Push, pull, and push-back to land certification: regional dynamics in pilot certification projects in Côte d'Ivoire

Catherine Boone, Brice Bado, Aristide Mah Dion and Zibo Irigo

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Since 2000, many African countries have adopted land tenure reforms that aim at comprehensive land registration (or certification) and titling. Much work in political science and in the advocacy literature identifies recipients of land certificates or titles as 'programme beneficiaries', and political scientists have modelled titling programmes as a form of distributive politics. In practice, however, rural land registration programmes are often divisive and difficult to implement. This paper tackles the apparent puzzle of friction around rural land certification. We study Côte d'Ivoire's rocky history of land certification from 2004 to 2017 to identify political economy variables that may give rise to heterogeneous and even conflicting preferences around certification. Regional inequalities, social inequalities, and regional variation in pre-existing land tenure institutions are factors that help account for friction or even resistance around land titling, and thus the difficult politics that may arise around land tenure reform. Land certification is not a public good or a private good for everyone.

Keywords: land; Côte d'Ivoire; inequalities; political economy; land tenure; ES/R005753/1; STICERD; RIIF Seed Fund (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2021-09-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Journal of Modern African Studies, 1, September, 2021, 59(3), pp. 247 - 272. ISSN: 0022-278X

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/107532/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:107532

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().