A lack of clear-cut and secure land
rights means people from post-conflict African countries are prevented from
getting the most out of the land they rely upon for their survival.
An African
peacekeeper from Rwanda stands guard near people gathered
by the Oubangui River
in Bangui at the border of Central Africa Republic
and Democratic
Republic of Congo.
|
Experts at the World Bank conference
on Land and Poverty said on Wednesday that overlapping formal and informal laws
and differing views about the value of land hamper their efforts at improving
the situation.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC), for instance, less than 5 percent of the land is registered because the
land registration system is so intricate.
“We have to change the way people
perceive the land if we are going to develop our economies in Africa,” said
Francesca Marzatico, a European Union land governance expert in South Sudan.
“It is difficult to have land reform if you understand the perception of land
as a social, rather than economic good.”
The Minister of Land of the DRC,
Robert Mbwinga Bila, said that post-conflict countries such his own have had to
deal on the one hand with people from villages whose relationship with the land
is guided by long-established communal laws and on the other hand with
government and development officials who want to install more modern land
tenure systems.
The government of the DRC recently
introduced a land reform process to secure investment and improve land across
the country, but Mbwinga Bila said this has run into resistance from people who
could not understand why they need to secure title for communal land. He also
said his government was determined to implement the new land registration
policy.
“We can’t do things differently
because there is resistance from local communities,” he said. “The reforms that
we are rightly undertaking will ensure that the interests of everyone are
protected in the same way. There are no separate laws for the towns and for the
villages. The law is for everyone,” he said in an interview.
Speakers at the session on land tenure
in post-conflict situations agreed on the need for such societies to have a
recognisable system of land tenure laws. But there is not always agreement on
land policies between donor countries and governments. If the donors push too
hard, it can be difficult to persuade governments to take ownership, they said.
Ferrari Florence, an official at the
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, said donors and governments
should collaborate to design programmes that benefit everyone, especially
women.
“Development agencies provide legal
and technical support in the drafting of laws to ensure they respect the rule
of law and other human rights norms and are in accordance with international
standards,” she said.
However, imposing a one-size-fits-all
system, especially in societies that are yet to stabilise, can also have its
dangers.
In newly created South Sudan, for
instance, a fresh outbreak of violence last year between followers of President
Salva Kiir and those of his then-deputy Riek Machar has created additional
problems for people working on a land registry for the country.
“Land is a factor for peace and
development,” said Marzatico. “Land is also a trigger for conflicts. So if we
don’t build structures now despite the crisis, we will move back to square one
when this ongoing violence is resolved.”
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