3 - Land Reform

Summary

This chapter revisits the prevailing theories about land reform in Africa by developing a novel approach to systematize them. Based on this approach, the chapter argues that there are significant gaps between the theories, how they are implemented, and their outcomes in relation to reducing intergroup inequalities. Indeed, in many cases, land reform has widened these differences, suggesting that, rather than inclusion, land reform has been a path to exclude poorer and weaker groups such as women and migrants. Through land reform, a global land market has developed in Africa but, in contrast to the claims by advocates, this market has been a conduit for transferring African wealth to the Global North. Although questions of implementation may blur the lines between what works and what does not, this finding provides strong grounds to be sceptical of theories about African land tenure systems and how they work or should work.