WIP'2% WORLD BANK TECHNICAL PAPER NUMBERR 23< ec ey-r 6 q 'q3 AFRICA TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT SERIES Land Rights in C6te d'Ivoire Survey and Prospects for Project Intervention John R. Heath RECENT WORLD BANK TECHNICAL PAPERS No. 168 Barlow, McNelis, and Derrick, Solar Puxmping: An Introduiction and Update otn the Technology, Performance, Costs and Economnics No. 169 Westoff, Age at Marriage. 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(List continues on the inside back cover) WORLD BANK TECHNICAL PAPER NUMBER 238 AFRICA TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT SERIES Land Rights in Cote d'Ivoire Survey and Prospects for Project Intervention John R. Heath The World Bank Washington, D.C. Copyright 0 1993 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/THE WORLD BANK 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A. All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First printing December 1993 Technical Papers are published to communicate the results of the Bank's work to the development community with the least possible delay. The typescript of this paper therefore has not been prepared in accordance with the procedures appropriate to formal printed texts, and the World Bank accepts no responsibility for errors. 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Requests for permission to reproduce portions of it should be sent to the Office of the Publisher at the address shown in the copyright notice above. The World Bank encourages dissemination of its work and will normally give permission promptly and, when the reproduction is for noncommercial purposes, without asking a fee. Permission to copy portions for classroom use is granted through the Copyright Clearance Center, 27 Congress Street, Salem, Massachusetts 01970, U.S.A. The complete backlist of publications from the World Bank is shown in the annual Index of Publications, which contains an alphabetical title list (with full ordering information) and indexes of subjects, authors, and countries and regions. The latest edition is available free of charge from the Distribution Unit, Office of the Publisher, The World Bank, 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A., or from Publications, The World Bank, 66, avenue d'Iena, 75116 Paris, France. ISSN: 0253-7494 John R. Heath is sector economist in the Agriculture Operations Division of the Latin America and the Caribbean Country Department Im. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heath, John Richard. Land rights in Cote d'Ivoire : survey and prospects for project intervention / John R. Heath. p. cm. - (World Bank technical paper, ISSN 0253-7494 ; no. 238. Africa Technical Department series) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8213-2708-9 1. Land tenure-C6te d'Ivoire. 2. Land use-Government policy- Cdte d'Ivoire. 3. Right of property-Cote d'Ivoire. I. Title. II. Series: World Bank technical paper ; no. 238. m. Series: World Bank technical paper. Africa Technical Department series. HD1015.Z63H43 1993 333.3'09666-dc20 9341302 CIP AFRICA TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT SERIES Technical Paper Series No. 122 Dessing, Supportfor Microenterprises: Lessonsfor Sub-Saharan Africa No. 130 Kiss, editor, Living with Wildlife: Wildlife Resource Management with Local Participation in Africa No. 132 Murphy, Casley, and Curry, Farmers' Estimations as a Source of Production Data: Methodological Guidelinesfor Cereals in Africa No. 135 Walshe, Grindle, Nell, and Bachrnann, Dairy Development in Sub-S aharan Africa: A Study of Issues and Options No. 141 Riverson, Gaviria, and Thriscutt, Rural Roads in Sub-Saharan Africa: Lessonsfrom World Bank Experience No. 142 Kiss and Meerman, Integrated Pest Management and African Agriculture No. 143 Grut, Gray, and Egli, Forest Pricing and Concession Policies: Managing the High Forests of West and Central Africa No. 157 Critchley, Reij, and Seznec, Water Harvestingfor Plant Production, wl. 11: Case Studies and Conclusionsfor Sub-Saharan Africa No. 161 Riverson and Carapetis, Intermediate Means of Transport in Sub-Saharan Africa: Its Potentialfor Improving Rural Travel and Transport No. 165 Kellaghan and Greaney, Using Examinations to Improve Education: A Study in Fourteen African Countries No. 179 Speirs and Olsen, Indigenous Integrated Farming Systems in the Sahel No. 181 Mining Unit, Industry and Energy Division, Strategyfor African Mining No. 188 Silverman, Public Sector Decentralization: Economic Policy and Sector Investment Programs No. 194 Saint, Universities in Africa: Stabilization and Revitalization No. 196 Mabogunje, Perspective on Urban Land and Urban Management Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa No. 197 Zymelman, editor, Assessing Engineering Education in Sub-Saharan Africa No. 199 Hussi, Murphy, Lindberg, and Brenneman, The Development of Cooperatives and Other Rural Organizations: The Role of the World Bank No. 203 Cleaver, A Strategy to Develop Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa and a Focusfor the World Bank No. 208 Bindlish and Evenson, Evaluation of the Performance of T&V Extension in Kenya No. 209 Keith, Property Tax: A Practical Manualfor Anglophone Africa No. 214 Bonfiglioli, Agro-pastoralism in Chad as a Strategyfor Survival: An Essay on the Relationship between Anthropology and Statistics No. 218 Mohan, editor, Bibliography of Publications: Technical Department, Africa Region-July 1987 to December 1992 No. 225 Dia, A Governance Approach to Civil Service Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa No. 226 Bindlish, Evenson, and Gbetibouo, Evaluation of T&V-Based Extension in Burkina Faso No. 227 Cook, editor, Involuntary Resettlement in Africa: Selected Papersfrom a Conference on Environment and Settlement Issues in Africa No. 232 Creightney, Transport and Economic Performance: A Survey of Developing Countries Discussion Paper Series No. 82 Psacharopoulos, Why Educational Policies Can Fail: An Overview of Selected African Experiences No. 83 Craig, Comparative African Experiences in Implementing Educational Policies No. 84 Kiros, Implementing Educational Policies in Ethiopia No. 85 Eshiwani, Implementing Educational Policies in Kenya No. 86 Galabawa, Implementing Educational Policies in Tanzania No. 87 Thelejani, Implementing Educational Policies in Lesotho No. 88 Magalula, Implementing Educational Policies in Swaziland (List continues on the next page) Discussion Paper Series (continued) No. 89 Odaet, Implementing Educational Polides in Uganda No. 90 Achola, Implementing Educational Policies in Zambia No. 91 Maravanyika, Implementing Educational Policies in Zimbabwe No. 101 Russell, Jacobsen, and Stanley, International Migration and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa, vol. 1: Overview No. 102 Russell, Jacobsen, and Stanley, International Migration and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa, vol. 11: Country Analyses No. 132 Fuller and Habte, editors, Adjusting Educational Policies: Conserving Resources while Raising School Qualify No. 147 Jaeger, The Effects of Economic Policies on African Agriculture: From Past Hartn to Future Hope No. 175 Shanmugaratriam, Vedeld, Massige, and Bovin, Resource Management and Pastoral Institution Building in the West African Sahel No. 181 Lamboray and Elmendorf, Combatting AIDS and Other Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Africa: A Review of the World Bank's Agendafor Action No. 184 Spurling, Pee, Mkamanga, and Nkwanyana, Agricultural Research in Southern Africa: A Framework for Action No. 211 Weijenberg, Dione, Fuchs-Carsch, Kere, and Lefort, Revitalizing Agricultural Research in the Sahel: A Proposed Frameworkfor Action No. 219 Thillairajah, Devlopment of Rural Financial Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................... 1 1. THE LAND RIGHTS TRANSITION . 5 2. A RAPID SURVEY OF LAND RIGHTS IN FIVE AREAS OF COTE D'IVOIRE. 9 The Survey Zones. 9 Methodology .................... 9 Survey Results ............ 11 3. INTERPRETING THE LAND RIGHTS REGIME IN COTE D'IVOIRE . 23 A Sharecropping Paradigm .23 The Transfer Of Land Rights .28 4. THE ROLE OF THE STATE. 31 Colonial Period .................. ,..... 31 Post-Independence Period .................,.................. 31 5. THE PROSPECTS FOR INTERVENTION. 35 Outlook . ................................................... 35 Project Initiatives ............,...... 37 Recommendations ............................................. 38 ANNEX: SETTLEMENT HISTORY OF SURVEY ZONES . 43 NOTES ........................................ 47 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................,,,,,,,........ 49 Tables 1.1 Regional Income Disparities: Export Crop Farmers........... 7 2.1 Demographic Characteristics of Sous-Prefectures where Survey Areas were Located ... .............10 2.2 Impact of Ethnic Origin on Mode of Acquisition of Land Rights.......13 2.3 Breakdown of Indigenous Farmers who have Inherited Land by Person From whom They Inherited .... ............14 2.4 Impact of Ethnic Origin on Land Tenure Security of Household Head .. ...16 2.5 Impact of Length of Occupancy on Land Tenure Security of Household Head . .. 18 2.6 Impact of Closeness to Town and Length of Occupancy on Land Tenure Security of Household Head...................19 2.7 Sclected Characteristics of Sons of Household Heads Aged over Fifteen Years ... 20 v Boxes 1.1 Tho Natur of The Afr Land Rlghts Trntion ..................... 6 2.1 The Qualified Nature of Land Rights Individuaization .................. 14 2.2 Recent Survey Evidence from Ghana .......... ................... 17 3.1 Anthropological Sources ..................................... 24 3.2 The Efficiency Implications of Land Contrcts ....................... 25 3.3 How Significant is the Retum to The Land in CMte d'Ivoire? ..... ......... 29 5.1 Interpreting Carrying Capacity . ................................ 36 Maps Cote d'Ivoire - Physiography (IBRD 25100) .56 COte d'Ivoire - Location of Survey Zones (IBRD 25101) .57 vi FOREWORD This is one of several country case studies that grew out of a body of work on Sub-Saharan Africa that has collectively come to be referred to as the "Population, Agriculture, Environment Nexus." That body of work hypothesized that, in Africa, the intensification of agriculture is not proceeding fast enough to accommodate the rapid growth of population and that one of the consequences of this is a degradation of the rural environment. The land rights regimne is one facet of the "Nexus." How advanced is the breakdown of communal systems of tenure? Does this breakdown lead to an "open access" regime characterized by highly insecure property rights? To what extent is tenure insecurity responsible for the low rate of investment in agriculture and the failure to adopt sustainable land use strategies? What are the implications for the design of land use management strategies? These are the some of the questions posed by the "Nexus" studies that the present case study seeks to address. The study addresses the issue of the role of "external agents' or "managers" or "guides" in the process of the evolution of land rights. It also offe1s an analytic framework as a context for further project and policy-related investigation. The main conclusion of the study is that in an i'nvironment where state intervention has tended to weaken the traditional systems of land rights, the effort must be to emphasize and give support to village-based land managemnent, rather than to individual land titling or to Government land ownership. This village based intervention should in effect protect traditional land owners against various forms of tenure insecurity. The recommnendations are in consonance with the World Bank's emphasis on effective adminstrative decentralization in other related areas such as agricultural services and infrastructure provision. /5k; Kevin Cleaver Director Tecluiical Department Africa Region September 27, 1993 vii l, ABSTRACT How secure are the rights to rural land in Cote d'lvoire and what are the implications of tenure security for land use management? This is the central question posed by this study which draws on the results of a rapid survey of 250 household heads and finding in the rich anthropological literature. The study concludes that traditional village authorities continue to influence how land is allocated among households and that there are few instances of private land rights. In particular, land cannot usually be transferred from one gLaeration to the next without the consent of customary authorities. However, the power of these authorities varies significantly between regions. This is important because it affects the terms on which land is conferred on"outsiders," who are very numerous in Cote d'lvoire. Disputes over transfer and boundary rights were less acute than the "Nexus" study hypothesized. Outsiders have weaker transfer rights than indigenous farmers but, in other respects, enjoy a similar level of land tenure security. This suggests that the existing regime offers a relatively flexible means for resolving intra-conmunity disputes, one with positive effects from both an equity and an efficiency standpoint. but, in certain areas, the state has undermined the traditional regime by seizing land. Policy and project interventions should reinforce the capacity of village conmmunities to manage their resource base, by providing them with legal protection from external incusions and - where there is a real demand for it - by helping villagers to develop a monitorable data base on land rights and land use. ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS John Heath (AF1AA, Occidental and Central African Department, Regional Mission) coordinated the survey research and wrote the report. The survey was sponsored by a Canadian Trust Fund Grant and the fieldwork was carried out by four faculty members from the Institute of Tropical Geography, University of C6te d'lvoire: B. Koli (Soubre); A. Alla Della (Daloa); J. Tape Bidi (Niable); and S. Coulibaly (Korhogo and Komborodougou). Preparation of this draft was greatly facilitated by the detailed comments on earlier versions supplied by: Hans Binswanger, Jean-Paul Chausse, Kevin Cleaver, Luc De Wulf, Salah Darghouth, Christian Fauliau, Gershon Feder, John English, Shem Migot-Adholla, Simon Rietbergen, Abdoulaye Sawadogo, Paul Shaw and Guy Williams. Guidance was also provided by three extemal reviewers: Barbara Lewis (Rutgers University); Larry Stifel (Cornell University); and Michael Roth (Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin). x ACRONYMS SATMACI Societe d'Assistance Technique pour la Modernisation Agricole SODEFOR Societe de Developpement des Plantations Forestieres RCF Registre de la Conservation Fonciere CURRENCY EQUIVALENTS Currency Units - CPA Frans (CFAF) US$1 = CFAF 265 (February 1993) WEIGHTS AND MEASURES Metic System GOVERNMENT FISCAL YEAR January 1 - December 31 xi EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report aims to provide an analytic * What are the main sources of framework to help guide discussions about the conflict over land rights? design of projects and policy refonns bearing on the land rights regime in Cote d'Ivoire. The survey found that in none of the regions Throughout Africa, land rights are evolving have land rights been fully individualized: from a system of appropriation by lineage village and lineage chiefs, rather than household groups to appropriation by individual heads, determine how land rights are allocated. households: under the latter system, land is fully In many cases, land reverts to the lineage on the alienable and may be bought and sold by the death of the land user. "Sales" of land often do household without the need for approval by a not amount to full alienation; the 'seller" may broader collectivity. Various studies have reassert his customary claim to the land at a demonstrated that, in Africa, full later date. There is considerable variation in the individualization of land rights is a slow process; form of the contracts governing access to land; village communities continue to exercise broad these contracts involve varying combinations of discretionary powers in allocating land. gifts, labor service, crop shares and cash payments. It is a plausible hypothesis that the evolution of land rights in Cote d'Ivoire will be critically "Security" of land rights is necessarily a affected by the pace of labor migration. subjective concept and is hard to define in any Migration is driven by major differences in per absolute sense. The survey used proxy variables capita incomes between the forest and the for land tenure security. The results suggest that savanna zones. The effectiveness of the land the differences between regions and between tenure regime in accommodating the influx of indigenous and migrants groups are of a migrants is of critical importance in terms of relatively small order. A seven-variable index sustainable agricultural development andpolitical of land tenure security was constructed with stability. household heads scored from I to 7 (7 denoting "most secure"). Irrespective of region, Survy Results households scored from 3 to 5 on the scale. Peri-urban areas enjoyed slightly less security A rapid survey, based on questionnaire than rural areas. Overall, migrants and interviews with rural household heads, was indigenous farmers scored respectively 4 and 5 conducted in five zones of C6te d'lvoire: two in on the scale. Security does not appear to the savanna region and three in the forest increase in proportion to the length of stay. region. The zones were of roughly similar During their parents' lifetime, the sons of population density but varied significantly in indigenous farmers (who, compared to sons of terms of ethnic composition and settlement mnigrants, tend to have more schooling and urban history. The survey addressed the following experience and less farming experience) tend not questions: to enjoy greater success in gaining access to their father's land than migrants' sons. * To what extent have land rights been individualized? * Are there significant differences Conflicts over land rights can be grouped between regions and between into three categories: (a) disputes over parcel