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In 1986, LTC prepared a set of country profiles of land tenure for sub-Saharan Africa. The profiles proved useful to AID officials, giving them easy access to a tight summary for each country organized according to AID's policy and programming concerns. A standard format allowed easy comparisons between countries. The 1986 profiles enabled LTC to speak with some authority about the position of the continent as a whole. The profiles were accompanied by a brief synthesis which identified trends in the development of tenure systems on the continent.
There have been considerable changes in many countries since 1986, and concern has shifted to include issues of natural resource management and democratization. In 1996, after an intervening ten years' research, LTC began preparation of an updated version of these profiles. A total of 40 country profiles were prepared. Each profile was written to stand alone, and relates the current tenure position of the country to current thinking on land policy and resource management. Three regional syntheses were also prepared (East Africa, West Africa, and Southern Africa). The syntheses are valuative, identifying country tenure situations in the region that are seriously problematic or promising. In each case, regional initiatives on resource tenure to date have been noted, and a strategy for regional interaction on these issues is outlined.
The publication Country Profiles of Land Tenure: Africa, 1996 was published as Research Paper 130 in December 1998. It is available for purchase from the LTC Publications Office and in a full text downloadable version in pdf format.
Beginning in July 1992, USAID/Guinea funded LTC field research through the Fuuta Jalon Natural Resource Management (NRM) project to inform project management on how tenure issues affect project implementation. From 1992 to June 1994, LTC completed case studies on tenure regimes found in project watersheds, conducted a field study of the Nialama Classified Forest, recommended ways to establish a comanagement system between the forestry service and local communities, reviewed environmental laws and their relation to the new land code, and conducted a returns-to-investment study that looked at constraints and opportunities for the adoption of sustainable agriculture/forestry technologies. Additionally, as part of the education and outreach component of the LTC effort, three Guinean policymakers and two LTC project staff members attended the LTC/ISE (Institut des Sciences de l'Environnement) short course on tenure in February 1994, an interministerial team toured Mali and Senegal in May 1994 to investigate the history of land reforms in these two countries, and a five-person interministerial team participated in the Club du Sahel/CILSS Regional Conference on Tenure and Decentralization.
After July 1994, USAID/Guinea provided funds to LTC to conduct studies and workshops within Guinea's four natural regions. The effort was designed to facilitate a process whereby Guinean policymakers and USAID/Guinea explore in greater depth key local tenure issues associated with implementation of the new Land Code. The project conducted case studies in Upper Guinea (July), Middle Guinea (November), Coastal Region (May), and the Forest Region (October), and each study was followed by a week-long regional seminar.
Land Tenure Center staff involved in this project included Julie Fischer (in-country project manager), Kent Elbow, Mark Freudenberger, Jim Gage, and
Kevin Bohrer.
A two-year research program was begun in Mali in November 1989,
under the auspices of the USAID Village Reforestation Project. In
Mali, as elsewhere in the Sahel, the government exercises
considerable control over the use and management of forest
resources by requiring villagers and farmers to secure use
permits from forest agents. The research is examining how various
aspects of the regulatory process affect farmer incentives to
plant trees or to protect and cultivate naturally sown species on
their farms. The research also examines state and community
relations in managing natural forests.
A series of consultancies began in 1989 to evaluate new forestry legislation pending in Senegal in conjunction with the USAID Senegal Reforestation Project. The proposed Forest Code included several positive elements that merited its passage into law, especially the recognition of farmers' ownership rights to trees they plant on farms, and provisions allowing local communities to form forest management associations. However, the new legislation also sanctions potentially undesirable state regulation of certain types of tree use on farms. Policy guidelines were proposed for drafting regulations needed to bring the new forestry legislation into effect.
The USAID/Senegal-funded project "Resource Management and
Planning Study" was completed in March 1992. Seven case studies
of tenure relations in various microecological zones around the
country were completed on schedule. A national conference was
held to present research findings at the Université de
Saint-Louis. The research findings helped significantly to shape
the design of the USAID Community Based Resource Management
Project.
