Land transactions between Majang people and ‘highlanders’ in the Majang forest zone: a case study of land registration in Ethiopia’s Gambella region

Sheikh Saudi and Ethiopia, Arabia, Mohammed where spends Hussein he his was time born Ali shuttling Al in a Amoudi, village between 64 a years citizen Riyadh ago. of Sheikh Saudi A abia, spends his time shuttlin between Ri adh d Ethiopia, where he was born i a village 64 ye rs ago. The son of a Yemeni father and Ethiopian mother, Al Amoudi boasts an estimated net worth of $10 billion. He is the richest Ethiopian and, according to Forbes, the 64th richest man in the world. Fortyfive years ago, he emigrated to Saudi Arabia and built his fortune in oil refineries and the booming construction industry. But Al Amoudi never lost touch with his homeland. In fact, Ethiopian real-estate has become a key part of his burgeoning portfolio. In 2009, Al Amoudi's company, Saudi Star Agricultural Development, signed long-term leases for nearly 25,000 acres in the country's northeastern regional state, Gambella, to produce

The new-yet-old phenomenon of ‘land grabbing’ is often characterized in media and NGO reports as an unstoppable tidal wave hitting the African continent. Yet, as Anna Tsing reminds us, global power rarely operates without friction (2005). From the negotiation of deals that give investors access to land, to its transformation for use in large-scale agribusiness or mining operations, the process of ‘grabbing land’ is rarely unilinear and always historically situated. While some land investments materialize, others run into crisis. In April of 2013, a deal was struck between government elites and a Saudi businessman over customary land in Um Doum – a peri-urban community in central Sudan – that had been utilized by local families for generations. Community members immediately mobilized against the deal using civil disobedience tactics and media advocacy, forcing government officials to reverse the land deal and to initiate negotiations aimed at locally redistributing the land through registration and titling. Despite the apparent success of this resistance to a large-scale land deal, this article argues that the subsequent programme of land titling nevertheless represented the extension of state control over land tenure and generated profound change in gendered and ethnic social relations and land values. As such, the Um Doum negotiations served to restructure, rather than reverse, the process of land dispossession. It concludes that even when large-scale land deals are renegotiated in favour of those dispossessed, it is important to consider the ways in which ‘negotiability’ in land rights (Peters, 2004) can benefit elites and exacerbate existing social divisions by intensifying forms of inequality in land access.

There is a gap between land tenure and the physical land giving room for impersonation, multiple allocation and sale of plots, loss of possession, land racketeering and fraud through forgery. Hence, the need to identify unambiguously parties involved in land transactions so that the root of title can be traced to ensure tenure security. This paper explores innovative ways of filling the gap with biometric data to secure land transactions. Through interviews and self-administered questionnaire with google forms, and snowball sampling technique, perception of participants across Ghana were assessed on what constitutes secure land transaction. The researchers also assessed participants’ knowledge of biometric systems and their acceptability in recording biological traits of grantors and grantees in land transactions. Most participants were conversant with the use of biometric systems and were optimistic that its use might bring sanity in land transactions and enhance the security of tenure in Ghana.

Land-related disputes and land conflicts are sometimes politicized in elections in African countries, but this is usually not the case. Usually, land-related conflict is highly localized, managed at the micro-political level by neo-customary authorities, and not connected to electoral competition. Why do land conflicts sometimes become entangled in electoral politics, and sometimes “scale up” to become divisive issues in regional and national elections? A key determinant of why and how land disputes become politicized is the nature of the underlying land tenure regime, which varies across space (often by subnational district) within African countries. Under the neo-customary land tenure regimes that prevail in most regions of smallholder agriculture in most African countries, land disputes tend to be “bottled up” in neo-customary land-management processes at the local level. Under the statist land tenure regimes that exist in some districts of many African countries, government agents and officials are directly involved in land allocation and directly implicated in dispute resolution. Under “statist” land tenure institutions, the politicization of land conflict, especially around elections, becomes more likely. Land tenure institutions in African countries define landholders’ relations to each other, the state, and markets. Understanding these institutions, including how they come under pressure and change, goes far in explaining how and where land rights become politicized.