migrant and indigenous groups in boundaries; (b) atmpts by young indigenou terms of the security of land rights? would-be farmers to claim land that their father i have ceded to migrants; (c) attempts by migrant leveling between indigenous groups and sons, following their father's death, to "inherit" migrants; in the west, allocation of land rights is land ceded to their father by an indigenous land less orderly and migrants have become user. The second and third categories may be significantly better off than indigenous farmers, grouped together as instances of conflict over partly through "land grabs." The sharecropping transfer rights. In designing projects it will be paradigm of contract negotiation is more important to assess the relative importance of applicable to the eastem forest (and probably the boundary disputes and transfer disputes. In terms savanna also) than it is to pioneer areas of the of transfer rights, migrants are somewhat worse westem forest. These differences point to off than indigenous farmers but with respect to significant regional variations in the effectiveness other dimensions of land tenure security, there of communal mechanisms for resolving land are no differences between the groups. rights disputes. This has implications for the design of projects that are intended to promote Review of Key Issues the capacity of villages to manage their own resource base. On the basis of the survey results and a review of the (rich) anthropological literature it Third, there is some indication that the is possible to frame a number of hypotheses present generation of young people enjoy less which should be tested through closer land tenure security than their predecessors, investigation. First, the contracts governing suggesting an intensification of conflicts in the rights in land (and, equally important, rights to future. Young sons of indigenous farmers leave appropriate others' labor) take a variety of the village to work in the towns and then have surface forms but, in essence, they conform to difficulty in negotiating access to village land. a sharecropping paradigm: their function is to An inportant factor in this respect is the level of reduce supervision costs, spread risks and reverse migration from towns to countryside compensate for a lack of credit and crop associated with economic recession and insurance facilities. These contracts appear to structural adjustment: there is no clear indication be relatively favorable in terms of their impact about the strength of this trend. A further on equity and efficiency-- the impact on consideration is the flow of migrants from sustainability is harder to evaluate. Evidence savanna to forest areas: the rate of migration from other countries (including those outside may have diminished since 1985 owing to the Africa) suggests that individualization is not a narrowing of regional income disparities sufficient condition for investment in land or for associated with the severe economic recession. the adoption of conservation measures-- it is not Lower migration into the rural forest region may intrinsically more likely to enhance sustainability soften adjustment pressures on the land rights than lineage-based systems of allocating land regime, reducing the scope for conflicts. rights. It is therefore hard to make a case for programs (e.g. land titling) that seek to force the pace of individualization. State and ProJect Interventions Second, the evolution of the land rights In both the colonial and the post- regime varies according to the level of political independence period, the state has generally centralization and the effectiveness of tribute- failed to enhance land tenure security. Its exacting mechanisms. In this respect a broad actions have tended to undermine the capacity of distinction may be drawn between the eastern the lineage-based systems to allocate land rights. forest (which has a longer history of settlement) Land statutes are contradictory- some endorse and the western forest (a "frontier" zone). In and others contest the legitimacy of customary the east, tribute mechanisms have favored rights to land. More important, land has been 2 impounded in gazetted forests and seized for allocating land rights has been undernined in the reservoir construction without reference to the past by the nature of state intervention. The claims of local chiefs. Parastatal and private government is now taking tentative steps to plantations have also been established without resolve this problem by helping to sponsor a reference to the rights of neighboring demand-driven formalization of land rights conmmunities. contracts. Since 1989, innovative attempts have been To enhance the capacity of villages to made to enhance land tenure security by manage their resource base, it is important to codifying the various rights to land. Working legally protect the village land from external closely with village comnmunities, survey and incursions. The village needs secure, well- mapping teams have marked out the boundaries defined boundaries and it needs to be constituted between parcels, lineage groups and villages and as a legal entity with internal fiscal and made a record of current land use. The purpose regulatory powers. This will presuppose of this exercise is to provide communities with boundary mapping--although it is not clear that a data base which they may refer to when mapping of individual parcels will be necessary- making decisions about land allocation and accompanied by legal reforms. The guiding management of village resources (the "terroir" principles should be to discourage any extension approach) of the state domain, to remove any residual government claims to uncultivated land and to Recommendatons ensure that the government is conmmitted to enforcing laws that protect the terroir. From a policy standpoint, a key question is whether the evolution of the land rights regime This emphasis on village-based land needs to be "managed" or "guided" by external management is fully consistent with the thrust of agents (projects) or whether there will be a Bank-financed initiatives that favor spontaneous and (from an equity and efficiency administrative decentralization in other areas viewpoint) satisfactory adjustment without such as agricultural services and infrastructure external intervention. This report does not seek provision. But if it is to work, the terroir to draw lasting conclusions in this respect; it approach will need to be backed up by other aims to provide an analytic framework within initiatives. To ease the strains associated with which further project and policy-oriented the land rights transition in CMte d'Ivoire, it will investigations may be conducted. The report be important to reduce the flow of migrants draws attention to the flexibility and scope for from the savanna to the forest region by conflict limitation that characterizes the adopting a range of programs and policy traditional land rights regime; but recognizes measures intended to alleviate the relative that there are important regional variations that poverty of the savanna. In terms of the broader project design will need to take account of- objective of poverty alleviation, land tenure variations that are captured in the projects may be of lower priority than initiatives anthropological literature. which seek to improve the operation of rural factor mrarkets, extend social and physical The report's main conclusion is that the infrastructure and imnprove agricultural research effectiveness of the customary system for and extension. 3 a 1. THE LAND RIGHTS TRANSITION Various authors have argued that, in Africa, One school of thought-- after Boserup-- there is a land rights continuum at the argues that as population density rises, and as "traditional" end of which individual use rights there is a switch in the relative value of land and are contingent on the consent of a collectivity; labor, technologies will change and there will be societies are moving toward the other a spontaneous move toward individualized land ("modern") end of the continuum at which point rights. This transition will be efficiency- the individual has the right to indefinite and enhancing and will be conducive to higher unrestricted use of the land and is able to agricultural productivity; the terms of the transmit that land to whichever party he or she transition cannot meaningfully be adjusted by chooses.' This process- which may be state intervention. An alternative view-- described as the individualization of land rights-- proposed by Cleaver and Schreiber- argues that, has been linked with rising population density in Africa at least, population growth is so rapid and closeness to markets, factors which tend to that, rather than driving technological change, it increase the value of land, making it more likely is outdistancing technological response capacity, that the current user will wish to have a long- undermining the sustainability of agricultural term stake in it. It is sometimes asserted that development. One part of the answer is to individualization is a prerequisite for investments manage the land rights transition in such a way designed to conserve land or enhance its that people are encouraged to make yield- revenue-generating capacity. On the other hand, enhancing investments. To sum up, the first there is no shortage of evidence to demonstrate school is essentially "non-interventionist," while that, in Africa at least, rising population density the second school favors of intervention (Box and agricultural commercialization are not 1.1). sufficient conditions to bring about individualization.2 Progress toward the The purpose of this study is to consider "modern" end of the land rights continuum tends where CMte d'lvoire stands on the land rights to be very slow, with village communities continuum and to ask whether the present land continuing to exercise broad discretionary rights regime is conducive to equity, efficiency powers in allocating land. Also, throughout the and sustainability. It also considers whether world, there are cases where individualization project interventions are justified to influence the (e.g. via land titling programs) has not resulted terms of changes in land rights. The analysis is in significant increase in investment in land, nor based on the results of a survey of land rights in is the productivity of plots subject to individual five zones of CMte d'Ivoire, together with a rights noticeably higher than for those plots of review of the relevant literature. comparable size and quality where such righ.s do not apply.3 These are important questions to In CMte d'lvoire, pressure on the land rights resolve because they touch on the issue of regime is building not only because the natural whether or not states (and externally-financed rate of increase of the population is very fast projects) can usefully intervene to influence the (probably about 3.2 percent per year); but also nature of the land rights transition-- will such because there has been a large influx of interventions have a beneficial effect from the migrants. CMte d'Ivoire stands out as one of the viewpoint of enhancing equity and efficiency and African countries where migration has played a encouraging sustainable agricultural key role in national development, in general, development? and the agricultural development of the forest Box 1.1 The Nature of the African Land Rights Transition Boserup has written that "Although subject to enormous regional variations, the transition to specific land rights has a common tendency. With general land rights, cultivators typically only have the right to cultivate in a particular region. A lineage head assigns the right to use a specific plot and to do so as long as the plot is actually being cultivated. When the current cultivator departs--usually to leave the plot fallow- the use right to the plot reverts to the lineage. With the development of specific land rights the cultivator can begin to assert certain rights over plots, beginning with the right to resume cultivation of the specific plot after a period of fallow. At a later stage the cultivator asserts-and receives-the right to assign the plot to an heir or to a tenant. Thus, the use right to the plot does not revert to the lineage anymore. With increasing population density, the rights assignable by the individual cultivator become more extensive. Eventually they include the right to refuse stubble grazing and, most important, become completely alienable. Thus, a cultivator can lease and sell plots to individuals from outside the lineage. This transition to secure, specific land rights provides incentives for investing in specific plots. Such investments are required for the intensification of production and the preservation of fertility' (Quoted by Binswanger and Mclntire 1987:87). Cleaver and Schreiber accept the start and the end points of the continuum described by Boserup and they agree that population growth Is the main dynamic. But they question the smoothness of the change to individual rights. They propose that many parts of Africa are stuck in an awkward limbo where fallow periods have contracted to the point where yields are no longer sustainable, there has been no compensating improvement In technology and the social costs associated with soil degradation are not internalized by the land users. This limbo is associated with an 'open access regime' of land rights, implying that political authorities or legal codes do not effectively regulate access to land. Delays in the adjustment of land rights will lead to a failure to conserve or invest in land, rsulting in falling agricultural yields and environmental degradation. It will therefore be necessary to strengthen the various institutions regulating access to, and management of, the land. There is a strong presumption in favor of increasing the power of local people and communities to sustainably manage their land, since the state has proved to be a poor manager of natural resources. Cleaver and Schreiber conclude that 'governments should divest themselves of most land, except parks, to individual or community owners;' also, 'the appropriateness of vesting residual control over all land in the state should be re-examined" (Cleaver and Schreiber 1992:95-96). zone, in particular. According to the most 1990:9). As population density rises and there recent population census (1988), one-quarter of is growing competition for land, conflicts the population is composed of irnmigrants, the between indigenous land holders and newcomers largest migrant group coming from Burkina may increase. The immigration statistics Faso. Traditionally, the Ivoirian government understate the magnitude of the migration issue. has practiced an "open door" immigration Many of the migrants to a given area come from policy, allowing immigrants free access to land other regions of Cote d'lvoire; yet in the eyes of and permitting them to vote in local and national the local indigenous groups these are as much elections. But recently, C6te d'Ivoire has "outsiders" as the non-lvoirians. become one of the twelve nations in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to officially declare that the level Migration is mainly driven by the large of immigration is too high (Russell and others disparities between regions in terms of income 6 Table 1.1: Regional Income Disparities: Export Crop Farmers' Average Household Expenditure Per Capita (1985 CFAF4year) 1985 1988 Change East Forest 181,031 146,344 -19% West Forest 239,000 158,550 -34% Savanna 116,605 87,406 -25% a. Farmers who derived more than 50 percent of farm revenues from the sale of export crops. Note: In Abidjan, average household expenditure per capita was CFAF 376,108 in 1985 falling by 23 percent to CFAF 288,708 in 1988. Source: Grootaert (1993:45). and living standards.4 In the savanna, farmers' terms of the wedge between the actual producer per capita annual expenditures (adjusted to price and the export parity price, cotton farmers account for variations in non-monetary (who account for about 40 percent of savanna expenditures) are roughly half those of farmers households) are more heavily taxed than coffee in the western forest, which is now the primary and cocoa farmers (accounting for about two- rural destination for migrants. Nevertheless, thirds of forest households). In 1988, 40 between 1985 and 1988, there was some percent of households in the savanna received narrowing of this income gap owing to the funds from other regions (primarily urban and collapse in coffee and cocoa prices- a trend that rural areas of the forest zone), compared to 20 has undoubtedly continued since 1988. It is not percent of rural households in the forest. The clear to what extent this has reduced the inflow mean annual value of remnittances received was of migrants from the north (Table 1.1). Recent about CFAF 12,000 in the forest zone and fieldwork by Chauveau (1993) and Ruf (1992) CFAF 24,000 in the savanna.' Comparing the suggests that there has been a reduction in the highest educational attainment of household flow of migrants from the savanna and Sahel heads, in the rural savanna 94 percent reported into the east and west forest regions of Cote having received no schooling, compared to d'Ivoire. In 1985, the savanna accommodated around 70 percent in the rural forest areas. 19 percent of the Ivoirian population but contained 57 percent of persons in the poorest Apart from the southward shift of population decile (Glewwe 1988:38). Income differences into the forest zone, another key dimension of between the two regions are accentuated by the Ivoirian development concerns the relative pattern of implicit taxation on cash crops. In fortunes of the east and the west forest, with the 7 Bandama river serving as the dividing line than to the east of it. While cocoa is grown by between the two zones. The Bandama river two-thirds of rural households on each side of marks a key divide for the whole of the West the Bandama, coffee cultivation is increasingly African coast zone, separating a yam-based concentrated in the pioneer zone (71 percent of culture to the east from a rice-based culture to households cultivate coffee in the west compared the west.' The conversion of forest to tree crop to 40 percent in the east).' Despite the influx of plantations took place earlier in the eastem migrants from the Sahel and the high rate of forest than in the westem forest. The population natural population increase, overall, Cote density of the eastern forest increased rapidly d'Ivoire's population density remains low (22 between 1945 and 1960. After 1960, the rural inhabitants per square kilometer in 1990). frontier of cultivation moved progressively Low density helps to account for the slow westward and the rate of increase of population progress made toward agricultural density was faster to the west of the Bandama intensification. 