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1. Emerging Local Voices and New Possibilities Toward Attaining Sustainable Peace in Bawku, north-eastern Ghana

Author:
Aminu Dramani, Sebastian Angzoorokuu Paalo, and Samuel Adu-Gyamfi
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Globally, conflicts continue to change dynamics and increase in complexity, weakening the potential of various peacebuilding interventions, especially in the Global South. The Bawku crisis is a notable protracted conflict in Ghana and West Africa, which attracts enormous scholarly debates, especially on how to attain sustained peace in the area. However, there remains some important dynamics that are not significantly explored in the discussions on achieving sustained peace in Bawku. Drawing on in-depth field interviews, we present a new perspective on chieftaincy and landownership (and use), shifting from absolute control to a shared system, aimed at potentially resolving conflicts. The proposed shared political and landownership system also reveals important weaknesses relating to existing court verdicts and scholarly advocacy for a parallel system or the resettlement of the Mamprusi outside of the area. However, this empirical contribution offers a new possibility to resolve the Bawku crisis and similar challenges in Ghana and Africa.
Topic:
Transitional Justice, Peace, Land, and Sustainability
Political Geography:
Africa and Ghana

2. The Political Ecology of Farmer-Herder Conflict in Ghana: A Case Study of the Kwahu Afram Plains South District

Author:
Bernard Okoampah Otu and Kwasi Sarfo
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Farmer-herder conflict is an age-old phenomenon, which is widely spread in the West African sub-region. Current studies on the Ghanaian farmer-herder conflict have emphasised the land-related conflicts between indigenous farmers and nomadic herders. It has focused especially on environmental scarcity and climate change approaches. However, this study adopts the political ecology framework to highlight land conflicts between migrant farmers and nomadic herders, two migrant groups that are considered “strangers” to the Kwahu Afram Plains District. The study contributes to the broader debates on farmer-herder conflict. It provides contrary evidence with regard to the popular notion in literature and theory about the prevalence of land insecurity among nomadic herders. The study argues that migrant farmers in the study area experience more land insecurity compared to the nomadic herders. This is because of their history of immigration, their relationship with the Kwahu landowners, which is driving the escalating cost of accessing land, and disputes between landowning groups.
Topic:
Conflict, Land, Farmers, Political Ecology, and Herders
Political Geography:
Africa and Ghana

3. Farm Attacks or 'White Genocide'? Interrogating the Unresolved Land Question in South Africa

Author:
Adeoye O. Akinola
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Apartheid South Africa was noted for historical land dispossession, domination by the white group and disempowerment of the black population. Post-apartheid South Africa has struggled to address the land-related structural and physical violence in the country. Despite the implementation of land reform programmes since 1994, land inequality and impoverishment of black South Africans persist. The government’s failure to use land reform as instrument for socio-economic empowerment has engendered frustrations among those craving for land reform. This has found expression in farm attacks and murders. The subsequent instability in the farming sector and the categorisation of farm attacks as ‘white genocide’ have demonstrated the acute dynamics of the conversation, and the urgency to combat farm attacks, ameliorate the racial discourse and resolve the land question. Through unstructured interviews with key actors involved in the land and farm conflicts, the article engages the land attacks and ‘white genocide’ discourses and provides a more nuanced understanding of conflict recurrence in South Africa. It is claimed that unequal access to land and other intrinsic factors account for the destruction of lives and property on farms. It is concluded that, while white farmers are the major victims of farm murder, a conceptualisation of such as ‘white genocide’ does not adequately characterise the reality. One step among others would be for the government to inaugurate a ‘Panel of the Wise’, comprised of well-respected elders from all races, who would contribute to land reform and conflict-resolution strategies for the farms and agricultural sector.
Topic:
Discrimination, Land, Farming, and Socioeconomics
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

4. Old Fertilizer in New Bottles: Selling the Past as Innovation in Africa’s Green Revolution

Author:
Timothy A. Wise
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Rising global hunger in recent years has prompted calls for a broad reckoning over what is wrong with global food systems. Our changing climate has added urgency to the crisis. Many experts warn that our current agricultural practices are undermining the resource base – soil, water, seeds, climate – on which future food production depends. Now the global COVID-19 pandemic threatens to further exacerbate food insecurity for many of the world’s poor. Africa is projected to overtake South Asia by 2030 as the region with the greatest number of hungry people. An alarming 250 million people in Africa now suffer from “undernourishment,” the U.N. term for chronic hunger. If policies do not change, experts project that number to soar to 433 million in 2030. A growing number of farmers, scientists, and development experts now advocate a shift from high-input, chemical-intensive agriculture to low-input ecological farming. They are supported by an impressive array of new research documenting both the risks of continuing to follow our current practices and the potential benefits of a transition to more sustainable farming. The new initiatives have been met with a chorus of derision from an unsurprising group of commentators, many associated with agribusiness interests. They dismiss agroecology as backward, a nostalgic call for a return to traditional peasant production methods which they say have failed to feed growing populations in developing countries. For such critics, the future is innovation and innovation is technology: the kinds of commercial high-yield seeds and inorganic fertilizers associated with the Green Revolution. This paper explores the ways in which this innovation narrative flips reality on its head, presenting Green Revolution practices of the past as if they were new innovations. It does so through the lens of the battle for Africa’s food future, examining the disappointing results from the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA). In contrast, the real innovations in Africa are coming from soil scientists, ecologists, nutritionists, and farmers themselves who actively seek alternatives to approaches that have been failing small-scale farmers for years. A wide range of farmer organizations, scientists, and advocates offer a broad and diverse array of ecologically-based initiatives based on sound science. These are proving far more innovative and effective, raising productivity, crop and nutritional diversity, and incomes while reducing farmers’ costs and government outlays.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Green Technology, Rural, Innovation, Land, and Farming
Political Geography:
Africa

