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Improving Tenure Security for the Rural Poor: Rwanda – Country Case Study

Year of publication 2006

Pages 29 p.

Author Musahara, H.;Land and Water Division

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Document

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) Most of the world’s poor work in the “informal economy” – outside of recognized and enforceable rules. Thus, even though most have assets of some kind, they have no way to document their possessions because they lack formal access to legally recognized tools such as deeds, contracts and permits. The Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) is the first global anti-poverty initiative focusing on the link between exclusion, poverty and law, looking for practical solutions to the cha llenges of poverty. CLEP aims to make legal protection and economic opportunity the right of all, not the privilege of the few. (see http://legalempowerment.undp.org/) FAO, with donor funding from Norway, has undertaken a set of activities for “Improving tenure security of the rural poor” in order to meet the needs of FAO member countries and, in turn, support the CLEP. This work falls within the FAO corporate strategy on “Sustainable rural livelihoods and more equitable access to resources ”. Recognizing that secure access to land and other natural resources (forests, water, fisheries, pastures, etc.) is a crucial factor for eradication of food insecurity and rural poverty, FAO’s cross-departmental and cross-disciplinary work focused 2005-2006 activities on sub-Saharan Africa which has the world’s highest percentage of poor and hungry people.

Language English

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    Most of the world’s poor work in the “informal economy” – outside of recognized and enforceable rules. Thus, even though most have assets of some kind, they have no way to document their possessions because they lack formal access to legally recognized tools such as deeds, contracts and permits. FAO, with donor funding from Norway, has undertaken a set of activities for “Improving tenure security of the rural poor” in order to meet the needs of FAO member countries and, in turn, support the C ommission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) – the first global anti-poverty initiative focusing on the link between exclusion, poverty and law, looking for practical solutions to the challenges of poverty, aiming to make legal protection and economic opportunity the right of all, not the privilege of the few. This paper aims to suggest answers to this penetrating question about land tenure and the poor in Africa: Why, when so much is known and so much seems to be done, does so little change? For this purpose, a framework has been developed that can be used to prioritize and explore the issues within a coherent and recognizable context that provides a practical as well as theoretical perspective.
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    This paper identifies the key issues of land tenure security for the rural poor, vulnerable and marginalized in the East African countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The report finds that most of these issues are common across the three countries, both in terms of the challenges that the communities face and imperatives that inform policy interventions and responses. In all three countries, customary and statutory systems operate side by side and, in all three, there is a tendency for policy and legislative frameworks to privilege the modern systems of property relations over traditional ones, even as national rhetoric indicates recognition and support for the latter. The paper concludes that formalization has not always benefited the rural poor. Instead, an elite minority has tended to benefit from reforms while the majority of the poor and vulnerable end up worse off as institutions and systems that supported their livelihoods and gave them a sense of security are marginalized and replaced by modern institutions.
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    Gender and land compendium of country studies 2005
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    From the outset, the development of agriculture has been strongly associated with women’s endeavour. In fact, women’s contribution to agriculture goes back to the origins of farming and the domestication of animals when the first human settlements were established more than 6 000 years ago. Over the years, the division of responsibilities and labour within households and communities tended to place farming and nutrition-related tasks under women’s domain. Nowadays, in many societies women continue to be mainly responsible for family food security and nutrition. Nevertheless, the institutional framework and policy environment have not necessarily evolved to respond to the goals of human and social reproduction; on the contrary, they have been subordinated to financial and profit-making goals. Gender, together with other social and economic factors, determines the individual’s and group’s access to and control over resources. Cultural norms and social practices, as well as socio-economic factors, are among the main obstacles women face in this regard. In practice, although most national legal codes have explicitly incorporated legal provisions acknowledging gender equality in relation to access and ownership of land and other productive resources, it has been noted that women’s rights to own resources on equal conditions to those of men are repeatedly disregarded or overlooked.
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