8 2. A RAPID SURVEY OF LAND RIGHTS IN FIVE AREAS OF COTE D'IVOIRE The Survey Zones only one-third are over forty years old, compared to more than 70 percent in each of the In 1992, the World Bank conducted a survey other areas. Daloa and Soubre both form part of land rights, based on interviews with 250 of the Krou cultural sphere. In each of the three household heads. The demographic forest zones surveyed, migrants account for over characteristics of the five zones studied are 70 percent of the population. In the east forest, summarized in Table 2.1. In selecting these a large proportion of the migrants come from zones, the aim was to capture the major regional outside C6te d'lvoire (primarily Burkina Faso); and ethnic dimensions of the land rights question in the west forest, a significant number of them in C6te d'Ivoire.8 The Korhogo and come from the north and east of Cote d'lvoire. Komborodougou zones, which are respectively periurban and rural, are located in contiguous Methodology sub-prefectures in the savanna Zone Dense. These are cotton-producing zones. Population Since there was no readily available sampling density is similar to that in the forest zone. framebased onthedistributionof thepopulation Roughly three-quarters of households operate by ethnic groups, the households were not farms of four hectares or less. Cattle are mainly scientifically sampled-- the approach employed confined to paddocks. Unlike in other, less was to interview at least thirty households in one densely settled, parts of the savanna, there are or two communities falling within the five no conflicts over land access between farmers zones. There is no indication how representative and transhumant grazers.' The Voltaics the household heads are of the populations being (specifically, the Senoufo) are the dominant studied. In these circumstances, statistical tests ethnic group and in each of these zones, of significant difference between groups would migrants make up under 15 percent of the be spurious; the analysis is therefore limited to population. a simple evaluation of frequency distributions. This is justified on the grounds that the purpose East of the Bandama, the zone of Niable falls of the study was not to draw definite conclusions in the original heartland of C6te d'Ivoire's cocoa but to define a framework of analysis that will producing region; most of the prime cocoa land help to guide future project and policy-oriented has been worked out, the plantations are old and work. yields are low. The main ethnic group are the The survey data were gathered from Akan (Agni). The zones of Soubr6 and Daloa questionnaire interviews with rural household are located west of the Bandama and fall in an heads. One limitation of this approach is that it area of more recent development. The Daloa sheds little light on the intra-household zone is peri-urban, growing food crops for the distribution of land rights. Also, although town as well as coffee and cocoa; Soubre is a household heads were asked questions about the pioneer region, situated at the frontline of land rights status of their sons, this indirect deforestation and coffee plantation in Cote approach can only be expected to yield limited d'Ivoire. In Soubrd, between 1975 and 1988, insight about the possible emergence of inter- the number of rural inhabitants per square generational conflicts over access to land. The kilometer more than doubled (from thirteen survey addressed the following questions: thirty-four). One indication of the extent to which Soubre is a pioneer zone is the mean age * To what extent have land rights been of household heads in the land rights survey: individualized? 9 Table 2.1: Demographic Characteristics of Sous-Prefectures where Survey Areas were Located Komboro- SOUS-PREFECTURE Dougou Korhogo NMabk Soubrf Daloa Region Rural Periurban Rural Rural Periurban Savanna Savanna Forest Forest Forest (East) (West) (West) Primary Indigenous Group' Voltaic Voltaic Akan Krou Krou Rural population 1975 8,596 36,016 11,629 29,248 25,268 1988 11,473 61,230 18,456 78,361 27,308 (% change) (33) (70) (59) (168) (8) Population Density (rural inhabitants/kin) 1975 39 24 14 13 72 1988 52 42 22 34 78 Migrant Presence (1988) Percent of population that is 3 4 66 41 35 non-Ivoirian Percent of population not belonging to primary indigenous group 6 13 72 82 76 Percent of persons resident in 1988 who were born outside this sous-prefecture 5 4 45 56 40 a. According to the 1988 census, there were five prinary groups: Aan, Krou, Northern Mande, Southern Mande and Voltaic; the Baule and Agni both form part of the Akan group; the Bct6, Dida and Bak-we all formn part of the Krou group; the Senoufo and Mossi are classed as VoltAics. Source: COte d'Iioire Population Census, 1975 and 1988. Govermment of Cote d'Ivoire. * Are there significant differences between rights? regions and between migrant and indigenous * What are the main sources of conflict groups in terms of the security of land over land rights? 10 Survey Results This difference between the east and west forest is significant and its implications for the land How Land Rights Are Acquired rights question will be examined at greater length in Chapter 3. The survey demonstrated that, in both savanna and forest regions, land rights continue, The survey measured the relative importance overwhelmingly, to be vested in lineage groups of three broad categories of acquisition: by rather than individual households- that is, there inheritance; by monetary transaction (purchase is no automatic transfer of a given land holding or cash rent); and by all other means (Table between different branches or different 2.2). The category "other means" covers a generations of the same household, the land large range of options: gifts of land (usually in tending to revert to the custody of a local chief. exchange for a bottle of gin or some other token Among the Voltaic peoples of the savanna, the item), labor service and crop shares. Because overriding right to land is attributable to the these options are often combined and because chief (tarfolo), a descendant of the person who each option has a number of variants, it is, in originally claimed possession of the land in the practice, very difficult, in a rapid survey, to name of a particular family group. The tarfolo detect and to assign a weight to the various may simultaneously exercise rights to land in permutations. One of the striking findings is the several villages. On the basis of this pre- extent to which there is an overlap between eminent claim to land the tarfolo cedes user "other means" of acquisition on the one hand rights to each of the lineage segments in each and sale or inheritance on the other (cash rentals village. Ultimate claim to the land remains proved to be of negligible importance in all vested in the lineage as a whole (which embraces regions). all persons descended from a common mother). Land rights are inalienable and cannot be It is important to clarify why the columns in appropriated by individual households or lineage Table 2.2 generally add up to more than 100 sub-groups. Between generations, land is percent. First, farmers may have separate plots transmitted matrilineally, from uncle to nephew. of land-- they may have inherited one and By tradition, outsiders have as much claim to bought another; if this is the case, the farmer usufruct rights over land as the indigenous would be counted twice-- as an owner and as an population. Also, in the event of the death, inheritor. Second, the various forms of departure or "delinquency" of the land user, the acquisition are not mutually exclusive-- farmers piece of land ceded to this person will revert to may have bought a piece of land and yet, at the the chief. same time, they continue to owe gift, crop share or labor obligations to the previous "owner." It Similar arrangements are found in the forest is these overlapping contracts that account for zone. In the Agni kingdom of the eastern the complexity of the land tenure system. forest, the village chief has ultimate right over the land. Land is ceded to families in return for Not surprisingly, indigenous farmers are a gift. Outsiders are expected to pay one-quarter more likely to inherit rights to land than to one-third of their crop as a form of tax on the migrants- the proportions are respectively 78 land as well as participating in funeral percent and 17 percent. More than 80 percent ceremonies pertaining to the chief's family (at of indigenous household heads acquired land by which time, gifts and sometimes sacrifices are in inheritance in each of the areas except Niable; order). In addition, the outsider is expected to here land is primarily acquired by "other supply a few days labor service to the chief each means." This suggests that, in the eastern crop year. In the westem forest, access to land forest, the lineage group still exercises by migrants is based more on sale than on gift. considerable redistributive power. In Niable, 11 redistribution of land through pledging and crop SATMACI, in Daloa, Gagnoa, Issia and Oume sharing seems to apply as strongly to indigenous (cited in Coulibaly and others 1992). The groups as it does to migrants. The higher combined data from these areas indicates that 48 frequency of inheritance (and sales) in the west percent of indigenous farmers inherited rights in forest suggests that here there has been more land; none of the migrants did so. No less than progress toward the individualization of land 98 percent of the migrants interviewed had rights. On the other hand, the anthropological obtained their land through purchase, compared evidence appears to demonstrate that to 22 percent for indigenous farmers. The only individualization is severely constrained even in farmers to hold formal title to the land were all this region (Box 2.1). of indigenous origin, accounting for a mere 5 percent of the household heads in this group. There was scarcely any purchase of land by Most of the registered properties are located indigenous household heads. For migrants, within a fifteen kilometer radius of Daloa town purchase was an important means of acquisition center. The SATMACI and Bank surveys also in the westem forest-roughly 60 percent of agree on one other point: there is no gradient in households in Soubr6 and Daloa had come by the frequency of land sales from rural to land in this way. In Niable, only 23 percent of periurban areas. Land is sold just as frequently migrants had bought land (a smaller proportion in rural areas of lower population density as in than those who inherited). higher-density periurban areas. The line by which land is transmitted may Land Tenure Security influence farm investment decisions. It has been suggested that farmers are more likely to invest "Security" of land rights is necessarily a in (or simply takce good care of) land that will subjective concept and is hard to define in any pass to their son (patrilineal transmission) rather absolute sense. The survey used proxy than land that will be inherited by their nephew variables. A tenure security index was (matrilineal transmission). Table 2.3 indicates constructed, based on seven factors. that indigenous household heads in savanna areas * Existence of some documented claim primarily inherit matrilineally- that is, from to land their mother's brother. There is no indication * Parcel limits marked by fences or that the matrilineal tradition is weaker in the hedges periurban Korhogo than in rural * No restrictions on land use Komborodougou. However, a larger proportion * No boundary conflicts of household heads in Korhogo (40 percent * No attempt by others to expropriate against 7 percent in Komborodougou) said that * No redress for grievances sought they expected, eventually, to hand their land from local authorities over to sons rather than nephews. The Akan of * Part of land ceded to another.10 Niable have a tradition of matrilineal descent, but the survey indicates that in 90 percent of The presence of one or more of these factors cases, indigenous farmers received land from is taken to indicate that some measure of tenure their fathers. Also, the prevailing descent mode security exists- the larger the number of factors among the households surveyed at Daloa and present, the greater the likelihood that the user Soubre is patrilineal. of the land will enjoy security of tenure. Each household head was assigned a score on a scale In the case of the western forest, the results of one to seven; although there may be grounds of the Bank survey receive independent for doing so, no attempt was made to apply confirmation from a study of land rights carried different weights to each of the constituent out by the coffee/cocoa extension agency, variables. 12 Table 2.2: Impaa of Fthnic Origin on Mode of Acquisition of Land Rights Komboro- Komboro- dougou dougou Korhop Korhogo Niable Niable Soubro Soubrf Daloa Daloa Total Total IND MIG IND MIG IAD MIG IND MIG [ATD MIG IAD MIG N= 30 - 30 - 33 31 24 42 30 30 147 103 Percrstage 1. Inherit.ace 87 - 83 - 30 26 96 - 100 30 78 17 2. Purchas 3 - - - - 23 - 57 - 60 1 48 3. Cash rent - - 3 - 7 - 2 - 3 1 4 4. Oder 10 - 80 - 100 97 4 90 - 10 61 55 Nete: ND" refers to nmembers of the ethnic group that is indigenous to the locality; 'MICG denotes those who Lave migrated to the locality from elcwhete. Source: World Bank. 1992. 'Land Rights Survey' (unpublished). Table 2.3: Breakdown of Indigenous Farmers who have Inherited LAnd by Person from whom They Inherited Komborodougou Korhogo Niable Soubrc Daloa Total N of indigenous farmers who inherited 26 25 10 23 30 114 Person from whom inherited (%) 1. Father 19 16 90 100 97 61 2. Uncle 65 80 - - - 33 3. Brother 12 - 10 - - 3 4. Other person 4 4 - - 3 3 Source: World Bank. 1992. 'Land Rights Survey' (unpublished). Box 2.1 The Qualified Nature of Land Rights Individualization Robert Hecht (1981, 1985) conducted fieldwork on land rights in the western forest zone of Divo in the late 1970s. One of the purposes was to show how the transmission of land rights moves from being controlled by lineages to being controlled by households. He attributes this process of 'individualization" "to the commercialization of agriculture and increasing population pressure on the natural resource base, often accelerated by immigration" (1985: 320). But to demonstrate that land rights have been truly individualized it is necessary to show that (a) land buyers are exempt from all further obligations to the seller and (b) that sellers can only repossess the land through repurchase. At the time Hecht carried out his work, neither of these circumstances were true for Divo. The data that Hecht presents make it clear that land sales do not entail alienation. Moreover, the motive for the sale is less to raise cash than to establish a continuing hold over the buyer. Having bought land, migrants in Divo continue to owe a series of obligations to the indigenous seller, involving annual gifts, crop shares or labor service (1985: 331). (This is precisely the situation of "overlapping contracts" that the World Bank survey identified in 1992). Also, Hecht suggests that migrants who purchase land are not necessarily able to transmit it to their sons-- he cites cases where land that has been sold to migrants is successfully contested later by members of the indigenous lineage (1985:332). The site of Hecht's work was resurveyed by Lewis in 1991. In the case of land purchased by migrants, she found that this reverts to the indigenous group if the purchaser has no heir, the lineage group has the right of first refusal if the migrant decides to sell and, after sale, the indigenous farmers continue to exact various forms of tribute from the migrants to whom the land was sold (Lewis, 1991:18). These findings appear to bear out the conclusions of the World Bank survey, suggesting that individualization of land rights is a long way from being realized. 