“Putting the land reform issue back on the table in its’ entirety”: This is the request made by CICODEV, which appreciates the decision that the President made to prohibit the issuance of titles on arable land.
During his face-to-face with the press on December 31, the President asked the “Minister of Finance to initiate reforms so that it is no longer possible to grant land titles on arable land.” This is one way of preventing land conflicts which have multiplied in recent years. In a press release, CICODEV welcomed this measure, while calling on the President of the Republic “to put the land reform issue, in its entirety, on the table by referring to the land policy document that the National Commission for Land Reform (Cnrf) submitted in November of 2017.” For Amadou Kanouté and his collaborators, “this will make it possible to move towards concerted and detailed solutions, consensual solutions between the families of actors in order to establish land governance conducive to socio-economic development in a peaceful manner that benefits everyone.”
Returning to the importance of this position that the President displayed during this press conference, the organization considers that it “means that it will no longer be possible for an investor (national or foreign), a real estate developer, a political elite or even a religious leader to be assigned a land title to agricultural land in rural areas.” In addition, members of CICODEV underline that “with the implementation of this measure, local communities will no longer be permanently dispossessed of their lands without their informed consent and fair compensation where expropriation is necessary and/or in response to a well-proven public interest.”
Analyzing this decision, they concluded that with “this order, the President seems to have heard the appeal of rural communities following the multiple cases of land disputes, the most emblematic undoubtedly being the situation of Ndengler.” In the same light, CICODEV declares, this reform, which aims to make it impossible to grant “land titles on arable land, reintroduces equity for citizens in the enjoyment of a common good between urban and rural areas.” And the authors of the document explain: “In urban areas, you can understand the existence of land titles, because it is more about small plots for residential use. Real rights find their relevance in urban areas and the Head of State’s new measure does not create an imbalance in this sense. If, on the other hand, the farmer suddenly feels and expresses the need to be secure on his land, it is because large investors have come – Land titles (Tf) in hand and with the blessing from the public authorities to claim it without notice to those using it.”
Moreover, CICODEV recalls that food sovereignty, that the President of the Republic advocated for, cannot be achieved “if the country does not have land allocated to agriculture to allow sufficient food production to feed its own children first.” For this organization, “there is no food sovereignty without arable land”.
Source: The daily newspaper of January 18, 2020