5. Mechanisms for Governing the Water-Land-Food Nexus in the Lower Awash River Basin, Ethiopia: Ensuring Policy Coherence in the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda

Author:
Srinivasa Reddy Srigiri, Anita Breuer, and Waltina Scheumann
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
Abstract:
Interdependencies among the goals and targets make the 2030 Agenda indivisible and their integrated implementation requires coherent policies. Coordination across different sectors and levels is deemed as crucial for avoiding trade-offs and achieving synergies among multiple, interlinked policy goals, which depend on natural resources. However, there is insufficient evidence regarding the conditions under which coordination for integrated achievement of different water- and land-based Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) functions effectively. The paper investigates the land and water governance in the Ethiopian lower Awash River basin and identifies key interdependencies among related SDGs. It assesses in how far the interactions and coordination among various decision-making centres are effective in managing the interdependencies among different goals. Systems for using and managing water and land exhibit features of polycentric governance as this process involves decision-making centres across different sectors and at various levels. Key action situations for land and water governance in operational, collective and constitutional choice levels are interlinked/networked. Each action situation constitutes actions that deliver one of the functions of polycentric governance, such as production, provision, monitoring etc. as an outcome, which affects the choices of actors in an adjacent action situation. The study shows that the existing institutions and governance mechanisms for water and land in Ethiopia are not effective in managing the interdependencies. Non-recognition of traditional communal rights of pastoralists over land and water and ineffective policy instruments for ensuring environmental and social safeguards are leading to major trade-offs among goals of local food security and economic growth. The autocratic regime of Ethiopia has coordination mechanisms in place, which fulfil the role of dissemination of policies and raising awareness. However, they are not designed to build consensus and political will for designing and implementing national plans, by including the interests and aspirations of the local communities and local governments. The study recommends efforts to achieve SDGs in the Ethiopian Awash River basin to focus on strengthening the capacities of relevant actors, especially the district and river basin authorities in delivering the key governance functions such as water infrastructure maintenance, efficient use of water, and effective implementation of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Further, urgent efforts for scaling up of recognition, certification and protection of communal land rights of pastoralists and clear definition of rules for awarding compensation upon expropriation, are required.
Topic:
Water, Food, Governance, Sustainable Development Goals, and Land
Political Geography:
Africa and Ethiopia

6. The Growing Complexity of Farmer-Herder Conflict in West and Central Africa

Author:
Leif Brottem
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Africa Center for Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The rise of farmer-herder violence in Africa is more pernicious than fatality figures alone since it is often amplified by the emotionally potent issues of ethnicity, religion, culture, and land.
Topic:
Agriculture, Religion, Culture, Ethnicity, Conflict, Land, and Farming
Political Geography:
Africa

7. Debating land in Africa: an analysis of the impacts of colonialism and neoliberalism in Guinea-Bissau's agrarian transition

Author:
Rubilson Velho Delcano
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
This study examines que agrarian question in the African continent in general – relating it to Guinea-Bissau’s specific experience since the neoliberal period. The main objective is to provide the underlying historical panorama of land debate in the continent by using authors from several African regions and confronting them with Cabral’s perspectives (Cabral 1966) on how agriculture and industry should mutually stimulate each other, in a balanced and harmonized way, while considering the question of gender/ labour, in order to promote African farmers. In its first part, the article shortly investigates, without losing density, the academic debate among social scientists on agrarian transition in Africa. Special attention will be given to the farmers-land relation in colonial, post-independence and neoliberal times. In the second part of the study, we shall thoroughly approach current contradictions emerging from the African agrarian issue (gender and labour, food security and monoculture), articulating them with a closer look into Guinea-Bissau (our main object).
Topic:
Agriculture, Neoimperialism, Neoliberalism, Colonialism, Economic Development, Land, and Independence
Political Geography:
Africa and Guinea-Bissau

8. The Land Question in South Africa

Author:
Mark Chingono
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Considering the land challenge question and its many dimensions in South Africa, it is important to adopt a holistic approach that locates the land question within the broader framework of sustainable development.
Topic:
Development, Land, and Sustainability
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

9. Strengthening Traditional Approaches to Community-Level Land Disputes

Author:
Noel Kansiime and Geoffrey Harris
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Since the discovery of oil in Bunyoro sub-region, land-related conflicts have grown rapidly. Traditional conflict resolution capacities, which were already in a state of disrepair, have been side-lined and the court system has been overwhelmed. Given this context, the objective of this research was to enhance the capacity of local peacebuilders to help resolve land conflicts in their communities. The research was based on an action research approach which involved three phases – exploring the issue, planning and implementing an intervention and evaluating the short-term outcomes. In the exploration phase, data was collected using focus group discussions with community members and in-depth interviews with key informants. In the intervention phase, an action team was formed to help resolve land- related conflicts in their communities, using traditional conflict resolution approaches. The short-term outcomes show that local peacebuilding capacities were enhanced and that many land-related conflicts were resolved using traditional conflict resolution approaches.
Topic:
Oil, Natural Resources, Conflict, Land, and Community
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

10. The LFDD – Human Mobility Nexus in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean: A Review of National Policy and Legal Frameworks

Author:
Diogo Andreola Serraglio
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
Abstract:
Addressing human mobility in the context of land and forest degradation and desertification (LFDD) in global and national policy and legal frameworks remains essential for improved management of population movements related to slow onset processes.
Topic:
Environment, Population, Mobility, Land, and Forest
Political Geography:
Africa, Latin America, and Caribbean