14 The data may be used to answer three Migrants are not more subject to land use questions: (a) Do migrants enjoy less tenure restrictions than indigenous farmers. Limitations security than indigenous farmers?; (b) Is length apply only in the two savanna areas- where, in of occupancy a significant determinant of tenure order to discourage long-term claims to land, security?; (c) Does tenure security vary tree planting is highly restricted. But the significantly between rural and peri-urban areas? restriction applies equally to all ethnic groups. Table 2.4 indicates that indigenous farmers and migrants both enjoy "moderate" tenure For each of the factors measuring the security, scoring respectively 5 and 4 on the presence of conflict over land rights- boundary scale- the land rights of migrants are only disputes, attempted expropriations, recourse to slightly less secure than those of indigenous the authorities- there is every indication that household heads. There was no indication that relative peace prevails. In each case, more than tenure security was higher in the less ethnically- three-quarters of household heads reported "no mixed savanna areas than in the ethnically-mixed conflict," with migrants scoring as highly as forest areas. Population density was in the same indigenous farmers. The one big difference range for the forest and savanna areas surveyed between the groups concerns the right to so in principle the overall competition for land cession: indigenous farmers clearly have much was the same. more freedom to cede part of their land to another party, whether a kinsman or a tenant. It is recognized that the aggregation of these If this evidence about cession rights is combined variables may be arbitrary- each variable needs with the previously cited data on inheritance to be considered on its own merits. Breaking patterns, it seems that migrants have less down tenure security by the seven factors, the opportunity than indigenous farmers for results vary widely according to the area transferring land rights, suggesting that the considered. None of the 250 household heads indigenous groups have more tenure security. had formal title to their land. In Niable, when asked if they had a title, farmers produced a It was hypothesized that long-stay farmers certificate from the extension agency, would have a more secure claim to the land than SATMACI testifying to the size and location of those who had only been in occupation for a their tree crop plantations. Since possession of short period, and that length of stay might this certificate is perceived by the farmer himself outweigh ethnic origin as a determinant of land as reinforcing his hold over the land, it is tenure security. The majority of the household interpreted here as a "documented" claim. In heads interviewed were long-stay, only 30 Soubr6, the docunent in question was a "bill of percent of them had been working their land for sale" witnessed by officials from the local ten years or less. Taking all households offices of the Agricultural Ministry. In both together, the data do not suggest that tenure Niable and Soubre, migrants were more likely security rises proportionate to the length of than indigenous farmers to possess such titles, occupancy (Table 2.5). The pioneer zone of suggesting perhaps that they are seeking to Soubr6 appears to be a special case. Here, a compensate for their lack of a customary right to somewhat larger proportion of farners (42 the land. The migrants were also somewhat percent) are short-stay. While long-stay farmers more likely to place hedges and fences around had very little involvement in boundary disputes their property, although this was a significant or expropriation attempts, the short-stay farmers factor only in Niable; probably because Niable reported higher exposure to these sources of is an area of long-established settlement where insecurity. Both groups, however, had generally agriculture is increasingly sedentarized. failed to seek redress from local authorities. 15 Table 2.4: Impart of Ethnic Origin on Land Tenure Security of Household Head Komboro- Komboro- dougou dougou Korhogo Korhogo Niablt Niablc Soublt Soubk' Daloa Daloa Total Total IMD MIG IND MIG IAD MIG IND MIG IMD MIG IND MIG N= 30 - 30 - 33 31 24 42 30 30 147 103 Percentages 1. Has some documented claim to land - - - - 70 77 4 17 - - 16 30 2. and ouundaries are fcnced orbedged 7 - 10 - 24 39 4 12 - 3 10 18 3. No mstriction on use of land 20 - 40 - 100 97 100 95 100 100 71 97 4. No boundary conflicts 100 - 77 70 87 71 67 73 80 78 77 5. No attempt by others to expropriate 97 - 47 - 100 94 75 81 90 87 82 86 6. No redress sought from authorities 97 - 93 - 100 97 92 98 23 30 81 78 7. Has ceded part of land to another 60 - 77 - 33 7 67 - 37 7 544 Score* (Out of 7) 4 3 -5 5 5 4 3 3 5 4 0 Score: Each of the indicators 1-7 is assigneu a value of I if the percentage is over 50 percent and a value of 0 if the percentage is 50 percent or less; the 'Score' is the sum of these values. Note: 'IND' refers to members of the ethnic group that is indigenous to the locality: 'MIG' denotes those who have migrated to the locality from elsewhere. Source: World Bank. 1992. 'Land Rights Survey' (unpublished). Box 2.2 Recent Survey Evidence from Ghana Ghana is ethnically and agroclimatically contiguous with Cote d'lvoire. Land rights in Ghana are therefore likely to be similar to those in the neighboring country. Place and Hazell (1993) have presented data showing the extent of land rights individualization and the difficulty of establishing a simple correlation between individualization and the factors--high population density and closeness to urban markets--that are commonly thought to cause it. The authors studied 100-150 households in each of three regions, grouping land parcels according to the degree of transfer rights enjoyed by the household (1993:12): Anloga Ejura Wassa Land Supply Scarce Abundant Abundant Crop Horticult. Food Staple Cocoa Location Periurban Rural Rural Persons/Km2 384 20-30 20-30 Transfer Rights (%) -Limited, 52.4 6.0 21.0 -Preferentialb 2.1 29.1 6.6 -Complete' 45.4 64.9 72.4 a. Parcels over which households have no individual transfer rights. b. Parcels which cannot be sold but may be given or bequeathed, usually to members of the same family or lineage. c. Parcels which can be sold. The above that shows although there has been much progress toward individualization of land rights in two areas, the third area--which has a very high population density and is close to the urban market--has made much less progress in this direction. Consistent with expectations, longer-stay Table 2.6 shows that tenure is somewhat less farmers are more likely to have ceded land to secure in peri-urban areas than in rural areas. other parties and to have acquired some written This may be explained by the greater claim to the land. In Niable, long-stay farmers competition for land that is to be found on the scored 5 out of 7 on the tenure security index, urban fringe. Significantly, these peri-urban higher than any other group: this probably conflicts do not diminish with length of reflects the closure of the extensive land frontier occupancy: 10 percent of short-stay farmers had in the eastern forest and the switch to a more suffered boundary conflicts compared with sedentary pattern of agricultural development. almost one-quarter of long-stay farmers; 14 However, security does not amount to percent of short-stayers had been threatened with individualization- transfer rights in Niable expropriation compared to nearly 30 percent of remain very limited. long-stay farmers. In the rural areas, on each of 17 Table 2 5 impart of Length of Occupancy on Land Tenure Security of Household Head Komboro- Komboro- Korhogo Korhogo NiabIM NiabMc Soubre Soubri Daloa Dalwa Total Total dougou dougou SHORT LONG SHORT LONG SHORT LONG SHORT LONG SHORT LONG SHORT LONG N= 12 18 6 22 14 46 28 38 15 45 75 169 (percent of N that are migrants) (-) (-) (-) (-) (29) (57) (86) (47) (60) (47) (49) (38) Percentages 1.Has sorm documented claim to land - - - - 29 85 7 16 - - 8 27 2. Land boundaries are fenced or hedged 8 6 - 14 36 33 14 5 - 2 13 13 3. No restriction on use of land 17 22 33 41 100 98 93 100 100 100 79 83 4. No boundary conflicts 100 100 100 73 86 74 54 79 87 73 77 78 5. No attempt by others to expropriate 92 100 83 36 100 96 68 87 87 89 83 85 6. No redress sought from authorities 92 100 100 91 100 98 96 95 27 27 83 78 7. Has ceded part ot land to another 67 56 50 91 21 20 14 32 7 27 25 37 Score (Out of 7) 4 4 4 3 4 S 4 4 3 3 4 4 e Score: Each of the indicators 1-7 is assigned a value of I if the percentage is over 50 percent and a value of 0 if the percentage is 50 percent or less; the 'Score' is the sum of these values. Note: 'Short' denotes occupancy for ten years or less; 'long' denotes occupancy for over ten years. Source: World Bank. 1992. Land Rights Survey' (unpublished). Table 2.6: Impact of Closeness to Town and Length of Occupancy on Land Tenure Security of Household Head Peri-urban Pen-urban Rural Rural SHORT LONG SHORT LONG N= 21 67 54 102 Percentages 1. Has some documented claim to land - - 11 44 2. Land boundaries are fenced or hedged 3. No restrictions on use of land - 6 19 18 4. No boundary conflicts 81 81 78 85 5. No attempt by others to expropriate 90 73 72 80 6. No redress sought from authorities 86 72 81 93 7. Has ceded part of land to another 48 48 96 97 19 48 28 30 Score* (Out of 7) 3 3 4 4 * Score: Each of the indicators 1-7 is assigned a value of I if the percentage is more than 50 percent and a value of 0 if the percentage is 50 percent or less; the 'score' is the sum of these values. Note: "Pen-urban" refers to household heads from Korhogo and Daloa; 'Rural" refers to household heads from Komborodougou, Niable and Soubrl; 'Short' denotes occupancy for ten years or less; 'Long" denotes occupancy for over ten years. Source: World Bank. 1993. "Land Rights Survey' (unpublished). the seven variables, long-stay farmers show to have attended secondary school or to have more tenure security than short stay obtained urban work experience; migrants are more likely to work alongside their father on the The Position of Sons land. This may be because migrants try to increase their hold over land by clearing as Given that patrilineal transmnission of land much ground as possible, using their sons' labor rights is increasingly important, it was deemed to help them. This clearly raises the sons' valid to study the nature of the association expectations about eventually acceding to some between fathers and sons, considering its of the land that they have helped to develop, implications for the evolution of the tenure expectations that are often frustrated by the rival regime. The survey revealed some differences claims of indigenous sons. But the indigenous in the orientation of migrant and indigenous sons sons are manifestly less equipped to assume the of fifteen years or over (Table 2.7). To begin role of farmers. Almost half of them now live with, migrants' sons are more likely to live with in the town and only 31 percent of them help the household head; the migrants are less likely their father with farmwork. 19 Table 2.77: Selected Characteristics of Sons of Household Heads Aged Over Fifteen Years Komboro- dougou Korhogo Niable Soubre Daloa Total SONS OF INDIGENOUS FARMERS N= 65 89 72 41 98 365 Percentages 1. Live with household head 71 45 35 22 22 39 2. Have secondary education 8 15 61 78 71 45 3. Have urban work experience 8 36 37 63 49 38 4. Live in town now 14 42 46 56 74 48 5. Help household head with farmwork 29 47 29 24 20 31 SONS OF MIGRANT FARMERS N= - - 73 68 44 185 Percentages 1. Live with household head - - 45 44 54 47 2. Have secondary education - - 56 31 11 36 3. Have urban work experience - - 33 13 16 22 4. Live in town now - - 51 35 27 39 5. Help household head with farmwork - - 45 48 54 49 Source: World Bank. 1992. 'Land Rights Survey' (unpublished). The survey results can be used to frame the * Land that is obtained through following propositions. inheritance or sale remains encumbered with a variety of * In terms of transfer rights, other obligations (involving migrants are worse off than exchange of gifts, labor service indigenous farmers-- for and crop shares). Land remnains example, they are less likely to less than fully alienable and land inherit land. rights have not yet been * With respect to other individualized. dirnensions of land tenure * Patrilinearity is becoming more security (boundary conflicts, prevalent; this trend is stronger threats of expropriation, etc) in the forest than the savanna. there are no differences between * In areas of comparable migrant and indigenous farmers. population density, tenure 20 I security is no higher in ethnically homogeneous security, there are relatively few differences (savanna) areas than ethnically diverse (forest) between indigenous and migrant groups areas. regarding the strength of their claim to land. * Length of occupancy does not Although, in absolute terms, the tenure security greatly enhance security of of all may be limited, migrants are not tenure. significantly worse off than indigenous groups. * Land tenure is less secure in This is a significant finding, particularly because peri-urban than in rural areas, assimilation through intermarriage rem-ains even for long-stay occupants. relatively rare. In many parts of the world, * The sons of indigenous farmers migrants have a very precarious tenure and who leave the village to pursue limited control over resources. In C6te d'Ivoire- education or jobs in the towns - as in several other African countries- the are likely to have difficulty in framework of custornary land rights has proved negotiating access to village sufficiently flexible to accommodate a large land. Although, by customary number of "strangers." This is not to say that law, they have a stronger claim there are no conflicts over access to land; rather, to land than the sons of under customary law, there are effective migrants, in practice, they may mechanisms for conflict resolution. have difficulty in realizing this claim. The remaining chapters seek to explore the terms of negotiation over land rights, Although the results of this survey- or any hypothesizing about the dynamics of this other survey for that matter- make it impossible bargaining process and considering whether the to define the absolute level of tenure security or actions of the state tend to reinforce or insecurity, they show that, in terms of certain undermine the traditional mechanisms for variables which serve as good proxy measures of conflict resolution. 21 3. INTERPRETING THE LAND RIGHTS REGIME IN COTE D'IVOIRE In Cote d'Ivoire, the rural households be fairly optimal from an efficiency and equity involved in land rights disputes are fairly evenly point of view. balanced in terms of resource power. There is little scope for one set of households (e.g. Sharecropping is well adapted to situations indigenous farmers) to unilaterally impose where credit and crop insurance is limited (Box conditions on another set of households (e.g. 3.2). There are two other factors that are. migrants). This is partly because, unlike in conducive for sharecropping to flourish. First, other parts of the world, there are no distinct there must be a flourishing external market for classes of landowners and landless. The parties a cash crop, with market access controlled or to contracts are involved in permanent closely supervised by the landowner. renegotiation." Each party's leverage over the Sharecropping does not lend itself to the terms of the contract varies inversely with local production of food crops: if the tenant can eat population density: the higher the density (the the crop he is likely to pilfer (i.e. he takes 100 larger the number of migrants competing for percent of some portion of output whereas he land), the lower the bargaining power of the would receive only half or less of that portion if tenant. The state presently stands very much on he had declared it to the farmer). In the eastern the sidelines of this negotiating process- its forest, even if the tenant has independent access initiatives are ineffectual, all the weaker because to cash crop traders, the social (and information) they are often mutually self-contradictory. Each network between migrants and their indigenous of these issues will be examined separately-- the hosts is sufficiently tight to make it difficult for way in which households negotiate access to the tenant to sell some part of his crop on the land; and the government's ineffective role as side without the indigenous farmer finding out mediator. about it. A second requirement for sharecropping to thrive is the existence of a A Sharecropping Paradigm centralized and potentially coercive political structure that enables land users to prevent The issue of rights to land cannot be sharecroppers from simply appropriating land separated from the question of labor contracts (or output) in their own right; this situation is and the production relations between members of more characteristic of the eastern than the the same household and between members of western forest. different households. As the survey indicated, gaining access to land brings with it a series of Wage contracts are not attractive for a obligations; these amount to contracts which number of reasons. First, landowners face bind households together. The parties to inter- liquidity constraints that make them reluctant to and intra-household contracts are generally enter into wage contracts; for example, if the remunerated not in the form of wages but in the crop fails they may be unable to meet their wage | form of labor service, gifts or crop shares. bill. Sharecropping enables the producer to Although, on the surface, these contracts have share his risks: in the event of a poor harvest, numerous permutations, in essence, the rationale the farmer and his tenant absorb the loss they reflect approximates closely to that of between them. Second, sharecropping entails sharecropping. Given the existing constraints, low supervision costs: the tenant has an this system of allocating land rights appears to incentive to produce as much as possible because 23 Box 3.1 Anthropological Sources There is a rich anthropological literature which captures the diversity of land rights in Cote d'lvoire and the significant variations between different ethnic groups. Research has focused heavily on the forest zone of Cote d'Ivoire and (ethnically contiguous) Ghana. In the context of a decentralized approach to resolving land rights problems--examining the case of each village on its merits--project design could be greatly enhanced if reference was made to the relevant ethnographic literature; unfortunately, most project designers are not anthropologists and such sources tend to be overlooked. For the forest zone, studies have been made for most of the major ethnic groups. For the Abe and Agni, see Dupire (1961); for the Adioukrou, Memel-Fote (1980); for the Bete, Kobben (1956); for the Dida, Terray (1969); for the Gorou, Meillasoux (1964); and for the Wobe, Schwartz (1970). Important overviews of the land rights issue have been provided by Chaveau and Richard (1976), Chaveau (1993), Hecht (1981,1983,1985), Lena (1979), Lewis (1991), Raulin (1957) Stavenhagen (1975) and Weiskel (1979). For a detailed study of the importance of sharecropping, see Robertson (1982, 1987): although he refers to the abusa system of Ghana, Robertson's comments are equally pertinent to the forest zone of Cote d'lvoire. his income is contingent on the level of output rights in the east and west forest. These (Stiglitz 1974). The tenant's incentive would be propositions concern: how political centralization even higher under a system of fixed cash rental influences the relative importance of wage and but, given credit and insurance constraints, such share contracts; the circumstances in which contracts are not attractive either