Competition for land and natural resources is increasing in many parts of West Africa, as a consequence of various forces - market, environmental, demographic, and technical1. The growing orientation towards market activities has brought increased demand for land from a range of new economic actors, and led to the rising importance of monetary transactions over land2. In general, the increasing value of land and other resources is leading towards the definition of tighter boundaries regarding who can gain access and on what terms, and increasing exclusion of secondary or temporary rights holders3. Such processes have major consequences for management of conflict between competing users and the pursuit of national strategies to combat poverty. Globalisation and the increasing penetration of market forces into many areas of West African rural life have brought greater vulnerability to shifts in macro-economic policy (such as devaluation) and to changes in world market prices (especially for traditional West African crops, such as cotton, coffee and cocoa).

Competition for land is not just a function of population density4. A fuller understanding of institutional development and change concerning land issues requires an in-depth, multidisciplinary research approach, allowing a comparison between countries and sites. The combination of social anthropology and institutional economics is of particular strength in investigating the dynamics of land, society, and economy.

Land and natural resources cannot be considered uniquely as economic assets, since control over access to land forms a central element in broader social relations and local politics5. Pressures on land are also the product of social processes at local, village and household levels, with increasing competition and contest between different family members (women-men, elders-youth, migrants-locals, urban-rural interests), as competition for this limited resource intensifies, and social expectations change.

Our approach will set an understanding of institutional dynamics within the broader analysis of changing social relations.

The links between people and land are deeply embedded in history, and must be investigated with a long time frame in mind6. Governments have often wished to assert their authority over land, its ownership, and mechanisms for its allocation, through a variety of measures and institutions. They have done this in order to assert control over an asset of value, for re-distribution to political clients and to reward loyalty7. Customary systems for managing land have interacted with state intervention to generate a hybrid set of processes through which people must negotiate a path to ensure access to this resource. A distinction between state-modern systems and traditional-customary mechanisms is too simple a picture of local level realities and serves to mask the plurality of norms and institutions whereby access to these resources is achieved in practice. In some places, people face considerable uncertainty regarding the security of different claims, due to the proliferation of norms and institutions. The decentralisation process is bringing about a further level of complexity as it concerns natural resource management, by establishing an additional set of actors at local government level, with powers for allocating access to certain resources.

The research will focus on exploring the overlapping institutions, strategies and means by which different actors negotiate access to land.

The status and management of renewable natural resources have been the subject of considerable debate from the 1960s onwards, following the thesis of the Tragedy of the Commons, which argued the need for such resources to be put under private ownership8. The new institutionalist approach to understanding management of these resources promoted the view that attribution of firm management rights to a clearly defined community group would obviate the need for such privatisation9. But, further work has questioned such an easy interpretation by stressing the need to unpack what is meant by the 'community' and examine the differential powers and capacities for negotiation held by different user groups within such a 'community'10. This evolution in thinking has demonstrated the need for a more differentiated view of actors, strategies and collective behaviour.

Our research will pay particular attention to the institutional dynamics of collective resource management organisations, and their social and ecological implications. It will also investigate ways of building more inclusive institutions that recognise the needs of multiple and over-lapping forms of resource use.

In the last two decades almost all countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been undertaking land reform in one guise or another, and West African states have been no exception to this. Land policy has seen a shift away11 from an approach based on the need to title land to a far more diverse range of interventions which recognise the potential role of local structures in managing access and disputes regarding land. This pragmatic approach to land now recognises the legitimacy of local rights over land, but does not build sufficiently on emerging institutions and practices12. Local actors are themselves also seeking a range of forms by which to guarantee firmer rights (e.g. written document, procès verbaux13).

Our research aims to build on this pragmatic pathway being followed by policy making in West Africa, to examine policy processes impacts in the land tenure field and their impacts on the ground. It will analyse and demonstrate the range of options for strengthening the hybrid institutional forms currently evolving in different socio-political and economic settings.

New approaches to policy emphasize the role of government in providing a broad framework within which considerable tailoring of institutions and norms can take place, to suit local circumstances. This recognises that there is frequently a large gap between what governments may wish to achieve and what happens on the ground, due to the limited powers of the state to intervene directly, the sometimes counter-productive nature of government intervention, and the slippage between national policy directives and their interpretation or manipulation at micro-level. Arguments for greater subsidiarity in decision-making over land also stress the importance of greater participation by local actors in designing systems that best suit the local setting. Experiments with participatory policy processes have focused not only on the design of locally appropriate institutional forms for land management, but also have provided an opportunity for debate at micro-level to feedback more systematically to national level, through a range of consultation processes). In all cases, there is the growing recognition by government that civil society in its diverse forms has a valuable role to play in debating policy options.

