Books Land Tenure Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa: Interventions in Benin, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe (Routledge Focus on Environment and Sustainability) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition by Steven Lawry , Rebecca McLain , Margaret Rugadya, Gina Alvarado 

Land Tenure Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa: Interventions in Benin, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe by Steven Lawry, Rebecca McLain, Margaret Rugadya, Gina Alvarado, and Tasha Heidenrich examines the impacts of land tenure reform efforts in four African countries. Since 2000, many countries have introduced projects aimed at providing smallholder farmers with low-cost land certificates for land held under customary tenure.

The book analyzes these interventions using a realist synthesis methodology to explore social, political, and economic contexts and assess outcomes against criteria like tenure security, agricultural productivity, financial leverage, and gender empowerment.

Key insights include:

How externally driven land registration and certification programs have affected customary tenure systems differently across the four countries.

The importance of understanding local customary land governance to avoid unintended consequences.

Reforms’ varying success in improving tenure security and access to credit.

Challenges in addressing social status inequalities within customary tenure frameworks.

The distinct case of Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform program focusing on redistribution.