to tenants or household heads are likely to use their sons' landlords. (Table 2.2 shows that in the survey labor for farm work; and the point at which zones cash renting accounts for under five household heads are likely to cede land to their percent of cases of land acquisition). Wage labor sons. requires close supervision if employers are to ensure that laborers work as hard as they can. The Role of Political Centralization Third, by reducing supervision requirements, sharecropping potentially frees the landowner to In general terms, the sharecropping paradigm pursue off-farm activities which is a way to seems more applicable to the east forest than to minimize risks (since it permits income the west forest of C6te d'Ivoire. Land rights diversification) or to increase leisure-- many are appear to be evolving differently on both sides absentee landowners preferring to live in the of the Bandama, reflecting differences in the town rather than on the land. The gains from original political situation. Table 2.4 suggests low supervision costs may continue to make that tenure security is somewhat higher in the sharecropping attractive to the landowner even eastem forest than in the western forest. It is when labor becomes so abundant that the wage possible that conflicts will intensify in the future rate is pushed down beneath the value of the and that the traditional institutions will make crop share. conflicts easier to manage in the east than the west. Following the terms of this analysis, a series of propositions may be advanced about The sharecropping paradigm is more likely to differences between labor contracts and land be valid where power is relatively centralized, 24 Box 3.2 The Efficiency Implications of Land Contracts The following propositions may be derived from a recent comprehensive study of different regimes of land rights (Binswanger and others, In Press): * Faced with imperfections in the market for management skills and "lumpy' inputs (e.g. oxen), households enter the land tenancy market in order to achieve the optimal operational holding size given their non-tradeable factor endowments: this underlying motive applies to all forms of tenancy. * There is no difference in efficiency between owner-operated and fixed cash rental systems. * Fixed cash rental is more efficient than sharecropping because of the incentive question: the sharecropper typically keeps one-third to one-half of every unit of output he produces; the fixed rental tenant is better off because for each incremental unit of output beyond the threshold needed to cover the rent, the tenant keeps 100 percent of what he produces. Nevertheless, recent research has demonstrated that the efficiency losses attributable to sharecropping are not as large as previously thought (Otsuka and Hayami 1988: 49). * Where there are credit and insurance constraints, sharecropping will prevail and there will be little or no fixed cash renting. In these circumstances, wage contracts will also be rare. Sharecropping is more efficient than wage contracts because the latter entail heavy supervision costs (particularly where farms are large) and payment of a fixed wage entails a risk for the operator (if his crops fail he may be hard pressed to pay the wage). Because of the lesser need for supervision, sharecropping is also more attractive than wage contracts when the operator wants to develop off-farm enterprise; this form of diversification may also serve to reduce the risks incurred by the entrepreneur. * Sharecropping tenants are more likely to accumulate capital where land is abundant relative to labor and landlord's shares are low; capital accumulation may enable sharecroppers ultimately to become owner operators. In these circumstances, sharecropping may potentially serve as a leveling device, tending to reduce income inequalities between different farm operators. For additional discussion of these issues, see Otsuka, Chuma and Hayami (In Press). with the original clairnants to land having the like the Ashanti, they preserved the tradition of means to exclude outsiders and exact tribute. exacting tribute from other ethnic groups moving These circumstances have long been more into the vicinity. Essentially, the ALkan got the characteristic of the eastern forest than the west. outsiders to work for them and then divided the fruit of their labor, taking half or more for In general, the Akan peoples have a tradition of themselves and leaving the rest for the raigrants. co-optation and assimilation of outsiders. In the To this day, migrants are expected to live in the first instance, this was based on military force: same villages as their indigenous hosts and are the Akan of CMte d'lvoire represent a breakaway fairly well integrated in the life of the group from the warlike Ashanti of Ghana and, community. For example, they have the same 25 level of participation in village cooperatives as poorest decile of households (68 percent). the indigenous group. Nevertheless, marriages Although migrants in the west tend to be better between migrants and their indigenous hosts off than indigenous farmers, this is not the case remain relatively rare and the rights of the for Burkinabe migrants who-- throughout Cote former are closely circumscribed. d'lvoire-- are the poorest migrants. In the west, the Burkinabe account for 1 percent of the In the west, no warrior aristocracy ever population but 4 percent of the poorest decile of emerged and consequently there was no basis for households; in the east, their share in the poorest the formation of tributary states in which decile was roughly the same as their share in the outsiders would become tightly integrated with population as a whole (around 1 the indigenous group. For a long time, south- percent)(Glewwe 1988:56). However, the west C6te d'Ivoire remained more isolated from Burkinabe form a much smaller proportion of the outside world than either the savanna to the the mnigrant population in the east than they do north or the area to the east of the Bandama.'2 in the west. Overall, there are fewer income Communities had no tradition of political disparities (and a greater propensity for centralization or long-distance trade, only a relay "leveling") in the east than in the west. trade passing goods between contiguous peoples. Person (1989:652) has observed that the history How do living standards compare in the east of the Krou region is "one of small groups and west? Table 1.1 has already shown that per continuously splitting up." capita incomes of export farmers are higher in the west. In 1985, mean per capita expenditures In this context, migrants were relatively free were 20 percent higher in rural forest west than to move in and appropriate what they could. As in rural forest east. A much larger share of the in the east, they tended to be more industrious poorest quintile of households was located in the than their indigenous hosts but, unlike in the east (35 percent) compared to the west (9 east, the hosts appear to have been less percent). But by some measures the east seems successful at taking a cut of the wealth generated better off than the west. The total income of by outsiders; the sharecropping paradigm is less farm households is higher in the east reflecting applicable. Since, until recently, population the larger mean size of farms and lesser density was relatively light in the west, there dependence on coffee/cocoa incomes (Grootaert was more space here than in the east for 1993:45). Roads and commnunal infrastructure migrants to set up by themselves. They lived, are better developed in the eastern forest: in and continue to live, in camps, located at a 1985, 21 percent of households had electric light distance from the indigenous villages and (compared to only 1 percent in the west) intermarriage between the two groups is rare. (Glewwe 1988). It is plausible to hypothesize that the more tightly-knit communities of the These political differences are reflected in the east with their leveling mechanisms and their income gap between migrants and indigenous better-developed infrastructure will be more farmers. Income inequalities are sharper in the conducive to easier resolution of land rights west because migrants have appropriated more conflicts than the more loosely-textured, fissile land and are better off than the indigenous communities of the west. The same population. In 1985, in the rural west, the circumstances will possibly make it easier to indigenous Krou accounted for 45 percent of the mobilize villagers for communal investment population, but 60 percent of western households projects in the east. This has implications for the fall in the poorest decile. In the rural east, the design of projects that are intended to promote proportion of indigenous Akan in the total the capacity of villages to manage their own population was the same as their share of the resource base. 26 The Continuum Between Wage labor- the less abundant the supply of this And Share Contracts labor, the greater the power of the migrants to bargain over shares and terms. For the migrant In the forest zone, indigenous farmers use and the indigenous farmer, the relative migrant laborers less as a supplement to family attractiveness of the share contract varies with labor power, than as a substitute for it. the price of coffee and cocoa. When the price Migrants are initially hired as short-contract is low, the worker makes very little from the wage workers during the period when system and would perhaps prefer to be hired as plantations are established. This suggests that a wage laborer; when the price is high, it is the migrant labor is sufficiently abundant for owner who prefers to hire wage labor, rather newcomers to have limited bargaining powers-- than divide his profits with a sharecropper otherwise they would demand and be given land (Stavenhagen 1975:142). from the outset. The indigenous farmer is willing to use a wage contract for plantation Access to land for food crops is invariably a establishment for two reasons. First, since food source of conflict between farmer and tenant. crops can be interplanted with tree crops in the Once the plantations are established, first four years, the wage paid does not have to interplanting with coffee and cocoa is ruled out cover the full subsistence costs of the worker. by overshading. The tenant may prefer to have Second, there is a built-in incentive for the use rights to land to grow his own food crops worker to perform well, helping to minimize the but the farmer may wish to have the whole of supervision cost associated with wage labor. If his land in cash crops with the tenant buying his husbandry is good the worker may expect to food in local markets. The deal that is struck move up the hierarchy from hired hand to will depend on the quality of land available (is sharecropper. The wage contract therefore there some that is appropriate for food crops but amounts to a probationary period which is not for cash crops?); and the bargaining strength associated with new plantation development.'3 of the tenant (are workers so scarce that it is It is for this reason that the proportion of wage worth the farmers' while to hand over land for workers is now higher in the western forest food crops to help secure his labor supply?). A (where most new plantations are located) than it major consideration is the land-extensive nature is in the eastern forest (where, fifty years ago, of food crop cultivation: sharecroppers usually coffee and cocoa cultivation first took off, and shift the site of cultivation to naintain yields, where plantations are older). presupposing that they must coninually renegotiate access to land with the indigenous Once the indigenous farmer has satisfied group. This need for renegotiation may have himself that the migrant laborer is competent and the effect of increasing the migrant tenant's reliable and once tree crops come into dependence on his indigenous hosts, making it production, the worker will be upgraded to a easier for the latter to enforce tribute sharecropper (abusan) receiving a one-third obligations. As the availability of migrant labor share of the crop. The productive life of coffee increases, there will be less forest land available and cocoa trees is around thirty years. for conversion to crops and, since the bargaining Therefore, once established, the abusan power of the migrants is diminished, less effectively has a contract for life. As yields incentive for the indigenous group to offer from the trees taper off, the contract is access to food crop land as an inducement. commuted to half shares (abunu) or a three- There are signs that in higher-density areas quarter share for the sharecropper (abunan), thus indigenous farmers are now unwilling to let compensating him for the declining income from migrants establish sedentary food crop the plantation. These arrangements vary locally cultivation. This is one way of reminding according to the relative availability of migrant migrants that they are still outsiders; its 27 incidental effect is to inhibit food crop lifetime. In principle, if the father wanted to intensification.'4 retain some claim to the income from the land, he could recruit his son as a sharecropper. This The Transfer Of Land Rights rarely happens, for three reasons. First, the father has limited suasion over his son's labor; As the results of the survey indicate, in the sons may prefer not to work on the land. forest region, even in areas that are traditionally matrilineal, land is increasingly passed down Second, because indigenous sons tend to have from father to son. As long ago as the 1940s, relatively little farming experience--as the survey Fortes (1970:206) found that among the Akan demonstrated--their fathers may prefer to (Agni), in about one-third of all cases, land was continue relying on the proven services of their transmitted from father to son rather than from abusan. Third, provided there is an abundant a man to his sister's son. This is primarily supply of outsider labor, it may be a better because residence is patrilocal-- the father lives strategy for the household head to encourage his with his son and shapes his mind, character and sons to seek education and urban employment, skills; close ties develop between them. In these assuming, that is, that sons can be relied on to circumstances it is hardly surprising that many generate remittances and to provide for their farmers prefer to transmit land to sons rather parents' old age. than to nephews. There is every indication that, during the Stavenhagen (1975:133) concludes: lifetime of the household head, until he has acquired some capital or income source of his "The Agni agriculturist finds it own, the indigenous youth is no closer to difficult to respect a tradition that acquiring land rights than the son of the migrant dictates that his farm, which is in sharecropper. If he is not prepared to work on such a large part the product of the his father's land, the indigenous son must at labor of his own sons, be passed on least demonstrate to his father that he is capable not to those same sons, but rather to of providing assistance in the form of gifts or a nephew, to whom the father feels cash remittances. However, up to and during less attached. On the other hand, his retirement, the father can get these samne the young men who have participated services from his tried and tested tenants, in the creation of a farm have rio continuing to live off their crop shares. way of knowing if the farm they will inherit from their uncle will be equal This tends to reduce the son's bargaining to the one on which they have strength as a source of support to his parents in labored throughout their youth. As their old age. With the economic downturn of a result it is increasingly common the 1980s and the contraction of urban that the farmer gives a piece of his employment opportunities, sons arguably have own farm to his sors during his less opportunity to generate remittances and lifetime, subtracting this land from therefore less power to persuade the father to the legacy he is obliged by tradition hand over land before his death. Theoretically, to leave to his nephew." the value of remittances must be at least as high as the value of the crop share from the land that However, contrary to this observation, the the farmer must give up in order to survey found that in many cases, the farm of the accommodate his son. In 1988, the value of indigenous household head is not "the product of remittances received by rural households in the the labor of his own sons;" nor is it clear that forest zone was only about CFAF 12,000 per farmers are willing to cede land during their year, less than 2 percent of mean annual farm 28 Box 3.3 How Significant s TIhe Return To The Land In Cote d'Ivoire? There are plausible grounds for assuming that with the economic recession of the 1980s and the consequent shrinking of urban incomes (informal sector incomes included), the young who had previously left the rural sector in search of urban employment might return to the villages to take up farming. This assumption was sufficiently strong to lead to the tentative preparation of a 'Young Farmers' project, one of whose aims was to help would-be farmers negotiate access to land in the villages they had originally left. Recent research by the French sociologists, Claudine Vidal and Marc LePape casts some doubts on the size of this reverse migration. Vidal and LePape* have surveyed a panel of 200 low-income households in Abidjan, focusing on neighborhoods with a large number of migrants from rural areas. The panel was interviewed on three occasions (1979, 1985 and 1992), shedding valuable light on changes in the living standards and life strategies of the urban poor. Throughout these years of economic crisis, Vidal and LePape found strong elements of continuity: 60 percent of the households first interviewed in 1979 were still in place in 1992; people in the five communities from which the households were drawn show a strong identification with Abidjan and, specifically, there is little sign of a reverse migration. However, the village remains an important adjunct of the Abidjan household economy. Many of those now living in Abidjan are absentee landlords who derive an income from rural property (often left in the hands of sharecroppers). Abidjan householders often run small businesses (e.g. pharmacies) in their village. Children may be educated in the village rather than in Abidjan because it is cheaper to raise them in the countryside. Village ceremonies continue to make a significant demand on the resources of Abidjan households: between 1979 and 1992 there was no decline, in real terms, in funeral expenditures. Women in poor Abidjan households mobilize the labor of young nieces from the villages,training them as apprentices for the food and textile trade and for craftwork. In the age range fifteen to twenty-five there are significantly more females in the household than males, owing to the large number of girls imported from the villages. While the design of this panel study makes it impossible to verify what proportion of the households that dropped out returned to the land, there are strong indications that the poor urban economy has generally retained the labor of those who migrated to the cities. Rather than return to the land it is plausible to hypothesize that young men- partly because they have no farming skills and because they have developed "urban values"- are more likely to stay on in the towns, perhaps gravitating from steady to casual employment or crime. Vidal and LePape argue that the main effect of the recession has been to increase the dependence of poor urban men on rents and on the trade and business incomes generated by women; access to this income may reduce pressure on young men to return to the village for employment. This suggests that the move by indigenous sons to reclaim land given to migrants may be less strong than is commonly assumed. * Presentation made to the Bank's Regional Mission in West Africa. Abidjan. December 17, 1992. income (Glewwe 1988; Grootaert 1993). a low motivation (or limited means) to press Among other things, this low level of their claim for land during their father's remittances may mean that indigenous sons have lifetime. 