LTC examined the traditional land tenure system as a source of
potential constraints to farmer output. The research demonstrated
the essential flexibility of that system in the face of changing
farmer needs for access to land at different points in their
family life cycle. Tenure was at times a constraint on
productivity, but never the binding constraint. Tenure reform
would have little impact on agricultural output without
improvement in labor productivity.
LTC undertook a multiyear program of research on a variety of tenure issues with funds from USAID/Uganda and the World Bank. An earlier LTC project with the Makerere Institute for Social Research (MISR) in 1988-89 analyzed the 1975 Land Reform Decree and its implications for security of tenure of farmland. It also analyzed tenure factors in natural resources management including impacts of tenure on encroachment in forest reserves and national parks, and upon management of communal grazing areas. Under this project, LTC extended its research with MISR to working on issues of land compensation, land taxation, gender and inheritance patterns, management of buffer zones near national parks and forest reserves, wetlands management, community forestry, and pastoralist land management in dryland areas.
This is a project of applied research and policy development. Studies funded by AID and carried out in collaboration by LTC and MISR feed into policy processes in the interministerial Agricultural Policy Committee, specifically its Sub-Committee on Land Use Policy and Land Reform. World Bank funding provided for rehabilitation and re-equipping of MISR's physical facilities, and for degree training of MISR staff
he project, which began in 1990 as a five-year effort, was extended through June 1996. The initial World Bank portion of the project concluded, and remaining training funds were transferred to UW for the completion of training of the one remaining Ugandan student enrolled.
The project documented existing land tenure patterns and the operation of land markets in Uganda, establishing the need for repeal of the 1975 Land Reform Decree and restoration of private ownership in land, initially in those areas which were privately owned before 1975. LTC/MISR researchers carried out an intensive study of land markets in central Uganda. It offered recommendations for the conversion back from state ownership to private property, and the findings carry a clear message that land markets are developing on the ground, where events threaten to outpace policy and legal reform and cause vast confusion in the long term. In 1995, the new Constitution of Uganda re-established the role of private property. The formal repeal of the 1975 Decree occurred with the enactment of new land legislation, a draft of which was prepared as part of earlier project activities.
The project included a baseline study which anticipated the rehabilitation of the Uganda Land Registry and included the design of a program of monitoring and evaluation for that effort.. After completion of LTC's involvement, USAID/Uganda funded the monitoring and evaluation project as a bridge between earlier and anticipated World Bank funding.
LTC also provided further assistance in reorganization of MISR's unique library collection and in other training exercises.
Under the ACCESS project funded by USAID/Uganda, LTC and Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) carried out research in support of the efforts of the National Environmental Management Agency and AID's Action Program for the Environment. Studies focused on three areas: pastoralist land use, particularly, enclosure processes taking place; land tenure and land use planning in buffer zones around Uganda's national parks and reserves; and the resolution of conflicts over land and other natural resources, including administrative dispute resolution by the local National Resistance Councils.
A Research Papers series was published as part of the project "Access to Land and Other Natural Resources in Uganda: Research and Policy Development." These papers were published jointly by LTC and MISR, and are available from the Land Tenure Center.
USAID/Uganda funding also included1) extension of the work on buffer zones to one additional forest and one additional game reserve, carried out by Marquardt and Makerere colleagues, and 2) initiation of a program of research on indigenous management of common property which focuses on (a) ungazetted forests, carried out by Bruce, Canaan Abwoli-Banana of Makerere's Forestry Department, and John Okidi, a MISR staff trainee who conducted his dissertation research in resource economics at UW-Madison; (b) wetlands, carried out by Christopher Kizito of Makerere's Zoology Department; and (c) pastoral areas, carried out by Sam Kayabwe of MISR. Further educational activities under the project included training of Makerere staff in participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques for tenure and natural resources research, developed by LTC and the Community Forestry Program at FAO.
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