Land, Violent Conflict and Development

I'm currently reading the OECD Development Centre's report on Land, Violent Conflict and Development. The report reviews what has been learnt so far about the link between land and conflict (Sections II and III), and the scope for land policy to prevent violent conflict (Section IV). It also looks at what is not known, as well as ways to learn more. It concludes with making some preliminary policy-relevant recommendations on how donors may support the use of land policy to secure peace in developing countries.

The report is not new - publication date is 2004 - but it makes some observations that don't appear to have been heeded. For example, the report notes that donors' conflict-prevention programmes aiming to sustain peace in immediate post-conflict settings tend to neglect land issues. Similarly, land policy projects often neglect the conflict dimension. It suggests that donors include "Political Impact Assessment" into project cycles in order to better understand local dynamics, monitor potential land-incited conflict, and consider the impact of projects on local politics and land issues.

An observation that I found worrying, but in some respects reassuring because of my own frustration with the limited interaction between "research" and "practice" (also known as "academics" and "NGOs") was the observation that:

Although the scope of each category of development programme (e.g. rural development, education, or enterprise development) is broadening continuously to accommodate new preoccupations, those responsible for designing and implementing them, within academia or donor agencies, do not systematically exchange their views and experience.

A section that really struck me was that entitled "Decentralisation is not a Panacea" (p. 33):

Although assumed to be more transparent and closer to “ground-level realities” than national politics, local politics often exhibit no such features when looked at in detail — especially in contexts marked by the embedded domination of large landowners. In Africa, British colonial rule — often referred to as “indirect rule” — greatly weighted the balance of forces at the level of villages in favour of chiefs. This situation has not been significantly altered after decolonisation, and incited Mamdani (1996) to describe it as “decentralised despotism”. Thus, even when agrarian structures appear to be organised along “customary” rules, they do not necessarily foster “harmony” between community members. Chauveau (1998) thus argues that:

“As an element of broader social relations, and a result from history and power relations, customary tenure rules and practice do not constitute an endogenous, closed and harmonious system[…]. The process by which rights are acquired and protected is hence deeply political”.

He argues that West African small holder agriculture is subject to a variety of external and internal pressures, to which different customary systems react differently. Yet, a common feature seems to be that local dynamics tend to reinforce the most powerful members of the community (usually middle aged land owning men). When economic opportunities are rising, a process of differentiation is observed, which favours those who are able to invest in land productivit (Woodhouse 2003); when opportunities are becoming scarcer, the pressure on livelihoods puts at odds customary and other claims to land, and results either in the exclusion of the weaker or in violent conflict. As Woodhouse (ibid.) puts it:

“When competition for land intensifies, the inclusive flexibility offered by customary rights can quickly become an uncharted terrain on which the least powerful are vulnerable to exclusion as a result of the manipulation of ambiguity by the more powerful”.

Therefore, assuming “decentralised” ownership of projects to be more legitimate or efficient “by essence” may be misleading. For all their shortcomings, central states have an essential role to play in promoting peace and development in rural areas, including through a process of decentralisation. First, they can balance the influence of local authorities viz. the weaker groups (often the young, women, and strangers). Second, they can ensure induced patterns of change are consistent with overall goals of economic growth and environmental sustainability.

A good reminder that we should always interrogate our assumptions, biases and ideological leanings!! I've often been frustrated by the criticism levelled by some NGOs, practitioners and activists towards other NGOs or donor agencies that focus on reform of governance, law and justice sectors. While the shift towards grassroots development is a good one, we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater - law reform is often a necessary part of development, and it is inevitably going to be more top-down than some other forms of development. Unfortunately too many NGOs neglect issues of law and governance (because these issues are seen as "top down" development), and focus instead on things like microcredit (which is seen as "grassroots" development), when law and governance systems are the very things that shape people's access to resources.