29 Once the indigenous farmer dies, there will be alive, government officials will defend the right an adjustment in the relative strength of land of tenants against expropriation threats (usually claims advanced by the deceased man's son and instigated by the indigenous farmer's son). In the migrants currently occupying his land. With the second phase, following the death of the the death of the indigenous farmer, a share of indigenous farmer, the local political authorities the income generated by rnigrants is no longer reassert the claim of the lineage group to the needed by him as a welfare guarantee. dead man's land: while the tenant may be able to Judgments about the relative utility of contracts continue working the land for the rest of his own with sons or migrants are of less importance life, he will not be able to transmit it to his than the collectivity's goal of ensuring that land son.'5 is not permanently alienated from the lineage. Therefore, the dead man's land is more likely to For migrant tenants, the transmission of land pass to his son than to the migrant, irrespective rights from father to son is more likely to occur of how long the latter has been in occupation. where the migrants have intermarried with their However, it remnains unclear what proportion of indigenous hosts. However, intermarriage indigenous sons leaving for the town eventually remnains rare. When migrants marry indigenous return to stake a claim to land in their village women, reports one anthropologist, it is (Box 3.3). considered "a notable strategic coup;" such The interventions of local political authorities alliances, which convey economic and political in land transmission disputes tend to reinforce rights to the offspring, continue to be regarded this two-phase aspect of indigenous sons' land with suspicion by the Akan (Okali 1976:98; rights. In the first phase, while the father is Radcliffe-Brown and Ford 1950:279). 30 4. THE ROLE OF THE STATE The position of the state concerning land But this position was largely reversed by the rights has entailed, on the one hand, the Decree of 17 May, 1955 which renounced public promulgation of a series of mutually claims to vacant, unoccupied or unexploited contradictory statutes and, on the other hand, the land. Moreover, for anyone to stake a claim to turling of a blind eye to the covert colonization land it was necessary to demonstrate, either that of land formally in the state domain (Akoomian this land was not subject to customary law, or 1991; Reed 1992:55-57; Coulibaly and that the customary claimants had waived their Sawadogo 1991). right to the land. This 1955 policy reversal may have been reflective of a general trend toward Colonial Period liberalization by colonial authorities; or a specific attempt to placate the nationalist African During the early period of colonial rule, unions who were pressing their claims for land. French authorities laid claim to all vacant and One effect of this reversal was to encourage a unoccupied land under the Decree of 20 July rapid acceleration of rural land transactions in 1900. This act denied all traditional claims to areas that had previously, in principle at least, land not then under cultivation. The motive was been part of the public domain. One aspect of to establish a legal foundation for distributing this was the creation of private plantations and unoccupied land to French colonists. This end timber concessions, operated by absentee was furthered by the Decree of 25 July 1932 landlords (both European and Ivoirian) defining the legal procedure for obtaining employing mostly migrant labor. Changes to individual freehold title to land. According to land statutes tended to encourage privatization," this, private claims and the acquisition of title rather than reinforcing traditional land rights. could be based simply on evidence of active land This helps to explain why, from an early date, use. A subsequent decree, dated 15 November there was a high incidence of land sales in the 1935, reaffirmed the principle that all western forest. unoccupied land belonged to the state. The legislation also ordained the state's right to seize Post-Indendence Period any lands within five kilometers of human settlement if they had been abandoned for more With independence and the promulgation of than ten years- this was intended to allow public the new constitution of 7 August, 1960, the state authorities to promote the growth of urban implicitly reaffirmed the land tenure laws areas. Moreover, the 1935 decree stipulated that inherited from France, complete with their even land under customary law which was contradictions. There remained a fundamental currently in use could be expropriated by the conflict between indigenous customs, which hold state if there was an economic justification for that land ownership (as opposed to usufruct) is doing so. On the basis of this legislation, the inalienable, and the emphasis on private freehold colonial administration installed migrants maintained by European legal traditions. (mainly Baule and Dyula) in central Cote d'Ivoire, without seeking the permission of the Intermittently, and without serious attempts local inhabitants; this was in an attempt to spur at enforcement, the government has sought to development of coffee and cocoa which the establish the primacy of state rights and modern indigenous population was proving slow to take tenure procedures over customary law. A 1963 up.16 bill declaring that all land that was unused or 31 unregistered was henceforth the property of the acknowledge that formal claim is annulled at state was never formally promulgated. The most death, with the land reverting to the lineage."7 significant government initiative remains the Decree of March 20, 1967, declaring that "land Thus, in practice, almost all land remains belongs to the person who brings it into subject to customary law and any attempt to production, providing that exploitation rights exploit or develop land must take place with the have been formally registered." As Coulibali explicit cognizance of the traditional authorities; and Sawadogo (1991:49) have noted, the second matriculation or land registration carries little clause of this decree tends to be overlooked: the conviction with these traditional authorities and 1967 edict (reaffirmed in the President's is regarded as an illegitimate imposition by the celebrated Daloa address of 1968) has been used state. This impasse has as one of its by indigenous and migrant interests alike to consequences the covert occupation of gazetted legitimate the clearing of unoccupied land; the forest and national parkland. These "protected" rider concerning the need for a formal areas cover 2 million hectares (6 percent of the registration of claims has remained unobserved national territory), with about one-third of this and unenforced. The government further sought area corresponding to gazetted forest. Such to assert its claim to land in an Interior Ministry public domain lands have never been effectively circular of December 17, 1968, according to policed by the government, and traditional chiefs which "the state is the owner of all unregistered have remained the effective arbiters of access. land," 'customary rights to land are abolished" Land claimed by the state is subject to private and "no compensation will be paid to so-called appropriation from two sides: it is appropriated customary owners" (Coulibaly and Sawadogo by politicians and leaders who use their positions 1991:50). to become owners of land; and it is appropriated by migrants who acquire use rights from local Despite early support for registration, the chiefs in exchange for gifts. In many cases, the government took few steps to ease the stringent politicians end up acting as patrons and requirements for acquiring land title that were protectors of the peasants who have moved onto inherited from the French. Full title is obtained state land." The contradictions in the state's only after survey and registration work position have given the "clandestins" a certain (immatriculation) costing CFAF 85,000 per leverage. This was well illustrated in the 1970s hectare. Less than 1 percent of the rural areas in the Marahoue Park: one arm of govermnent of Cote d'Ivoire have been thus registered. (SODEFOR) evicted the peasants who had Recognizing that the costliness of the process settled in the park and were destroying the was a real barrier to obtaining full title, the wildlife; the clandestins were mnainly Baule and government introduced a separate certificate in shortly after their eviction were able to reoccupy 1971: the "authorization d'occupation" costs the land after a successful appeal to the CFAF 40,000 per hectare and is granted by the President. Agriculture Ministry's Service du Domaine Rural. Although this agency has local offices in Whatever measures are taken to mark and each of the administrative regions, its activities patrol boundaries, attempts by the government to have not resulted in any significant increase in protect public domain land will lack all the issue of certificates. For a more modest fee, credibility in the eyes of local chiefs as long as the agents will simply witness a payment made the government itself continues to covertly hand for land. But although witnessing gives the over tracts of these very same lands to political buyer (particularly the mnigrant) a limited clients. The local chiefs nay be expected to protection against current counterclaims, it does resist now that, under the auspices of the not confer transfer rights: the Ministry's officials Commissions Paysans-Foret, the government is 32 asking them to accommodate in their villages the of the agricultural frontier. Some of the lands migrants they, the chiefs, directed toward the on which these migrants would be resettled are gazetted areas, with the complaisant acceptance being contested with increasing vigor by of a government committed to rapid expansion indigenous sons returning from the cities. 33 S. THE PROSPECTS FOR INTERVENTION Outlook What is the environmental impact of land rights systems in Cote d'Ivoire? In terms of the Conflicts between the traditional land rights sustainability of agricultural development, does system and the regime imposed by the state it make any difference whether land rights are probably outweigh in significance the conflicts-- lineage based or individualized? How do within village communities- between indigenous sharecropping and other inter-household farmers and migrants. However, contracts affect sustainability?. There is no hard migrant/indigenous conflicts seem more likely to data with which to answer these questions. intensify in the western forest than in the east First, land rights probably have less impact on and local structures of mediation seem better agricultural practices than the overall framework equipped to deal with these disputes in the east of incentives (prices, interest rates etc.) within compared to the west. which farmers operate. Evidence from several countries indicates that small farmers with Raulin's observation in 1957 probably secure individual title to land are no more likely remains true for much of the forest zone: "We to make yield-enhancing investments than other can conclude that tensions are not carried to the farmers with farms of the same size and land extreme, and the equilibrium between the native quality, enjoying a lesser degree of tenure population and the immigrants is not broken security (Heath 1992). Rather than the system of except in those regions where competition for land rights, it is probably the price of land in the land has become very sharp."'9 The rural relation to other factors which determines population density of the forest zone is still far whether or not the farmer has an incentive to from heavy: the maximnum density is perhaps protect his resource base; the price of land is a represented by peri-urban Daloa (78 rural function of population pressure and access to inhabitants per square kilometer), while in markets. A plausible hypothesis would be that Niable and Soubre, the densities are, tenure security is a necessary but not sufficient respectively, only 22 and 34 persons per square condition for adoption of measures designed to kilometer (Table 2.1). Attempts to establish a conserve or enhance yields. The best measure critical population level or a threshold carrying of tenure security is probably the possession of capacity beyond which land rights conflicts and transfer rights. In Cote d'Ivoire, transfer rights environmental degradation are likely to are poorly developed and therefore there is accelerate sharply are hedged about with probably little incentive for farmers to make complications. First, population densities fixed investments in their land. Within this calculated at the level of the sub-prefecture may context of generalized insecurity, it probably conceal more than they reveal; the mean gives makes little difference-in environmental terms-- no indication of how densities range across the whether the land contract involves various localities within this large administrative sharecropping, labor service, owner-operation or district- it is the village-specific density that is any other system. If it is accepted that the critical. Second, there is no real consensus security of transfer is not a sufficient condition about just how much population land can support for adoption of ecologically-sound practices, without a sharp deterioration of the natural there is no reason for project or policy-based resource base (Box 5.1). interventions to seek to "force the pace' of land 35 Box 5.1 Interpreting Carrying Capacity The carrying capacity of a given area is the maximum number of people that can be sustained by the resources on that land. For example, the carrying capacity of a given piece of land could be defined as QtM, where Q represents the number of calories of food output that may be produced on that surface and M is equal to the minimum number of calories required for human survival of one individual (Pearce, 1991: 115). Initial assessments about carrying capacity tended to be excessively pessimistic. Blaikie has noted that "There are many examples of colonial officers writing in dismay in the 1930s and 1940s about the cultivation of steep slopes, land slips and impending catastrophe due to rapid population growth. Yet population densities two or three times those of half a century ago exist today in the same areas. Much of these colonial views can be laid at the feet of prejudice and a Eurocentric technical model of 'good farming', but also it seems that many African environments are more resilient than Europeans thought" (1989:21). A colonial geographer estimated a maximum carrying capacity of 56 persons/km2 in the forest zone of Nigeria (Stamp, 1939: 32-45). By the late 1960s, this estimate had been revised upwards to 77 persons/km2 (Morgan and Pugh, 1969: 127). A World Bank study found that, with the exception of Liberia and Guinea, Cote d'lvoire was better off than all other West African countries in terms of having space to absorb future population growth. The study suggested that at low input levels, the country has the capacity to absorb between 50 to 100 persons per square kilometer, with the potential of the forest zone approximating the higher of these two figures (Acsadi and others 1990). rights individualization. There are other areas will be increasing demand for land in the forest (e.g. development of low-input technologies) zone. As labor becomes more abundant, the which should probably command higher priority. wages and the crop shares offered to migrant workers will contract. Migrants may have fewer However, this is no reason for complacency. opportunities to have farms in their own right: Development initiatives that are launched today rising population will reduce land availability may be advised to work on the assumption and force down the wage rate. However, with that,at present rates of population growth, Cote the continuing weakness of prices for coffee and d'lvoire will reach its maximum capacity for cocoa and the absence of effective price population absorption by the year 2021 (Acsadi stabilization mechanisms, indigenous farmers and others 1990). The challenge therefore is to may prefer-given their cash constraints and the develop projects that anticipate the likely rise in risks implicit in tree crops-to stick to share land rights conflicts that will occur as the Cote contracts; also, they will probably continue to d'Ivoire reaches the approximate limits of its appreciate the low supervision costs associated population carrying capacity. with the abusa contract, which gives then the freedom to develop other (mainly off-farm) The following is the "worst case" scenario income sources. In other words, the migrants that may be imagined for the next decade. will continue to operate as tenant farmers rather Assuming that migrant labor still streams into than landless laborers;' but their incomes will the forest zone and that structural adjustment be squeezed, leading, by extension, to a decline programs push the terms of trade in favor of in the welfare of the savanna households agriculture (against the urban economy), there dependent on their remittances. 