6 - Operation Vijiji and its Aftermath: Land Nationalisation, Villagisation and Disputes in Mbulu District, North-Western Tanzania, 1961–2006

Abstract

The Tanzania rural transformation policy, which was done through the nationalisation of the major means of production, Operation Vijiji and legal reforms, was one of the greatest socio-economic experiments in Africa. Expected to bring development to the majority of rural Tanzanians, nationalisation and villagisation have generated considerable land disputes in Tanzania over the past four decades. Scholarship on the Tanzanian land question has focused mainly on the lack of people’s involvement in decision making and ecological change as major causal factors of land disputes. The link between nationalisation, Operation Vijiji, legal reforms and land conflicts has not received much attention. This article argues that the high incidence of land disputes in Mbulu District in northern Tanzania could be attributed to the poor and hurried implementation of land nationalisation and Operation Vijiji.