Working Package 3 - Policy and process: impacts on land management

  Objectives
To examine policies and interventions relating to land rights and tenure, processes of formulation and implementation, the objectives and strategies of different interest groups, and the impact of different land related policy measures on local practice in four West African countries. A major sub-objective is to understand how state interventions combine with the local politics of land management to produce hybrid arrangements, which may serve to clarify claims, or generate contradictions.

Description of work

In recent years, all four countries chosen for this research programme have been engaged in a series of policy measures and interventions aimed at improving the management of land and natural resources. In each of the four countries, research will be undertaken at local and national levels to examine major changes in policy, legislation and interventions as they relate to land management, administration and access rights. Taking one particular policy measure in each country, this WP will investigate the history and processes involved in their design, negotiation and implementation. This will examine questions such as: why were these measures introduced, what was the problem they were explicitly aimed at addressing, which actors and organisations were principally involved in the formulation process, what were their strategies, interests and objectives, how were different stakeholder groups brought into discussion of the policy measure and its implementation? The WP will explore how the 'policy process' actually works, and the extent to which a linear process of consultation, design, and implementation represents reality. It will also examine the impacts at local level of such policy changes, in the field sites being researched under WP1 and 2. Detailed investigations will be done to analyse the way these policies and interventions have been implemented, their interpretation by different groups, and subsequent strategies pursued by different actors to ensure they benefit from the changes being introduced.