36 Indigenous sons will step up their claims for between villagers and political authorities, an land and it will be increasingly difficult for local attempt is being made to reconcile the multiple authorities to effectively ensure a balance claims to land, encouraging some convergence between the interests of migrant sharecroppers of the diverse perceptions about who has a right and indigenous farmers. This shift in the to what. It is accepted that the codification of balance of power is already implicit in the land rights will be a very gradual process challenge posed by the opposition parties at a entailing a long-term commitment by the national political level; at one level, the government. opposition seeks to reclaim the rights of The pilot operation covered five zones' indigenous groups, reversing what they perceive broadly representative of the diversity of land as the dominant party's excessive pandering to use and land rights scenarios in Cote d'Ivoire. migrant interests.2' If present trends are Between them, these zones accounted for about allowed to escalate, inter-ethnic conflict will lead 200,000 hectares. The follow-up project would to violence, compromising both political stability extend outward from the nuclei formed by the and rural welfare. pilot zones, covering a total area of about 2 million hectares. The approach entails taking Whether or not this scenario comes to pass aerial photographs of each zone, these being will depend on migration trends. Further used to produce outline maps. A survey team, investigation is required to determine how much working in collaboration with villagers, marks the economic recession has led, first, to a on the map the village, lineage and parcel downturn in migration from the savanna boundaries, incidentally recording the current (consistent with the shrinking gap in mean use to which the various parcels were put. The regional farm incomes that was indicated in same degree of precision concerning boundary Table 1.1); and, second, to what extent location and land use could not be achieved recession has encouraged a retreat to the villages using (cheaper) remote-sensing techniques. by indigenous sons no longer able to support themselves in the towns. Before survey teams arrive at the villages, sensitization campaigns are conducted in order to Project Initiatives brief the villagers about the purpose of the exercise. The villagers then participate in Cognizant of these challenges, the tracing the various boundaries on the ground. Government has taken tentative steps toward The survey teams play a neutral role in this recording the various rights to land in C6te process: refusing to take sides in disputes d'Ivoire. This process has been supported since between rich and poor and between mnigrants and 1989 by a Pilot Land Tenure Project, co- indigenous groups. Once the work is complete, financed by the World Bank and French bilateral the survey team will deposit in the headquarters assistance. A follow-up project, involving of each Prefecture (and in the Agricultural extension of the pilot operation over a broader Ministry in Abidjan), a land use plan and land area, is currently (1993) under preparation. rights register, indicating village, lineage and parcel boundaries and recording the various The initial aim is to record the various- and claims to these lands. This will serve as a point sometimes overlapping- claims to land, rather of reference for resolving future disputes. The than promoting one set of claims over another. success of the exercise will ultimately depend on Thus, no attempt has been made to force the the commnitmnent of villagers and government pace of transition from "customary" to "modern" representatives to a regular updating of the land rights, nor has an attempt been mnade to impose rights record. Updating will be necessary a system of land titling. Through the medium of because, while it may be expected that the negotiation between villagers themselves and boundaries of village land (terroir) will remain 37 more or less fixed, within those boundaries there Recommendations will be changes in the distribution of land between different lineage groups and between The purpose of this report is not to arrive at different households. set conclusions about land rights or the need for intervention but to establish an analytic It is anticipated that, with appropriate framework that may help to guide follow-up training of villagers and political authorities, the studies and (ultimately) contribute to refining updating of land rights will become a demand- project design. The survey suggested that land driven process: specialized teams based in the rights conflicts are not of major significance; but regional offices of the Agriculture Ministry will early farmer response to the pilot land tenure respond to requests made by the villagers project suggests that there is a strong demand themselves for modification of the existing for a clarification of land rights. The record. The work on boundary definition will anthropological literature tends to reinforce the be complemented by a review and reform of the findings of the survey, generally emphasizing laws bearing on transfer rights to land. the strength and flexibility of traditional bargaining mechanisms and land rights systens. Although the prime objective of this There are no grounds to suppose that a regime approach is to clarify land rights, in the course of individualized land rights would necessarily of project implementation it will be possible- at have a more positive impact in terms of no extra cost- to simultaneously chart land use, economic efficiency and, from an equity thereby enriching the nationwide agricultural viewpoint, traditional systems are potentially data base that the government uses for planning superior. One firm conclusion is that the state purposes. At present, this is envisaged as a has generally failed to enhance land tenure "one-shot" exercise in the sense that the record security. On balance, there seems to be a strong of land use- unlike the land rights record- case for reinforcing traditional land rights would not be regularly updated by the systens as against the regime imposed by the Agriculture Ministry's regional survey teams. state. This suggests that support for village- The information about land potential will serve based land management initiatives (the terroir as a tool to facilitate planning by the villagers approach) may be appropriate. themselves- the maps being used to guide decisions about the location of access roads, As conceived here, this approach is broadly transhumance corridors, small irrigation works consistent with the thrust of Bank-financed and other physical infrastructure. initiatives that favor administrative decentralization in other areas such as The pilot project has generally met with an agricultural services and infrastructure provision. enthusiastic reception from the villagers On the other hand, it must be recognized that involved; this would seem to suggest that there land rights questions are almost certainly not the is a strong latent demand for clarification of land most pressing development issue in C6te rights. Village chiefs and lineage heads d'Ivoire. Also, one of the biggest sources of participated fully in the survey work entailed by pressure on the land rightskregime- migration- mapping the various land boundaries. However, can be resolved indirectly by projects designed the pilot operation is not yet concluded. The to redress regional wealth disparities; alleviating data generated by this exercise and the lessons poverty in the savanna should probably be the learned have yet to be formally analyzed. prime rural development objective. In terms of 38 poverty alleviation, land tenure projects are Second, while boundary demarcation is probably of a lower priority than initiatives important, not all boundaries carry the same which seek to improve the operation of rural significance. It may be argued that the factor markets, extend social and physical boundaries enclosing the territory of the village infrastructure and improve agricultural research (terroir) and, within this area, the boundaries and extension. between different lineage groups, are more durable than the boundaries between the parcels If these provisos are accepted, the following of the various households. It is possible that in recommendations can be made about ways to areas of low population density with systems of proceed with terroir initiatives. First, in extensive land use (including slash and burn designing a project it will be important to cultivation), individual parcel boundaries may pinpoint the main source of farmers' tenure not have much long-term significance. Since the insecurity. Broadly speaking, insecurity arises location of each parcel will change over the life as a consequence of boundary conflicts and as a of the household, this would imply that regular result of conflicts over transfer rights. Although updating of the map will entail more time and the conflicts are interrelated and mapping has a cost than in areas where agriculture is role to play in the resolution of each problem, sedentarized. It will be important to consider the tracing of boundaries will not be sufficient to whether the expenditure is justified in terms of settle transfer disputes. This has implications the incremental gain to the farmer in terms of for the relative weight of the different project tenure security and breadth of use rights. components; mapping will need to be backed up by legal and institutional reform designed to This point is less valid in areas where make land transfers less problematic. cultivation and stock rearing has been sedentarized: in peri-urban areas of Cote Careful consideration must be given to ways d'lvoire and in the savanna zone dense there is of enhancing the village's capacity to resolve much greater scope for conflicts over parcel disputes between indigenous and migrant farmers boundary rights; in these areas there is probably and between indigenous fathers and their sons greater need (and possibly greater farmer concerning the transmission of use rights; both support) for the mapping of parcel boundaries. within and between generations. Thus, for The evidence suggests that throughout Cote example, it seems possible that the tenure d'lvoire, there is much to be gained from security of migrants is stronger for intra- mapping exercises which clarify the boundaries generational rather than inter-generational of the village terroir as a whole: such an transactions. As long as the indigenous exercise should precede--and will greatly landholder is alive, the migrants who have been reinforce--attempts to strengthen the legal status installed on his land may be largely secure of the terroir, this being indispensable if the against rival claims (including claims from the community is to be p-otected against incursions landholder's own sons); but once the indigenous from the state or external private interests. landholder dies, the other members of his There is already an ample history of such lineage group may successfully reassert their incursions in Cote d'lvoire, involving the claim to the land. Similarly, once the migrant establishment of gazetted forests, private land-user dies, it is not clear that the lineage will plantations and displacement of the population permit transfer of the land to his children. To by the Kossou reservoir--all these initiatives be successful, any land tenure project will need having been launched without reference to the to address the transfer issue in all its sociological traditional land rights of local communities. If complexity, taking account of regional the capacity of the village community to manage variations. its own resource base is to be successfully 39 enhanced, it will be essential to provide legal agencies (research, extension, cooperative protection against these incursions; mapping will development). One aspect to address jointly be an important component of this approach. with the extension service is the question of Since the boundaries of village lands remain farmer incentives: attempts to improve land use fixed over time, mapping would be a once-and- management should complement the search for for-all exercise, avoiding the problems likely to technologies that enhance farm incomes-- if be associated with regular updating. farmers are unable to perceive any link between the village management plan and prospects for Third, the land use data that will increasing their incomes, they are unlikely to (incidentally) be generated from the boundary devote to the mapping and planning exercise the survey should be fully exploited and used to effort that it requires. It is unlikely that the enhance planning capabilities at the national and terroir approach will work unless it is inserted at the local level. In CMte d'Ivoire, the land use into a context where agricultural services are data base is very poor- remarkably poor for a already operating smoothly; this has implications middle-income country with a sizeable elite of for the sequencing of terroir projects. university-trained personnel. The weakness derives from the lack of regular censuses- there Fifth, to avoid problems arising from the has been no agricultural census since 1975-- and creation of overlapping or parallel jurisdictions, from the filiere-specific nature of information it will be important to ensure that the village gathering. Consequently, data on natural boundaries defined by tenure/management resource capabilities and the agrarian structure is projects do not cut across existing administrative unsystematic and fragmented. This is partly boundaries (Sub-Prefectures, Departments and because the political will for more detailed Regions). In this sense, there may be a conflict investigations has been lacking, perhaps because between the geographical rationality of the the government has preferred to draw a veil over terroir approach- which often treats the such delicate issues as the distribution of watershed as the primary entity for land landownership, wishing to reduce the scope for management purposes- and the administrative inter-ethnic conflict. It will be important to rationality of the government. It will be ensure that there is full government commitment important to iron out these problems in the to a transparent process of data collection, design phase of the project. accompanied by various measures to ensure maximnum diffusion and utilization of the results. Sixth, this participatory approach to codifying In the past, certain agencies- particularly the land rights should acquire full legal significance. civil engineering agency, Departement de Although in the first instance it may be valid to Control des Grands Travaux (DCGTX)- have simply record the diverse claims to land, in the made very little attempt to share information final analysis, competing claims have to be with other branches of the government. A first resolved by reference to laws enforced by the step will be to analyze and synthesize the rich state. The government needs to review the socioeconomic data compiled in the five zones existing land tenure legislation, aiming to covered by the pilot operation; the results of this simplify and clarify; statutes that are not in operation have yet to be made available. accordance with a clearly defined set of principles should be amended or repealed. As a Fourth, steps must be taken to ensure guiding rule, the government should not seek to adequate coordination between the various extend the area in the state domain and should development agencies intervening at the village eliminate any residual claims by the state to level. The objectives of village land uncultivated land. Although it is not yet clear management initiatives should reinforce the that farmers have expressed a strong demand for objectives identified by agricultural service formal titles, the procedures for obtaining titles 40 should be simnplified. In this respect, it will be rights-- it has nothing to offer communities necessary to build a bridge between the activities wishing to reassert their traditional rights to a of the Agriculture Ministry's regional survey given area. If the work of the survey teams is teamu and the process of land registration that is to have real impact, it will have to be tied in to handled by the Registre de la Conservation a legal process of granting secure rights in land; Fonciere (RCF). At present, less than 1 percent whether these rights would be geared to of the rural surface of Cote d'Ivoire has been protecting the integrity of the village the terroir registered, partly because the costs of as a whole or the right of families to individual registration are prohibitive; partly because the parcels should depend on the demand expressed RCF registers "modem" rather than "customary" by the rural people themselves. 