual violence in Zimbabwe. This, again, brings me back to the curious fact that so little research has been carried out into the topic…

Land and sexual violence (2)

My last blog post was about the use of rape and sexual violence in major conflicts. During a meeting with some colleagues a couple of days ago, I realised that sexual violence may also be part of small-scale, everyday conflicts with neighbours, kins and family members. At the meeting I was asked if we know anything about it. I did not. So far, I have not come across any literature which deals with the topic.

I do know that violent marriages can be quite common in rural areas. In the book ‘Women Forget that Men are the Masters’ Margrete Silberschmidt describes how social change in a district in Kenya challenges men’s traditional identities. Often, women are better at small-scale business and managing the fields. Still many men, though they are loosing their traditional role as breadwinners, cling on to the traditional gender relations: ‘Regardless of the socio-economic circumstances in which they find themselves, men are constantly preoccupied with the fact that they are men, and that this condition differentiates them radically from women’ (Silberschmidt p. 17).  Sex and violence, then, may become parts of some men’s strategies to assert themselves and their masculinity.

Thinking back to my fieldwork, I remember the story of a woman, whose husband had died. Soon, the husband’s brother moved in and took over the role as the head of the family. But the two did not get on well, and the woman asked him to leave. The man turned violent, however, and, in the end, she was the one who had to flee the house and the land with her kids. I do not know whether sexual violence was a part of it. It was not my research topic and I did not inquire into it. I wish I had.

This brings me back to the fact, that I do not think that land and sexual violence at the local, everyday level has been thoroughly researched. Anybody out there who knows more about it?

Land and sexual violence

Survivors of sexual violence at the Hospital of Panzi, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photo from UN Multimedia.

An article in this week’s Economist, War’s overlooked victims, is about the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Most often women are targeted.

From newspaper reports I had noticed current conflicts’ large numbers of rapes during conflicts. Repeatedly, we read stories about rapes in the ongoing civil war in Congo. There were reports about sexual violence during the 2007-2008 political crisis in Kenya (read here). In Bosnia in the 1990s, rape was also widespread. I thought it was a new trend. It turns out, however, that it is not.

What is new is the realisation that rape is often used systematically as a weapon of war. Only in 2008 was it officially acknowledged as such by the UN Security Council.

Often, so it seems, the use of sexual violence during conflicts is related to land. The logic behind is abhorrent. Men are mobile. Sometimes they are engaged in militia activities themselves, sometimes they work in the cities. When conflicts break out, which involve different ethnic groups and control over land, women are easy targets. By raping women, militias can force them and their families to flee an area. According to a research paper by Elisabeth Wood, an American professor at Yale University, a UN Commission noticed the connection between land and sexual violence after the wars in the former Yugoslavia:

In both custodial and non-custodial settings, many victims report that the alleged perpetrators state that they were ordered to rape and sexually assault the victims, or that they were doing it so that the victims and their families would never want to return to the area. Also, every reported case occurred in conjunction with an effort to displace the civilian population of a targeted ethnic group from a given region…

Subsequently, the perpetrators can distribute the land among to members of their own ethnic grouping. Shocking.

Tanzania’s Land Law Reform - Slow and uneven Progress

NGOs and the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Development are involved in a significant number of projects to implement Tanzania’s land law reform from 1999. Still, implementation in rural areas is slow and uneven. That is my conclusion in the working paper I published this month. You can download the working paper free of charge here.

If you have comments to the working paper, please, feel free to write to me here or on my E-mail address, which you find here.