Rural protest, land policy and the planning process on the Bakolori Project, Nigeria

Africa ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. M. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Land Policy ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Technical Aspects ◽  
International Agencies ◽  
Project Appraisal ◽  
The Social ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphIn the literature and accumulated folk wisdom of development in rural Africa there are numerous instances of government projects which are expensive, ineffective and unpopular. These include now classic failures of the past, such as the Tanganyika Groundnuts Scheme (Wood, 1950; Frankel, 1953), which are still cited as cautionary tales demonstrating the need for proper project appraisal. There are also numerous more recent examples, for the phenomenon of failure has persisted and governments and international agencies continue to implement schemes ‘little better planned than their more spectacularly misbegotten predecessors’ (Hill, 1978: 25). Among recent initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa the large-scale irrigation projects developed in northern Nigeria during the 1970s have attracted particularly extensive adverse criticism. This has focused on the social and economic impact of the introduction of irrigation and particularly on questions of land tenure (inter alia Wallace, 1979, 1980, 1981; Oculi, 1981; Adams, 1982, 1984; Palmer-Jones, 1984; Andrae and Beckman, 1985; Beckman, 1986). A number of accounts discuss technical aspects of the land survey carried out at Bakolori {Bird, 1981, 1984, 1985; Griffith, 1984), while others focus on economic problems (e.g. Etuk and Abalu, 1982). However, although economic and technical aspects of these developments have been criticised, it is the social impacts of project development and more particularly the political responses to those impacts which are of greatest interest (Wallace, 1980; Adams, 1984; Andrae and Beckman, 1985; Beckman, 1986). This paper examines the bature of the response of farmers affected by one of these schemes, the Bakolori Project in Sokoto State.

scholarly journals The Determinants of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLAs) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): A Case Study

Agriculture ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Mazzocchi ◽  
Michele Salvan ◽  
Luigi Orsi ◽  
Guido Sali
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Land Policy ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Land Acquisitions ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Large Scale Land ◽  
Investment Process ◽  
Agricultural Investments ◽  
Formal Recognition

The determinants of large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) are, in most cases, outside the traditional sales–buying land market, as they are often rented lands for long periods of time or exploitation licenses. Sub-Saharan Africa is among the most affected regions by this phenomenon for reasons related to its land policy, and includes 37% of the total LSLAs cases. The paper develops an econometric model based on a logarithmic OLS regression to identify the determinants of LSLAs in sub-Saharan Africa. As suggested by the literature, this analysis poses the total agricultural area acquired by country as dependent variable. Results show that investors prefer a country offering a sufficiently free trade economic context with a good level of agricultural productivity, thus allowing an easy investment process. Moreover, a country with a formal recognition of land rights is preferred, to have guarantees on their investment. The availability of water is also one of the main LSLAs drivers, as a natural limit of agricultural investments.

Some Swazi Views on Land Tenure

Africa ◽  
1962 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. B. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphVirtually all sub-Saharan Africa is in the throes of rapid social and economic change. The recent fashion for meteorological allegories has merely served to stress the fact that these changes are also causing very considerable problems. The dilemma facing most administrations throughout the continent is that while much of the old way of life must inevitably disappear if the tribal groups involved are to hope to survive as viable populations in the modern world, this same process can, if it occurs too fast, threaten the whole social order and the systems of social control and social organization, which have hitherto bound them together as groups and governed the day-to-day lives of their members.

The ‘Community of Helpers of the Sunna’: Islamic reform among the Songhay of Gao (Mali)

Africa ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. W. Niezen
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Arrangements ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphIn recent decades a scripturalist, anti-Sufi interpretation of Islam has made steady gains in several parts of sub-Saharan Africa. For non-reformers who are confronted with this phenomenon it is easy to consider all active reformers as emerging from the same mould, as turning for inspiration and guidance to the same religious sources, differing only in the intensity of their fervour or commitment. The task of a more scholarly approach to ‘puritan’ Islamic reform, however, is to consider how it is integrated into different social contexts, how it can be used to change or reinforce the social arrangements and institutions of particular groups. This is the general aim of the present article, which considers the social background of factionalism in the emergence of a reform movement among the Songhay of Gao.