This paper discusses the reciprocal relationship between land value and the negotiated transaction price of land. In a market that is characterized by many inefficiencies we may hold the hypothesis that price does not equal value (Wyman, Seldin & Worzala, 2011). This hypothesis raises the question of how value and price relate to each other. We present a conceptual framework that understands land transaction outcomes through the lenses of their transaction processes. These processes are shaped by judicial boundaries, laws, regulations and actor behavior. We argue that, together, those institutional aspects determine the interplay between land value and price.In order to allow for transactional aspects in land market analyses, this conceptual framework challenges conventional methodologies and data sources and calls for the use of a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research approaches towards land market research.The framework is applied to two Dutch land market segments: the market for rural land and the market for inner city building land. A hedonic price analysis of rural land prices, based on notarial deeds of purchase, shows the institutional richness of notarial deeds as data source for land market research purposes. It shows the greater explanatory power of including transaction characteristics and with that, it sheds a different light on the use of appraised value or transaction price data in hedonic land market analyses (Ma and Swinton, 2012). Next, an in-depth analysis of inner city land transactions reveals that both value and price are determined during the land transaction process. This finding is different from the causal relation we expected; namely that transaction processes cause a land price to deviate from its value.We conclude that the interplay and difference between land value and land price, caused by the institutional transaction context, should be subject to land market analysis, rather than just the focus on price or value.-----Ma, S. and Swinton, S.M. (2012), “Hedonic valuation of farmland using sale prices versus appraised values”, Land Economics, Vol. 88 No. 1, pp. 1-15.Wyman, D., Seldin, M. and Worzala, E. (2011), “A new paradigm for real estate valuation?”, Journal of Property Investment & Finance, Vol. 29, No. (4/5), pp. 341-358.

There is an increasing concern that land transactions in Papua New Guinea are perceived by some landowners and key government officials as unsustainable due to inequitable sharing of benefits among the tripartite stakeholders. This paper investigates issues surrounding the perceived inequality of benefits derived from land transactions in forestry, mining, oil and gas projects in the South Pacific country using contiguous Western and Hela Provinces as case study. With regards to the land leasing practices of indigenous customary landowners, the paper adopts stratified random sampling to collect primary data from a representative sample of 180 indigenous landowners, state land officials and project operators in the two provinces. One research question and one overarching hypothesis are used to probe whether forestry and mining land transactions and profits sharing in the projects’ areas are sustainable. Based on a chi square value of 2.133 and a p-value of 0.85% that are statistically significant at 0.01 levels, the paper accepts the hypothesis, which strongly suggests that land transactions and profits sharing in the two contiguous provinces are sustainable, contrary to criticisms. Since PNG’s 22 provinces are largely homogeneous in terms of common land tenure, local Melanesian culture and languages spoken, it is contended that land transactions are consistent with PNG’s national land policy. Results also suggest that project stakeholders in the country are consistently adopting land transactions that are convenient and sustainable. The paper, therefore, calls for government intervention to streamline national land transactions for consistency and sustainability under a common national land policy.   Key words: land transactions; sustainable benefits sharing; PNG land policy; forestry; extractive projects; Western; Hela; provinces.

