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.

The relevance of land: from the Solomons to the Sudan

I think land tenure, and questions about access to land, are one of the most neglected aspects of aid and development initiatives and conflict resolution initiatives. Sure, big institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank realise they're important, but how many NGOs deal with these issues? In Australia at least, one of the primary criticisms of AusAID that I hear from activists and those working for NGOs is that the money is directed at "too high a level" - ie it's directed at reform of legal and administrative mechanisms, rather than at what some would call "the grassroots". However land tenure is one of the very areas in which we see exactly why it might be not only flawed, but dangerous, to assume that such distinctions can be drawn.

I was reminded of this last year when I attended a workshop with people from around the world who'd gathered to talk about housing, land and property issues in post-conflict societies. I don't know much about the conflict in the Sudan, but I now realise that land tenure underlies this conflict as it does so many others. Check out this article for more: Sudan: The Question of Land.

State of Emergency Declared in Vanuatu after clashes betwen informal settlers

Vanuatu's council of ministers have declared a State of Emergency in the capital of Port Vila after violent clashes on the weekend resulted in several deaths, dozens of hospitalisations and the destruction of homes and property.

The State of Emergency was declared on March 4 and will last until March 14. The State of Emergency forbids public meetings in Vila, restricts movement between other islands and Efate, and also some movement between suburbs of the capital.

The primary protagonists of the conflict in Port Vila were two distinct groups of residents of ‘Blacksands’, an informal settlement on the outskirts of Port Vila. Pre-existing social tensions escalated into violence when several hundred residents originating from Tanna and Ambrym clashed in Port Vila after the death of a woman was blamed on witchcraft.

While these riots differ in significant respects from the violence that has plagued Solomon Islands in recent years, in both instances the root causes of conflict include ethnic and cultural differences, livelihood insecurity, and a failure of land law and administration to provide security of tenure.

As is the case in Solomon Islands, informal settlement is a growing issue in Vanuatu, and is associated with rising civil insecurity. Urban areas around Port Vila and Luganville are expanding as people from rural areas move to urban areas in search of employment and better access to infrastructure. Rapid urbanisation and competition for land has been heightened by the fact that land in Vanuatu is extremely attractive to overseas investors. The land available for settlement by migrants under the ‘Western’ legal system is therefore very limited, and large numbers of migrants are either ‘squatting’ on customary land, or settling on customary land in accordance with arrangements with the customary landholders.

Large numbers of ni-Vanuatu in Port Vila are now living in informal settlements with insecure tenure. These settlements frequently suffer from inadequate access to water and sanitation due to the refusal of the customary landowners to provide, or allow the provision of, such infrastructure because of their fear of permanent settlement on their land. Blacksands is one of the better-known of these informal settlements. Most children in Blacksands do not attend school, many of its young people are unemployed, and the settlement has a reputation for social disorganisation and crime. Stiff competition for access to land, paid employment and other resources contributes to social tension, which periodically escalates into violence. As was the case in Honiara, insecurity of tenure is therefore associated with both livelihood insecurity and civil insecurity.

Musing on HLP Rights

I've returned from Thailand, where I was attending a workshop to discuss housing, land and property (or HLP) rights.

HLP issues aren't just a result of conflict, they're often also an underlying cause. In earlier posts I've said that land was a key cause of the conflict in the Solomons Islands. Migration between the islands was pretty minor until the introduction of the cash economy. During WWII, the American forces brought people from Malaita - the most populous island in the Solomons - to Guadacanal as labourers. After that, development continued to be focused in Honiara, on Guadacanal, and there were actually development policies that deliberately discouraged development on Malaita so as to use it as a source of indentured labour.

This obviously led to increased transactions in land. Land in the Solomons is governed by custom (only about 4% is outside the customary system). Attempts to register land have been made, but have been largely unsuccessful. Some land was legitimately leased and there were written leases, some land was legitimately transferred according to custom (non-Guadacanalese can't 'own' it, but they can have certain rights to occupy etc), other transactions were entirely illegitimate according to custom because they occurred with a male individual (land on Guadacanal is transferred matrilineally and is communally held). There was also squatting on top of this.

Malaitans came to hold dominant positions in the economy (accounting for 75% of the police force!), and this, together with increased competition for land and employment, was resented by Guadacanalese. It was particularly resented by Guadacanalese youth, who had no land, no work, no education...you get the picture. They began stockpiling weapons in 1997/98, and the Premier of Guadacanal gave a highly divisive speech demanding the return of "stolen land" and compensation for the use of land for development, and compensation for alleged murders. As is the case in many so-called "traditional" societies, land in the Solomons has not just economic, but social and spiritual importance. Compensation also plays an important role in Melanesian culture. So, the Premier's speech was powerful indeed.

These patterns exist throughout the developing world. The constitutions and legislation of many countries recognise customary tenure - and this is a good thing, since a failure to do so creates a wealth of problems, not least of which is legal pluralism - however customary systems didn't evolve in a cash economy, and there's a desperate need to think about how the two can interact in a manner that facilitates tenure security rather than disputation.

Lots more to say, but for now, I thought I'd stick a few resources here:

Do people who flee their homes to escape war or natural disaster have a right to return to them?

A lack of international expertise in humanitarian relief makes the tasks involved in aid operations even more complicated.

Land Policy in Post-Conflict Circumstances: Some Lessons from East Timor

Land tenure

In a letter to the editor of the Solomon Star News on 25 April 2006, one writer writes that,

"I have been predicting for a long, long time the events of the last few days. Solomon Islanders as a whole are a passive and peaceful people, but even their patience has been stretched to the breaking point.
...

Let’s look at the situation here. ... Yes, we have an elected government, but Asian money is running this country and dictating the terms. Any Asian, who wants land – just ask for it and there is one of our corrupt leaders to give it to him (see Kukum labour line and below the Catholic Cathedral). This goes to the point that every square inch of land between Henderson and White River is owned by Asians, with no room left for the owners of this country, Solomon Islanders. Their rapacious appetite has no boundaries. ..."

Land in Solomon Islands is held according to custom. As is the case elsewhere in the Pacific (indeed, much of the world, including the indigenous inhabitants of Australia) land in Solomon Islands is not merely an economic asset, but has religious, political and social significance. Most of the customary rules relating to the use and transfer or customary land are closely associated with the religious beliefs of the people. Leadership and interests in land are passed on by inheritance, and land tenure is governed by the histories of the ancestors, preserved in genealogies and in the landscape of the places they belonged to. Understanding the intimate connection between land an identity enables one to see why the ownership of land by Asians would be seen as so outrageous.

Furthermore, land in Solomon Islands is held by kin groups, which comprise a number of families that claim descent from the first settlers of the land. Under the Land and Titles Act, transactions of customary land must be made according to the current customary usage applicable to the land concerned (NB: I'm not aware of the extent to which land in and around Honiara is regulated according to custom or another system). Historically, various people could have different rights to the same piece of land. While there are competing interpretations of kastom, there is no doubt that the advent of the cash economy has encouraged misinterpretations of land tenure emphasising exclusivity of land rights. The individualisation of tenure has resulted in some rights being extended beyond their traditional extent and scope at the expense of others. As a result, there is much controversy about who has acquired land legitimately and who hasn't - this was a key cause of the anger directed towards Malaitans during the Tensions, and the letter above suggests it plays a role in the anger now directed towards the Chinese.