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11. A Review of Sierra Leone’s Mines and Minerals Act

Author:
Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye, Perrine Toledano, and Sophie Thomashusen
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
With the support of Oxfam, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment reviewed select provisions in the Mines and Minerals Act 2009 and corresponding policy statements from the Minerals Policy 2018 to provide recommendations for how to best align the anticipated new mining law with international best practice. The 2009 law was reviewed with a focus on the following topics: • Fiscal regime; • Climate change; • Access to and use of land; • Community consultations and participation; • Human rights; and • Community development agreements.
Topic:
Climate Change, Human Rights, Natural Resources, Mining, Land, Sustainability, and Community
Political Geography:
Africa, West Africa, and Sierra Leone

12. How Mediation based on African Approaches to Conflict Resolution can Transform the Conflict over the Nile

Author:
Robin Faibt
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
National interests and unilateral action hinder cooperation between the Nile riparian countries.1 While there is broad consensus that cooperation provides a solution to conflict over the Nile River, the question is how to transform the conflict towards cooperative behaviour. Mediation between the main conflict parties – Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia – is necessary. The mediation efforts should be based on African approaches to conflict resolution, focusing on the realisation that one’s own well-being is intrinsically linked to the well-being of others. Mediation based on such a framework could change perspectives from national interests towards cooperation, which is not merely interested in mutual gains but reflects a sense of solidarity between the conflict parties and how benefits are interconnected.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Territorial Disputes, Water, Maritime, and Land
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Egypt

13. Malawi: The Road to the 2019 Tripartite Elections. Reflections on Corruption, Land and Multiparty Politics

Author:
Stephanie Regalia
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
Abstract:
On May 21st 2019, Malawi will hold its tripartite elections, where voters will vote for the President, Members of Parliament and local Councillors. 2019 will also mark the 25 years of multiparty politics in Malawi since the one-party regime presided by Hastings Kamuzu Banda came to an end in 1994. The transition to multiparty democracy has been encouraging with the number of large political parties steadily growing and power peacefully changing hands between the four presidents, the country has known since 1994. In this context, the race to the 2019 elections is particularly competitive. The most recent polls place voter intention for the outgoing president Peter Mutharika and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) at a near tie with the lead opposition candidate Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). The MCP used to be the only authorized political party under Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s rule. Its return to the forefront of voter intentions signals important changes in the landscape of political actors in Malawi. This paper explores some of the reasons behind this changing political landscape. It looks at the DPP’s recent loss of support due to discontent with rampant corruption and a controversial land reform passed in 2016. It also examines the landscape of challengers, including the current Vice President Saulos Chilima, following his departure from DPP ranks to form a new political movement, the United Transformation Movement (UTM). Given the diversity of large political parties in contention, which also includes Atupele Muluzi’s United Democratic Front (UDF) and Joyce Banda’s People’s Party (PP), the possibility of securing victory in the 2019 presidential election may rest on the ability of political parties to form strategic electoral alliances. This may require moving past political parties formed solely around the personality and identity of their leaders to a more issue-based political debate.
Topic:
Corruption, Politics, Elections, Land, and Political Parties
Political Geography:
Africa and Malawi

