Burkina Faso's Ambitious Experiment in Participatory Land Tenure Reform
- Author:
- Kent Elbow
- Publisher:
- Focus on Land in Africa
- Publication Date:
- 16 January 2015
- Tags:
- Burkina Faso, Governance, Land and Rural Issues, Legal and Judicial Affairs
On June 16, 2009, Burkina Faso adopted one of the most innovative pieces of rural land tenure legislation yet seen in West Africa. Understanding the lead-up, development, execution-and ultimately the results of this sweeping experiment-offers valuable insights for other African countries in the throes of legislative reform. By the beginning of the 2000s, the need for an overhaul of rural land tenure legislation in Burkina Faso had become glaringly evident. Demographic, climatic and social factors all contributed to intensifying competition for land and natural resources. Conflicts over land and natural resources were pervasive and increasingly violent. Each of the two land tenure systems in Burkina Faso-the statutory regime of the central government and local customary land tenure managers-seemed powerless to prevent the slide into insecure landholdings and constrained access to land.
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