Sustainable Agriculture and Food: Four volume set (Earthscan Reference Collections)

Table 19.3

(continued)

Ethiopia

Mali

Zimbabwe

Policy context

Policy impacts

Policy context

Policy impacts

Policy context

Policy impacts

Land tenure

Land owned by the state; no changes in formal land tenure regime expected.

Variable perceptions of land tenure security, although from late 1980s growing evidence of land-based investments. Various forms of land exchange, tenancy, share cropping etc persist.

Land taken as national asset post-independence, with free access for all. Current land tenure reforms allocate responsibilities to rural councils, who may attribute powers of management to village-level structures. Putting land to good use the basis for acquiring rights.

Lack of clarity regarding powers to manage and control access, most marked for common property grazing, woodland, unfarmed areas. Fairly secure tenure farmland through customary systems. Relations unclear between communes rurales (CRs) and village-level structures.

All communal lands remain state property, with rights to distribution now held by rural district councils and local traditional authorities, and recently land councils.

De facto land tenure involves a high level of security in communal areas. Recent emergence of an (illegal) land market in some areas, as well as land invasions.