Working Package 1 - Dynamics of institutions regulating access to land

  Objectives
To examine and document the changing patterns of rights over farmland in areas of rising competition for land, the evolution and emergence of institutions by which people gain access to land, the extent to which land markets are developing, the socio-economic factors affecting such processes, and their implications, in four West African countries.

Description of work

 This WP will examine, and document from a range of different sites in 4 West African countries how the various institutions whereby people lay claim to farmland operate, their evolution in terms of the relative importance of different forms (e.g. land sales vs. renting, sharecropping vs. loans); changes in the norms and conditions within such contracts (e.g. shift from payment in kind to cash); the negotiation process; conflicts and misunderstandings; and implications for different social groups, both within the family (e.g. women, younger men) and between primary and secondary rights holders (indigenous vs. migrant farmers, farmers vs. visiting herders). The research will also analyse principal factors which help explain the diverse and dynamic nature of institutional forms, as a result of specific site related factors, and broader social, political and economic forces.

The research will pay particular attention to:

  • the large range of derived rights through which certain groups gain access to land (rental, loans, sharecropping,…) and
  • the emergence of land markets and sales.

The WP will examine the various forms of insecurity related to derived rights and land sales, and the strategies that different actors can pursue to make their claims more secure. Use of witnesses, recourse to local systems of authority (whether customary or elected), or preparation of paper contracts may all form part of such strategies.

This research is expected to generate a better understanding of how local institutions operate and evolve their interaction with formal structures, and the dynamic interaction between regulation of land access and social, political and economic change.