Our research programme will contribute to existing forum for debate on land issues, in each of the four countries, to identify more effective means of linking research with national and local policy debates.

References

1. Bassett, T, D, Crummey (eds), 1993, Land in African Agrarian Systems, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison

2. Mathieu, P, 1999, "Les paysans, la terre, l'Etat et le marché: sécurisation et formalisation endogène des transations foncières en Afrique" in P Lavigne Delville and P Mathieu (coord) Formalisation des contrats et des transactions: repérage des pratiques populaires d'usage de l'écrit dans les transactions foncières en Afrique rurale Working Document GRET/IED, Paris/Louvain

3. Feder, G, and Feeny, D, 1993, The Theory of Land Tenure and Property Rights, in K Hoff, A Braverman, and J Stiglitz (eds), The Economics of Rural Organization Theory, Practice, and Policy, Oxford University Press, New York

4. Chauveau, JP, 1997, Jeu foncier, institutions d'accès à la terre et usage de la ressource. Une étude de cas dans le Centre-Ouest ivoirien, in Le modèle ivoirien en questions Crises, ajustements, recompositions, B Contamin and H Memel-Fotê (eds), Paris, Karthala-ORSTOM : 352-360

5. Shipton, P and M Goheen 1992 "Understanding African Land-holding: Power, Wealth and Meaning" Africa 62 (3): 307-325

6. Breusers, M, 1999, On the Move: Mobility, Land Use and Livelihood Practices on the Central Plateau in Burkina Faso, Münster, Hamburg, London, LIT-APAD, 423 p

7. Berry, S, 1993, No Condition is permanent The social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison

8. Hardin, G, 1968, "The Tragedy of the Commons", Science 162: 1243-1248

9. Ostrom, E, 1998, Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; Mathieu P et Freudenberger M, 1998, " La gestion des ressources de propriété communautaire ", in Lavigne Delville Ph dir Quelles politiques foncières en Afrique rurale, Ministère de la Coopération/Karthala, Paris; Schlager, E, and Ostrom, E, 1992, Property-rights regimes and natural resources: a conceptual analysis, Land Economics, 68 (3): 249-262

10. Traoré, S, 1996, "Straying Fields: Difficulties in enforcing the customary principle of shared pastoral land management in the Ferlo (Senegal)" Paper presented at seminar in Gorée Senegal, November 8-22, Université de St Louis; Bruce, J, Migot-Adholla S, and Atherton J, 1994, The Findings and their Policy Implications: Institutional Adaptation or Replacement?, in J Bruce, S Migot-Adholla (eds), Searching For Land Tenure Security In Africa Dubuque: Kendall:Hunt Publishing Company : 251-265; Leach, M, Mearns, R and Scoones, I, 1997, "Environmental entitlements: a framework for understanding the institutional dynamics of environmental change" IDS Discussion paper, 359 Institute of Development Studies, Sussex

11. Chauveau, JP, Bosc, P-M, and Pescay M, 1998, Le plan foncier rural en Côte-d'Ivoire, in Lavigne Delville, P (dir), 1998, Quelles politiques foncières pour l'Afrique rurale ? Réconcilier pratiques, légitimité et légalité, Paris, Karthala-Coopération française : 553-582; Lund C, 1998, Law power, and Politics in Niger: Land Struggles and the Rural Code, APAD, LIT, Hamburg; Hilhorst, T and Coulibaly, 1998, A Elaborating a convention for managing village woodlands in southern Mali, Drylands Issue Paper, IIED, London

12. Koné, M, Basserie, V and Chauveau, JP, 1999 " 'Petits reçus' et 'conventions': les procédures locales de formalisation des droits fonciers et les attentes de 'papiers', étude de cas dans le centre-ouest ivoirien" In P Lavigne Delville and P Mathieu (eds) Formalisation des contrats et des transactions: repérage des pratiques populaires d'usage de l'écrit dans les transactions foncières en Afrique rurale Document de travail Gret/IED, Paris/Louvain

13. Bromley, D, 1989, Economic Interests and Institutions The Conceptual Foundations of Public Policy Oxford: Basil Blackwell

14. Keeley J and Scoones, I, 2000, "Knowledge, Power and Politics: The environmental policy making process in Ethiopia" Journal of Modern African Studies.