Land Reform among the Mbeere of Central Kenya

Africa ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 182-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Brokensha ◽  
Jack Glazier
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
South West ◽  
Tana River ◽  
The Social ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Central Kenya

Opening ParagraphThe Mbeere live in the area east of Mount Kenya and south-west of the Tana River. Numbering just under 50,000 they are ethnographically much less well known than their related neighbours the Kikuyu, Embu, Meru, and Kamba. In this paper we first outline the social organization, then the system of land rights, continuing to describe the government's programme of land reform, concluding by assessing the probable consequences of changes in land tenure.

scholarly journals Land Policy Reform, Customary Rule of Law and the Peace Process in Sierra Leone

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Unruh
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Large Population ◽  
Land Policy ◽  
Cultivated Land ◽  
Rural Unemployment

AbstractArmed conflict is particularly destructive to socio-legal relations regarding land and property. Reconstruction priorities increasingly include the reform of property legislation as part of efforts to address the causes and reasons for continuation of conflicts. However, a pervasive problem is that postwar laws are extremely difficult to connect with informal on-the-ground developments regarding perceptions of spatially-based rights as populations pursue livelihoods, grievances and aspirations. Left unattended, the problem constitutes a potential flashpoint for a return to conflict. This article examines this connection for postwar Sierra Leone, in order to highlight issues and questions of potential utility. The stakes are high for successfully connecting postwar land tenure laws with informal socio-legal realities. For Sierra Leone, a primary issue is the presence of a large population without access to land, tenure insecurity discouraging investment, large-scale food insecurity and rural unemployment while significant swathes of arable and previously cultivated land stands idle.

Kinship and Lineage among the Yoruba

Africa ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 352-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
William B. Schwab
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Analytic Description ◽  
The Past ◽  
Kinship System ◽  
Present Generation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Religious Systems ◽  
Traditional Patterns ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThis paper presents an analytic description of the principles underlying the traditional kinship system of the Yoruba people of Western Nigeria in the community of Oshogbo. Aggregation into large-scale urban-like communities which are characterized by the close interdependence of their political constitution and their economic and religious systems is a striking feature of Yoruba social organization. In these communities we find that the behaviour of individuals to one another, in the past at least, was very largely regulated on the basis of kinship and it would be accurate, I think, to state that among the Yoruba kinship was the usual means of articulation between the various elements of the social organization. Today, under the influence of systematic and far-reaching contact with the West, new patterns of behaviour are beginning to or have already superseded the old. New values and attitudes have intruded and there is an increased fluidity in social norms. In the present generation the bonds of kinship have been greatly weakened as a foundation for social organization and as a mechanism for co-ordinating and regulating social behaviour. Yoruba society is indeed transitional in the sense that the old is in the process of disintegration and new forms are rapidly emerging. However, it is the internal and traditional patterns that determine the particular form and direction of the effects which the external alien forces of change exert. Consequently, in this paper, we shall place primary emphasis on the principles of kinship as they emerged as regulative factors in the traditional life of the Yoruba in the belief that, apart from purely ethnographic value, they will provide us with a better understanding of the manifold changes that have become apparent.

The Idea of a Political Theology, II.

Worldview ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-7
Author(s):  
J. Bryan Hehir
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Technical Aspects ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Form ◽  
Policy And Planning

Given the nature of the decision-making process in modern institutions, those concerned with normative questions must sharpen these questions. And they must learn to express them in terms which will be meaningful to those concerned with the technical aspects of the policy and planning process and also to the experienced concerns of the polity. This translation of ethical questions into political form requires that ethics take its place in the dialogue which already is going on in the disciplines of the social sciences. The task for ethics in this conversation is to be able to maintain its own integrity—its own agenda—without falling victim to the illusion that integrity means autonomy.

Irrigation Issues in Swaziland 2: Small-Scale Projects

1987 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 140-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. K. V. Carr
Keyword(s):  
Developing Country ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Secure Systems ◽  
Sub Saharan

This is the second of two papers which discusses current irrigation issues in Swaziland, a relatively poor developing country in southern Africa. In the first, developments in large scale commercial irrigation schemes were considered [1]. In this, an important irrigation settlement scheme is described, together with small-scale government-supported and farmer-initiated schemes. Among other factors, the importance of secure systems of land tenure is examined. Finally, general conclusions are drawn regarding the role of irrigation in agricultural development in Swaziland and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.

Multiple-source Record Linkage in a Rural Industrial Community, 1680–1820

1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve King
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Multiple Source ◽  
Demographic Analysis ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Industrial Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Broad Outline

Re-creating the social, economic and demographic life-cycles of ordinary people is one way in which historians might engage with the complex continuities and changes which underlay the development of early modern communities. Little, however, has been written on the ways in which historians might deploy computers, rather than card indexes, to the task of identifying such life cycles from the jumble of the sources generated by local and national administration. This article suggests that multiple-source linkage is central to historical and demographic analysis, and reviews, in broad outline, some of the procedures adopted in a study which aims at large scale life cycle reconstruction.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document