African land tenure

Abstract

Foreign advisors and donor agencies often recommend change in land tenure as an important component of African rural development. These recommendations are founded on experience in developed nations as interpreted both by capitalist and by socialist paradigms. The considerable African experience with land reform displays fundamental divergence from these paradigms, resulting both from the unique institutional composition existing in Africa and from the present relationship of Africa to the rest of the world. Tenure systems have shown greater flexibility than is generally acknowledged, suggesting that efforts to strengthen agricultural performance should not focus on these systems as a constraint to development.