14. Ethnic Minorities and Land Conflicts in Southwestern Nigeria

Author:
Jeremiah O Arowosegbe
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
One central aspect of the national question within the discourse on Nigeria concerns the conflicts and disputes historically driven by struggles over land-based resources. Examples of such conflicts include that of Ife- Modakeke in Osun State, the Jukun-Chamba conflict in the Takum Local Government Area of Taraba State, the Tiv-Jukun conflict in Benue and Plateau States, and the Umuleri-Aguleri war of attrition over Otuocha land in Anambra State. Drawing on primary data generated from focus group discussions and oral interviews between October 2009 and March 2015 across locations with pronounced incidents of land-based conflicts in Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo States in southwestern Nigeria, this work examines the impact of economic considerations on ethnically motivated conflicts in the country over land from 1999 to 2015. It examines land conflicts in southwestern Nigeria—which have been occurring since the 1980s and stubbornly resurfaced in recent times—as a major economic and sociopolitical problem at the national and state levels. This study examines the following questions: How has land been connected with some of the historical conflicts across Nigeria? How has the character of the state in Nigeria affected the management of ethnically motivated land conflicts? What does this case study suggest in terms of the resolution of land-based conflicts across the country? This study argues that colonialism—through its policies and programs as well as the administrative structures and political systems put in place by the colonial state—not only changed the material conditions of populations across Nigeria by forcefully integrating them into the colonial and later global capitalist system (by compelling them to participate in colonial economic activities largely dominated by profit motive, thereby negating the autonomous development of the emergent postcolonial state), but also radically altered the complexities and directions of the land question. Hence Okwudiba Nnoli’s assertion that colonial and postcolonial societies are characterized by struggles that do not originate in local changes in the prevailing systems of class relation and material production.
Topic:
Minorities, Ethnicity, Conflict, and Land
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

15. Balancing Development and Community Livelihoods: A Framework for Land Acquisition and Resettlement in Uganda

Author:
Max A. Anyuru, Russell Rhoads, Onesmus Muyenyi, Joseph Ekwenyu, and Tom Balemesa
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE)
Abstract:
Land acquisition for development projects by government, private investors and land speculators is a critical source of tensions and conflicts in many parts of Uganda. Following the discovery of commercially viable oil reserves in 2006, Uganda turned attention to extractives and oil development as a matter of national priority. Evidence of this assertion can be found in the recent 2016-17 national budget allocations, where the portion for oil development is substantial. Development of petroleum and mining sectors requires substantial capital investments, often relying on foreign-based capitalization and multinational firms to construct facilities and operate them. Several foreign companies have drilled exploratory wells in Uganda, in which estimated reserves are at 6.5 billion oil barrels. The government of Uganda has issued production licenses to several foreign oil companies. All these activities have triggered land acquisition by Government for purposes of infrastructure development: - in the form of roads,dams and power grids, refineries and pipelines. Land acquisition is also triggered by private investment and the development of auxiliary services. Secondly, infrastructual developments have a “multiplier effect” since they generate businesses and services, and increase inflationary pressures on services and the land market. As expected, land speculation is also on the rise.
Topic:
Development, Land, Community, and Livelihoods
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