PROTOCOL: The Impact of Land Property Rights Interventions on Agricultural Productivity in Developing Countries: A Systematic Review

This study assessed the preference for and efficiency of land tenure contract arrangements in rice farming in West Java, Indonesia. Specifically, it examined the transaction costs associated with land tenure contracts, the land tenure contract preference, the efficiency of land tenure contracts, and the policy agenda to address the problems of land tenure efficiency. Three types of land tenure contracts were considered: sharecropping, fixed rental and mortgage. Farm plot data were used to econometrically investigate whether transaction cost had an effect on the choice of land tenure contracts and on the efficiency of land tenure contracts. The transaction cost coefficient of 0.097 (significant of 1% level) in the choice of land tenure indicates that as the value of transaction cost increases, the landlord will most likely choose sharecropping. However, if the transaction cost decreases, it is more likely that the landlord will choose mortgage or fixed rental. These findings show that contract choice of landlord’s is influenced by the transaction cost. The results show that sharecropping is the more efficient land tenure arrangement in West Java, Indonesia. Thus it does not support the Marshallian view of sharecropping as an inefficient land tenure arrangement. Sharecropping in the study area is benefiting both the landlord and the tenant farmers. Transaction cost dismisses as labor monitoring is needed to the barest minimum and higher marginal product is achieved. Adoption of sharecropping in West Java like support the government program of consolidating rice farm to attain scale in economics’ and utilization more efficiently farm labor. The government needs to facilitate the dissemination of information on land transaction.

Claim-making in transnational land deals: Discourses of legitimation and stakeholder relations in central Uganda

This study was conducted to assess and examine the effects and opportunities of land potential agricultural investment projects offered to the local people in Gambella regional state. The research designed used for this study was survey and cross-sectional research design. In response to the research problem, both qualitative and quantitative were used in this study. Simple random sampling technique has been applied. In light of this, both primary and secondary data were used. Primary data was obtained through questionnaire, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The survey questions were collected from a sample of 300 local people living surrounding the farms; interviews were also held with 90 government officials and farms manager, enabling the sample to be 390.Secondary data was obtained from published materials, books, journals, Regional and Woreda annual report as well as project reports and maps. Descriptive statistical tools such as percentage and frequency were used to analyze the data. Therefore, the general finding of this research disclosed that large agricultural investment projects have both advantages and disadvantages. The major advantages of large agricultural investment projects was job opportunity it offered to local people, while its effects on local people in the study area were:- deforestation, diversion of river and destruction of wild life habitat and land eviction that increase the hardship on local people. In the process of land allocation to the investors’ local peoples were not consulted and even participated in deal. This caused a serious concerned among local people about the motive of business. In addition, the study revealed that large agricultural investment projects failed to conduct EIA which make it difficult for some stakeholders to monitor and evaluate the effects of the large agricultural investment projects on the environment. Key words: Large agricultural investment projects, its effect on local people and environment, participation of local people in land deal in Gambella Regional State, Ethiopia.

Does land tenure change accelerate deforestation? A matching-based four-country comparison

An examination of changing patterns of land tenure in a four- section area of Lake Prairie Township, south-central Iowa, reveals that land prices followed similar trends at all scales and were largely controlled by macroscale forces. Discontinuity existed between regional and local trends in farm-tenure structure. Microscale phenomena like age structure, ethnicity, and local values were the important determinants of landownership change at the local level. COMMUNITYWIDE social patterns in the rural United States affect farm systems. These patterns are especially evident among ethnically and religiously homogeneous groups who reside in agricultural regions of the Midwest. These localized value systems influence capitalization of farm enterprises, the commercial character of a farm, and farmers' risk-reduction strategies. More importantly, these value systems have led to communitywide patterns of strategies for intergenerational land transfers, the effectiveness of which is the sustainability of the farm unit. Inasmuch as landuse is tied to ownership, the continued re-creation of the farm enterprise may also be related. The goal of this article is to expand the scope of previous studies by demonstrating a methodology for analyzing local tenure patterns in the context of their interaction with larger forces. Changes in land tenure are examined for four sections or four square miles of land in Lake Prairie Township, south-central Iowa, from settlement in the 1840s to the early 1980s. These sections, part of an area settled by Dutch immigrants, contain a variety of land classes and are bounded on the northeast by a main highway and railroad and on the southwest by Red Rock reservoir on the Des Moines River (Fig. 1). County-deed records, which contain a century and a half of data on all land transactions in the four sections, form the basis of the study. The study draws on information regarding land prices; categories of transactions, such as free exchange, intrafamilial sale, inheritance, or fore- closure; types of buyers or sellers, such as private, corporate, or governmental; residence of buyers and sellers; and relationships among buyers and sellers. These data were supplemented by cemetery records and by family and oral histories. Changes in these aspects of land tenure were compared with county and regional data to analyze the interactions between the specific and the general and to assess which factors were tied to externally driven, macrosocial phenomena and which were connected with locally determined, microsocial