41 ANNEX: SETTLEMENT HISTORY OF SURVEY ZONES Korhogo and Komborodougou and the Nafara settled in the area of what is today the sub-prefecture of Komborodougou. In the northem savanna of CMte d'Ivoire, For most of the 18th and 19th centuries the two Voltaic peoples (including Senoufo) groups lived in relative peace. However, after predominate. These people remained outside the 1870 they faced a further threat from militant sphere of influence of the Empire of Mali, Islam, this time in the shape of the Samory comprising "a loose fabric of peasantry whose empire, which was expanding from its original economic life was articulated by a long-distance base in what is today Mali. The Kiembara chief trade network which conveyed the kola nuts of adroitly negotiated an armistice, both for his the southern forest towards the line of the own people and the Nafara. Henceforth, the Niger" (Person 1989:655). This culture was area centered on Korhogo became a safe haven, oriented towards the north rather than the south free from the depredations of the Samory empire and Islamic influences were strong. There was and relatively resistant to Islamicization. For no direct outlet to the sea by the Bandama; the this reason it attracted a large number of only possible access was westward toward Futa refugees from Islam, which accounts for the Jallon or eastward via the Comoe and Kumasi. relatively high population density that today characterizes this area on the right bank of the Korhogo and Komborodougou both fall Upper Bandama. For sanitary reasons, the within the Senoufo cultural sphere and are population settled originally on the relatively located on the upper reaches of the Bandamna infertile interfluves but, owing to the build-up of river. Both areas occur within the Zone Dense, people, was eventually forced to occupy the a part of the savanna where the population floodplains, which they used for planting wet- density is atypically high. High density appears season rice. to be the result of a defensive imperative (a Roughly three-quarters of the parcels of land response to military threats); in agroclimatic are less than four hectares in size. The area terms there is little to distinguish this zone from cultivated per rural inhabitant varies from 0.2 surrounding more lightly-populated areas. hectares in the heart of the Zone Dense to 0.6 hectares in the more lightly-populated peripheral Korhogo and Komborodougou are populated areas. Agriculture is quasi-sedentarized with by two sub-branches of the Senoufo ethnic minimal opportunities for fallowing. The group, respectively, the Kiembara and the landscape is characterized by a multitude of Nafara. At the end of the 17th century, both small fields with relatively fLxed boundaries, groups occupied the left bank of the Upper some being subject to short fallow;the fields are Bandama, taking Dabakala as their capital. interrupted occasionally by islands of "sacred From 1700 onwards, the two groups suffered forest," the clearing of which is taboo. Cattle military persecution by the Islamicized are reared in paddocks and the absence of open Mandinka, who had infiltrated southward from grazing means that the zone largely escapes the vicinity of present-day Burkina Faso. In penetration by transhumant pastoralists: response to these threats, the Kiembara and the compared with other zones of the savanna, there Nafara moved northwards, switching from the are few conflicts over land rights between left to the right bank of the Bandama. The farmers and nomadic herds (Coulibaly et. al. Kiembara founded the settlement of Korhogo 1992). 43 Niable original locus of in-migration since it was here that coffee and cocoa plantations were first Niable forms part of the Akan cultural sphere established in the colonial period. According to which is bounded by the Volta river on the east the 1988 population census, persons of Ivoirian and the Bandama on the west. For much of nationality account for only one-third of the total their history the Akan were essentially a populations; among the Ivoirians the pre-eminent tributary state of the Ashanti empire which ethnic group are the Agni, followed by their centered on Kumasi in present-day Ghana. ethnic neighbors, the Baoule. The "outsiders" Today, Niable is peopled primarily by two sub- come mainly from Burkina and Mali. Although branches of the Akan, the Agni and the Baoule, coming originally as laborers or sharecroppers both of whom broke away from the Ashanti and working on the lands of the indigenous empire, leaving Kumasi in the middle of the population, many are now established in their 18th century. In fleeing Ashanti domination, the own right and, in any event, the oldest settlers Agni remained in the forest region, migrating in are fully integrated into the community and waves to an area on the left bank of the Comoe, (unlike in Soubre) do not live in separate close to what now corresponds to the frontier encampments. The population of the sub- between CMte d'Ivoire and Ghana; the Baoule prefecture increased by 135 percent between pushed further westward, toward the savanna 1965 and 1975 but only by 47 percent between miargin, in the vicinity of present-day Bouake. 1975 and 1988: by the second of these periods For the AgPi at least, the flight from Ashanti the coffee/cocoa frontier had shifted further west was only partially successful since, once having and the bulk of the Sahelian migrants were reached their new site of settlement, they moving to new pioneer zones such as Soubr6 continued to pay tribute to the Ashanti kings. (Coulibaly et.al., 1992). A,tmore (1985:56) notes that "the tiny trading Daloa and Soubri settlements at Grand Bassam and Assinie, which the French had occupied in 1842, formed a These areas form part of the Krou cultural westward extension of the Akan/Gold Coast sphere which extends west of the Bandama river, economic region." The Akan in this eastern covering all the western forest of CMte d'Ivoire region set themselves up as brokers for the and extending into Liberia and Guinea. The palm-oil producers of the interior, maintaining Krou culture centered on fishing, hunting and regular links with the Liverpool ships that gathering in south-west CMte d'Ivoire, a corner traveled along the coast.The French withdrew that was effectively cut off from the Sudanic from Grand Bassam and Assinie in 1871. At empires and the penetration of Islam. The Krou this time there was much greater river traffic are distinguished by their physical anthropology down the Comoe (dominated by the Dyula of (absence of sickle-cells) and the tone languages Kong) than down the Bandama (blocked by the they speak which are so singular that they cannot Baoule). Person (1985:228) describes the be classified with any Inown group (Person Baoule as 'remarkably prolific and good at 1989:652). The Krou may be divided into two assinilating other peoples;" at this timxe they sub-groups: the Bete on the eastern banks of the were beginning to fully populate the mid- Sassandra and the Bakwe on the western side. savanna region that they had first occupied in the 18th century. The ethnic sub-group corresponding to the Daloa/Soubr6 region are the Bete whose Throughout the 20th century (particularly geographic origin is unclear. In the 15th since 1945), there has been considerable century, the Bete moved down the Bandama to migration from the savanna and the Sahel into the coast, proceeded westward along the littoral the forest region; the eastern forest was the and then, on reaching the Sassandra river, went 44 up the river to the vicinity of Soubr6 where they first, rubber was planted and then this was settled. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, followed by cocoa (introduced in 1921) and for reasons that are poorly understood (war or coffee (1922). The setting-up of plantations natural disaster?), some of these settlements went hand-in-hand with attempts to press were abandoned and the population dispersed. outsiders into forced labor. Coercion was not, Henceforth, the population remained divided by and large, very successful and it was only between small, widely-separated villages. The after the elimination of forced labor in 1946 that various lineage groups underwent a continuous the region began to attract significant numbers of process of fission and disintegration; the in-migrants, a process that was fuelled by the imperative for political centralization (defensive coffee boom of 1949-54. or otherwise) was evidently lacking. Migrants often live apart from the indigenous group, in By 1960, the westward march of the separate camps. plantation frontier had reached Daloa and over the next fifteen years or so the clearing of the Y. Person (1989:652) notes that, throughout forest proceeded apace, strongly promoted by the 19th century, "No communication was the government's willingness to support migrant possible between the savanna and the sea west of over indigenous rights to land. The government the Bandama, whose valley had in any case been turned large tracts into forestry concessions, closed by the Baoule at the beginning of the stimulating the construction of logging routes eighteenth century. The rivers were hardly which in turn facilitated access to the forest, navigable. In this overgrown country, drawing a growing numnber of migrant farmers communities had no tradition of political into the area. By 1975, there was little forest centralization or long-distance trade, only a relay left to remove around Daloa and settlers began trade passing goods between contiguous peoples. to move south-westward; the coffee-cocoa Hence, this country's history is one of small frontier mnarched on toward Soubre, Sassandra groups continually splitting up....' According to and San Pedro. Atmore (1985:56), during the late nineteenth century, 'the coast of the Krou country attracted Before 1970 most of the in-migrants were very little long-distance or overseas trade.' Mossi or Senoufo, moving southward from the vicinity of present-day Burkina Faso and The opening up of the region was first northern C6te d'Ivoire. After 1970, in- related to trade with the savanna; kola nuts and migration accelerated rapidly and there was a slaves from the forest margin were traded for significant influx of Baoule from the east. The cotton and millet from the north. Between 1905 opening up of the logging port at San Pedro and 1920 there was an influx of merchants accentuated the shift of population into south- (Dyula, Lebanese and others), dealing in kola western Cote d'Ivoire. By 1988, in both Daloa nuts, rubber and palm oil, acting as brokers and Soubre, the Bete accounted for just under between the Bete and the European trading half the total population, with the Baoule and the houses on the coast. In the colonial period, Mossi forming the largest group of in-migrants. 45 NOTES 1. The original exponent of this idea was Boserup (1965). Her ideas have been elaborated in various papers by Binswanger (notably Binswanger and Rosenzweig, 1986 and Binswanger and Mclntire, 1987). The issues have also been reviewed Ault and Rutunan (1979), Cohen (1980), Feder and Noronha (1987), Okoth-Ogendo (1989) and Johnson (1972). The authors of a recent Bank study have concurred with the Boserup hypothesis, observing that "there is a spontaneous individualization of land rights over time, whereby farm households acquire a broader and more powerful set of transfer and exclusion rights over their land as population pressure and agricultural commercialization proceed" (Migot-Adholla and others, 1991:155). Cleaver and Schreiber (1992) present a modified version of the Boserup thesis, accepting the overall trend toward individualization, but suggesting that this is not necessarily a spontaneous process (see Box 1.1). 2. See Box 2.2 3. Atwood (1990); Barrows and Roth (1990); Migot-Adholla and others, (1991); Place and Hazeil (1993); for the case of Mexico, see Heath (1992). 4. The analysis of the economics of the migrant labor system made by Berg (1965) remains essentially valid; see also Skinner (1965). 5. Living Standards Measurement Survey. 1988. Govermnent of C6te d'Ivoire. 6. According to the 1988 Living Standards Measurement Survey, 79 percent of households in the western forest grew rice, while 77 percent of the households in the eastern forest grew yam. 7. Op. cit. 8. See map at end of study indicating location of zones and for background on their settlement history. 9. Settlement is denser in this corner of the savanna not because the region has more rainfall and better soils; but because the Senoufo crowded together for defensive reasons (see Annex). 10. On the grounds that if a land user is able to cede land to another person, he must have some enforceable claim to this land to begin with. 11. One aspect of this is the relative unimportance of the large plantation enterprise; in the whole of West Africa (with the exception of Liberia), such enterprises failed to take root. Accumulation of capital by the indigenous elite was based less on the concentration of land holding and the centralization of farm enterprise that it was on the mobilization of tribute-paying labor. Stavenhagen (1975:127) has observed that 'the reputation and the power of the Agni kingdoms depended on the number of people over whom their authority extended, and granting possession of the land to immigrants was a means to this end.' 12. See Annex. 13. The transition from wage worker to sharecropper is described by P. Hill (1956:43), Chaveau and Richard (1976:124) and Robertson (1987:70). Also, Stavenhagen (1975:142) notes that the worker often 47 sees the wage contract as "a stepping stone to obtaining his own farm" and Dupire (1961:224) writes about the "large" number of workers in the eastem forest who have "progressively acquired the status of sharecroppers and, later, farmers." Also, see Box 3.2. 14. This is the case among the Dida in rural Divo (Lewis 1991). 15. Lewis (1991). 16. For Divo, see Hecht (1981); for Gagnoa, see Raulin (1957). 17. In Divo, payments witnessed by govemment officials do not expand the migrants' ("strangers") rights to land: "(1) the land still reverts to the [indigenous] Dida if the strangers has no heir; (2) the Dida had the fight of first refusal should the stranger seek to sell, and (3) the Dida continues to deserve respect and gifts from the stranger" (Lewis, 1991:18). 18. Unpublished report evaluating Second Forestry Project, Commonwealth Development Corporation, 1991. 19. This was based on observations in Gagnoa in the center-west region (Raulin, 1957). 20. This is contrary to Stavenhagen's prediction that the migrants will be increasingly proletarianized (1975:144-145). 21. Barbara Lewis (1991) has drawn attention to the broader political implications of land disputes between migrants and indigenous groups in the center-west region. The ruling PDCI party has tended to back the claims of migrants- both to win votes and to promote agricultural growth- while the opposition parties that have emerged since 1990 tend to support a reassertion of indigenous rights over migrant right to land. 22. Including two of the zones surveyed in this report: Daloa and Soubr6. 48 BIBLIOGRAPHY Acsadi, G.F. et. al. 1990. Population Growth and Reproduction in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Akomian, J.E. 1991. Etude sur le Regime Foncier Rural Ivoirien at les Problemes Environnementaux Majeurs qui en Decoulent. Abidjan: CIRES (processed). Atmore, R. 1985. In J.D. Fage and R. Oliver (eds.), A Cambridge History of Africa. Vol. 6. London: Cambridge University Press. Atwood, D.A. 1990. "Land Registration in Africa: The Impact on Agricultural Production." World Development 18: 659-671. Ault, David E. and Gilbert L. Rutman. 1979. "The Development of Individual Rights to Property in Tribal Africa." 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Cainbridge: Cambridge University Press. , 1989. In UNESCO General History of Africa. Vol. 7. Berkeley: University of Califormia. Place, Frank and Peter Hazell. 1993. "Productivity Effects of Indigenous Land Tenure Systems in Sub- Saharan Africa." American Journal of Agricultural Economics. February, pp. 10-19. Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. and D. Ford (eds.). 1950. African Systems of Kinship and Marriage. London: Oxford University Press. Raulin, H. 1957. Mission d'Etude des Groupments Emmigres en Cote d'Jvoire. Paris: ORSTOM (Pascicule 3) (Processed). Reed, D. (ed.). 1992. Structural Adjustment and the Environment. Boulder: Westview. Robertson, A.D. 1982. "Abusa: The Structural History of an Economic Contract." Journal of Development Studies 18 (4). 1 1987. The Dynamnics of Productive Relationships. London: Cambridge University Press. Ruf, Francois. 1992. 'Crises et Ajustements Structurels Spontanes: Le Cacao et lc Departement d'Abengorou." Unpublished paper presented at GIDIS-CI Conference organized by ORSTOM, Abidjan (Petit Bassam), November 30-December 2. Russell, S.S., K. Jacobsen and W.D. Stanley. 1990. International Migration and Development in Sub- Saharan Africa. Discussion Paper No. 111, Africa Technical Departnent. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Schwartz, A. 1970. L'Economnie Vllageoise Guere Hier etAujourd'hui. Abidjan (publisher unknown). Skinner, Elliott P. 1965. "Labor Migration Among the Mossi of the Upper Volta." In Hilda Kuper (ed.), Urbanization and Migration in West Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Stamp, L. Dudley. 1939. "Land Utilisation and Soil Erosion in Nigeria." Geographical Review 28: 32- 45. Stavenhagen, Rodolfo. 1975. Social Classes in Agrarian Societies. New York: Anchor. Stiglitz, J.E. 1974. "Incentives and Risk Sharing in Sharecropping." Review of Economic Studies 41 (2): 219-256. Terray, Emmanuel. 1969. L'Organisation Sociale des Dida. Abidjan: Annales de l'Universite de C6te d'Ivoire. 52 Weiskel, Timothy C. 1979. "Labor in the Emergent Periphery: From Slavery to Migrant Labor Among the Baule Peoples, 1880-1925." In Walter L. Goldfrank (ed.) The World System of Capitalism: Past and Present. Beverly Hills: Sage. 53 ....I Distributors of World Bank Publications ARGETINA TlIaM lllidit0 r KENYA OUTH AMICA. SOTUANA Cube Hlakdt. 11, 6LSlIset AMU Baok 1w1Im UM LAd. GlAtin cuw Cae Quaa House hasp" SM u= ty tr_ loLda 165, 441 Flos*D/ 433/44 P.O. a" 4RI Sogteau AMa 13auum AM FNLANoD Nalpam P.O. Box 11I Akaistminm Klr ap CApe Tows e0o AUSTLALIA PAPUA NIW GUINL4. P.O. lox I2 KORA. RULIC oF FIJL SOLOMON ISLAND. F1101 HLd.id 10 Pan Korn Book Corpoted FwM _endoi VANUATU, AND WUTSN SAMOA P.O. D 101, Kwanwhm tataxUdw SulmupUm Sevi DA. lnfotmdm. 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