16. Gender equality in Burundi: Why does support not extend to women's right to inherit land?

Author:
Alain Ndikumana
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Afrobarometer
Abstract:
With 27,834 km² of surface area and a population of 10.5 million, Burundi’s population density is seven times that of Tanzania and second only to Rwanda’s on the African mainland (World Bank, 2014). Its population grows at an annual rate of 2.4%, and more than 90% of the population lives primarily on agriculture. These factors make land a vital and scarce resource in Burundi, leading to frequent conflicts and particular complications in questions of inheritance (Kazoviyo & Gahungu, 2011). The situation is even more problematic for women and girls, who traditionally inherit nothing from their fathers. In Burundi, women’s right to inherit land faces the triple barriers of demography, tradition, and the law. Promoting gender equality and especially women’s right to inherit land is a major focus of women’s-rights activists. Although Burundi has signed and incorporated in its constitution most international instruments promoting gender equality, women’s succession rights do not yet have full legal protection. Since 2004, government legislation on women’s inheritance laws awaits consideration by the National Assembly. “But problems related to the scarcity of land and overpopulation seem to veil the face of leaders who end up believing that a law on female succession would be a problem rather than a solution” (Kazoviyo & Gahungu, 2011, p. 1). Even if the proposed law is passed, evidence suggests that gender inequality in access to and control over land will remain a problem. Burundi’s legislation is based on international agreements and laws enacted by the government. However, there are shortcomings in the regulation of natural resources and the management of land because Burundi has no national land code. In the absence of national texts, local customary rules based on a patriarchal system govern family land and women‘s access to and inheritance of land. This system recognizes women as usufructuaries (i.e. entitled to use land that belongs to another) but not as heirs. Such social norms are so entrenched among the local population that most women in rural communities view ownership of material assets, such as land, as being exclusive to men (Carpano, 2011). Without a concerted education effort and diligent implementation of new land laws, many women may not know their legal rights, implementation may be gender-biased, and law enforcement may be grossly inadequate or prejudiced against women. In Kenya, for example, laws allow women to own land, yet nearly all land is registered in the names of male elders (Odeny, 2013). A project in Rwanda, implemented by the Rwanda Initiative for Sustainable Development, showed the effectiveness of awareness-raising activities at public and government levels regarding land rights and land registration. Rwanda’s Organic Land Law, which governs land management and administration, states that “women, married or not, should not be excluded from the process of land access, land acquisition and land control, and female descendants should not be excluded from the process of family land inheritance” (Republic of Rwanda, 2004). Both men and women were informed about their rights under the law and about the benefits of registration in terms of security of rights and livelihoods (Carpano, 2011). The National Land Centre estimates that between 2008 and June 2010, 1 million out of 8 million parcels of land in the country had been registered. Afrobarometer’s first survey in Burundi, in 2012, provides insights regarding public attitudes toward gender equality. Findings show that majorities of Burundians support women’s rights in general but reject land inheritance by women. This paper examines factors that might contribute to these apparently contradictory views and offers recommendations on how to promote dialogue, sensitization, partnerships, and capacity development in support of women’s land rights in Burundi.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Feminism, Land, Property, and Equality
Political Geography:
Africa and Burundi

17. Pastoral conflict in Kenya: Transforming mimetic violence to mimetic blessings between Turkana and Pokot communities

Author:
Ryan Triche
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Livestock raiding has been a source of conflict amongst and between pastoral societies in Africa for hundreds of years. However, more recently, these raids have become more violent and have triggered much more organised retaliations. Many times raids themselves are perceived as motivated by ethnic dimensions. The following paper looks at tensions and conflict between Turkana and Pokot communities in rural Kenya. The paper first traces the historical context of cattle rustling and livestock raiding between pastoral communities within Kenya. It then identifies contemporary factors driving exacerbated tensions: access to resources, profiteering, and weapons proliferation. The paper further explores the systemic nature of the conflict through analysing livestock raiding as a conflict spiral dictated by negative reciprocal actions. The spiral is ultimately maintained due to mimetic violence structures that are in place. It then offers prescriptions and potential solutions to the conflict, which are centred on transcending the relationship from mimetic violence to mimetic peace and reconciliation. Ultimately, by empowering local pastoral communities in the form of multi-ethnic coalitions, and promoting broad-based interest groups, cultural transcendence can reverse the conflict spiral into a relationship of mutual reciprocity and mimetic peace.
Topic:
Conflict, Violence, Pastoralism, Peace, and Land
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

18. Engendering Property Rights: Women’s Insecure Land Tenure and its Implications for Development Policy in Kenya and Uganda

Author:
Kanika Mak
Publication Date:
05-2005
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
The importance of women’s contributions to the predominantly agrarian societies of Kenya and Uganda contrasts sharply with the inequity and insecurity these women face in their ability to own, inherit, manage, and dispose of land and property. This paper examines how gender equality in the design and implementation of property rights in East Africa can promote development as well as enhance the status of women in patriarchal societies. Women’s insecure land tenure stems specifically from deficiencies in the constitutional order, institutional arrangements, and social norms that govern property rights systems. Accordingly, recommendations for reform in these three areas share the ultimate goal of making property rights systems not only more equitable, but also more effective.
Topic:
Development, Women, Land, and Property
Political Geography:
Uganda, Kenya, and Africa