An attempt is made to investigate the consequences of land tenure policy on the environment enhancing reforestation as a means of ascertaining tenure security in the Gambella region. This paper sheds light on the acc elerated pace of deforestation in the study area and its impact on the environment. The theoretical and conceptual issues of the interrelation between reforestation, deforestation, land tenure system, and other socio-economic indicators have been given due attention in the literature review. Research methodology gives much focus on qualitative data analysis that uses ranges of data collection approaches; FGD, KII, semi-structured household interviews with the inclusion of secondary data reviews. The paper considers the effect of land tenure system on the environment and discusses the landholding system in the study area, including customary land rights among the Nuer, the Anywaa, and the Majangir. To this effect, external factors and urban expansions are addressed with the view to understanding the impact of socio-cultural practice on physical environment perception and management. A conclusion and policy implications are also discussed.

Using an extended full-cycle carbon model from the Faustmann framework, which allows for management strategies of several uses concurrently implemented in the same area of forest, this paper investigates the selection of management objectives that are beneficial and optimal for forest plantations in Vietnam. Three scenarios are considered: Scenario 1 investigates the management objective of maximizing the land economic value (LEV) of timber as a single production. Scenario 2 investigates the joint production of timber and bioenergy sources. Scenario 3 analyzes the joint production of timber, bioenergy production, and carbon sequestration. The findings reveal that if growers pursue a timber management objective (Scenario 1), the farming business only provides considerable benefits under the government-subsidized credit scheme of 8.4%. For a higher non-subsidized interest rate of 15.24% of commercial banks, such gains reduce substantially and become negative value under the mean interest rate of 19.08% of private credit sources. Altering the management objective to a joint production of timber and raw bioenergy production (Scenario 2) will boost the LEV by a moderate level, but at the expense of timber production and thus carbon stock. However, the reduction tendency of timber and carbon balance is not substantial due mainly to the relatively small proportion of bioenergy production compared to timber production; therefore, decision-making frameworks targeting carbon uptake may be capable of incorporating such levels of confliction. Further internalizing the carbon value of the forest into management objectives generally leads to a longer rotation length, thus improving both carbon sequestration and income gains. Shifting the current timber-dominant management objective to a joint production of timber and bioenergy sources, or, alternatively, a joint production of timber, bioenergy production, and carbon sequestration when the carbon market is emerging, is a good alternative strategy for forest management in Vietnam.

Peru has been transformed over the course of the past decade into a neoliberal, mineral-based, export-oriented, country. The author evaluates the neoliberal transformation of the country in three parts. First he examines the economic and political transformation of the country in the early 1990s, particularly in terms of how the Peruvian state and economy were rapidly restructured according to neoliberal principles. He then illustrates how, both through privatization and through transnationalization, the mining sector has become a key element for future development opportunities. This discussion is then contextualised by an examination of how mining activities are affecting land-tenure patterns and livelihoods in the Cajamarca region of Peru. In particular, drawing upon case-study research, the author evaluates how Minera Yanacocha's transnational gold-mining operations are transforming land-tenure institutions, land values, and the spatial distribution of land-use patterns throughout the region. In addition, he evaluates how livelihoods are being transformed in response to Minera Yanacocha's activities through an examination of changing household access to natural, human, social, and economic resources.