1. Land and Power in Africa: What Recent Land Reforms Have Brought About
Shinichi TAKEUCHI
(African Studies Center – TUFS / IDE-JETRO)

2. Introduction A wave of land law reforms in Africa since the 1990s.
What have been their effects and consequences?
Commercialization of land (Alden Wily 2014, Amanor 2018)
Effects over the State-building
The consequence has been quite different from donors’ assumption of the reform.
The paper identifies three different patterns of the consequences, illustrating directions of the transformation of African states and societies.

3. About the research
Based on the joint research carried out during FY at IDE-JETRO.
Comparative research on the land law reform and its consequences.
Eight researchers (area specialists) analyzed ten African countries
Burundi, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia

4. A wave of land law reforms
A number of African countries have launched land law reforms since the 1990s.

5. Objectives and Motivations
International community (donors)
Strengthening tillers’ rights for promoting investments.
Improving land governance.
Securing users’ rights.
Context of the land law reforms in Africa
Democratization and marketization
Revising previous land policies
Reorganizing power in post civil war period

6. Land policy in the state-building
Control over land has been one of the central issues in politics since the colonial times.
Recent land law reforms: A shift from the state-centered land policy?

7. Strengthening the state control through land registration: Rwanda and Ethiopia
Systematic land registration
Federal land law in 1997 (Ethiopia), Organic land law in 2005 (Rwanda)
Strong motivation (sense of crisis) for social transformation
Enhancing rational land use
Challenges of high population density and land shortage
Power consolidation in the post-conflict settings: RPF, EPRDF.
Tight control over land
Obligation of effective land use
Ban on dividing small plots of land
Land consolidation: imposing particular crops for cultivation
Deliverance of land certificates has never strengthened private land rights, but the state control over land.

8. Implementing the land law for the consolidation of one party dominant system: Mozambique and Tanzania
Recognition of customary land rights
Land law in 1997 (Mozambique), Village Land Act in 1999 (Tanzania)
Hailed by the international community.
Similar history of the state intervention in the land.
Problematic “customary” land tenure.
State control over the customary land management
Intervention by the local administrations and/or the ruling parties (FRELIMO, CCM).
Historical process to strengthen the state control over land
Socialist policy: villagization, collective farms
Oppression policies against chiefs
Decentralization

9. Delegation of power to the chiefs: Zambia
Strengthening chiefs’ power over land
1995 Land Act requiring chiefs’ approval for land deals.
Chiefs often hold more effective and stronger power than the government.
No ruling party consistently intervening in the land management.

10. Discussion Effects of the land law reform on the state building
The reform has rarely strengthened private property rights.
Three different patterns, closely related to the nature of political regime.
Former rebels, tight control over the society
Dominant parties issue of independent movement establishing their control
Democratic regime change ensuring chiefs’ autonomy
Large scale land deals by foreign companies have not necessarily exacerbated the state fragility (Sassen 2013).
Challenges for democratic governance
(Excessive) state control vs. chiefs’ control