Patrimony, Property, and Development Territories in Northern Côte d'Ivoire

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This project investigates the effects of a new land law requiring the registration and titling of rural land on the productive activities and livelihoods of women, pastoralists, and poor households in northern Ivory Coast. A major debate exists in the African rural development literature on whether indigenous land rights systems should be built upon or supplanted by land titling to promote natural resource conservation and economic growth. The question is what will be the implications of the Ivory Coast land law on the fundamental issues of resource allocation and use. The research seeks to document shifts in resource access and use in the context of the new land law at the local and regional scales. The main hypothesis states that the new land law is creating from scratch new political-administrative entities, rules, and regulations within rural communities which will interact with and augment, not replace, existing institutions and practices of land allocation. These institutional innovations linked to new governance structures at the local, regional and national scales present new opportunities for individuals and groups to gain (and lose) access to and control over productive resources. The general question is how will resource access and use patterns change as a result of these interactions as different actors interpret and modify these new rules and regulations? Do the strategies of different actors to claim land rights under these changing conditions result in greater investments in agricultural and pastoral production and natural resource conservation? A hybrid research strategy and comparative case study will generate both qualitative and quantitative information. The principal methods include survey research techniques (farming systems studies); interviews with members of land registration and land management committees (land registration studies), vegetation transects, key informant interviews, and aerial photo and satellite image interpretation (environmental change study). This project will contribute to land tenure policy debates at a time when many African governments are engaged in land tenure reforms. This study's focus on the actions taken by women, pastoralists, and the poor to maintain or improve their access to resources will illuminate the creative ways in which vulnerable subgroups actively seek to improve their status and livelihoods. Finally, this project will provide original and high quality data on the relationship between land registration and environmental change by examining the effects of the new land law and land user stakes on land cover and land use changes.