Push, pull and push-back to land certification: regional dynamics in pilot certification projects in Côte d'Ivoire

Catherine Boone,Arsene Brice Bado,Zibo Irigo,Aristide Mah Dion

doi:10.1017/s0022278x21000124

Abstract

AbstractSince 2000, many African countries have adopted land tenure reforms that aim at comprehensive land registration (or certification) and titling. Much work in political science and in the advocacy literature identifies recipients of land certificates or titles as ‘programme beneficiaries’, and political scientists have modelled titling programmes as a form of distributive politics. In practice, however, rural land registration programmes are often divisive and difficult to implement. This paper tackles the apparent puzzle of friction around rural land certification. We study Côte d'Ivoire's rocky history of land certification from 2004 to 2017 to identify political economy variables that may give rise to heterogeneous and even conflicting preferences around certification. Regional inequalities, social inequalities, and regional variation in pre-existing land tenure institutions are factors that help account for friction or even resistance around land titling, and thus the difficult politics that may arise around land tenure reform. Land certification is not a public good or a private good for everyone.

Highlights

Land tenure reform proposals have been divisive, hard to develop, and difficult to implement in many African countries
A key demand-side explanation for slow uptake of land registration is the high costs of land certification that are imposed on the landholders themselves: farmers may want titles, but are unwilling or unable to cover the costs
Of the, certificats fonciers (CFs) delivered through the end of, our focus has been on the land certification pilot project zones where certification was undertaken with no direct charge to the landholder, accounting for about half of all certificates delivered in Côte d’Ivoire as of mid

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Much research in the advocacy literature and the political science literature on titling casts recipients of land-rights formalisation as ‘programme beneficiaries’, and political scientists are modelling land titling programmes as a form of distributive politics by which politically favoured rural communities are the priority targets. There is recognition in some policy-advocacy literature that as a practical matter, the benefits of registration may be spread unevenly within families, and that under certain conditions (e.g. heavy reliance on a shared ‘commons’ for grazing) individual and nuclear-family registration may impose net costs on communities (Deininger et al : )

Conflicts of interest within rural society

CONCLUSION