Review of literature on property-rights and land-use change in East Africa
State-supported individualization
Resilient customary common property
Overview of development pathways in East Africa
Review of the models of property-rights and land-use change
The demand-driven model of property-rights change
The Bromley model of the property-rights gradient
The supply of property-rights change
North’s model of institutional change
A model of property-rights and land-use change for the African Savannah
Regional- and national-level variables
Individual- and community-level variables
Direct relationships among the variables
Land use and property rights in the Borana Plateau of Southern Ethiopia
Physical and social dimensions
Institutional structure, resource use, and property regimes
Methods used in field research
Land-use and property-rights systems in Africa are expected to evolve along two main pathways during the coming decades. In the subhumid and wetter semi-arid areas, crop and livestock enterprises are expected to become more integrated. Crop residues will generate more feed for livestock, and livestock will provide more traction power and nutrients for crops. It is expected that privatization of property rights to both agricultural and grazing lands will increase and that land will be more easily exchanged. In the arid areas, mobile livestock-production is expected to remain the dominant land use, with cultivation only increasing in the few areas that are favored with fertile soils and good supplies of groundwater. Property rights are expected to change gradually, with more exclusive property rights emerging in some dry-season grazing areas (McIntire, Bourzat, and Pingali 1992; Winrock International 1992).
Between the wetter semi-arid and arid areas lies a large transition zone where land use and property rights could evolve toward either integrated crop–livestock systems or remain under mobile livestock-production. Similarly, property rights could either tend toward increased privatization, or remain as common or state-owned property, or slide toward open access. In the unimodal rainfall areas of western Africa, this transition zone is defined by having an average annual rainfall of between 300 and 700 millimeters. In the bimodal rainfall areas of eastern Africa, this transition zone is defined by average annual rainfall of between 500 and 1,000 millimeters (Ellis and Galvin 1994).
The objective of this chapter is to enhance understanding of the dynamic processes that are shaping property rights and land use in the transition zone in East Africa. Particular attention is given to a rapidly changing situation in southern Ethiopia. The section following this introduction reviews past studies of changes in property rights and land use in East Africa. The next section contains a review of the theoretical literature on property-rights change. A conceptual framework is presented in the fourth section, which offers a better understanding of the processes of property-rights and land-use change in semi-arid East Africa. In the penultimate section, the conceptual framework is used to frame an in-depth study of property rights and land use change in the Borana Plateau of Southern Ethiopia. The closing section consists of a discussion and conclusions.
In the last few years, several studies have been conducted on property-rights and land-use change in pastoral and agropastoral areas of East Africa. This section reviews studies from Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan that have identified factors causing changes in property rights and land use. The studies are categorized by the pathways they depict:
These studies illustrate the many different pathways to development being pursued in the arid and semi-arid areas of East Africa.
Ensminger (1992) conducted a study of long-term changes in economic institutions among the Orma pastoralists of northeastern Kenya. The Orma population stands at 40,000. They currently occupy an area to the west of Tana River with an average annual rainfall of 400 to 600 millimeters spread over two rainy seasons (Jaetzold and Schmidt 1983).
Until the middle of this century, the Orma had abundant grazing resources that were governed by a loosely defined set of norms. These resources became increasingly scarce as the Kenyan government expropriated large tracts of land to establish irrigation schemes, game reserves, and government ranches in the 1950s. Turkana pastoralists also encroached into Orma territory during drought. In response to the increased grazing pressure, the Orma devised a system of restrictions on the use of pastures near their villages. This effectively excluded transhumant herds and established a local commons. The Orma Council of Elders oversaw the management and use of the common pastures. This Council was a decentralized form of government that relied on consensus of community members. Individual community members enforced the decisions of the Council.
Demand for grazing resources increased between the 1950s and 1980s as improvements in transportation infrastructure resulted in increases in the local price of cattle. Encroachment by Somali pastoralists further reduced grazing land available to the Orma. In the mid-1980s, the Orma Council of Elders effectively admitted that it was no longer able to enforce the rules that maintained the local commons. During the drought of 1985, an interest group of commercially oriented sedentary livestock producers was able to convince the Kenyan central government (the state) to intervene to prevent further Somali encroachment into the region. The state expanded the local commons and more effectively enforced the rules. State intervention was through the local chief, with the support of most of the elders.
The Orma case study shows the way that external factors can combine to induce reform in the demand for changes at three levels: property rights, composition of interest groups, and legislation in terms of rule formulation and enforcement. Improvements in transport and communication infrastructure had the dual benefit of increasing the returns from commercial cattle production and reducing the state’s law-enforcement costs. Interest groups were formed to influence state policy in favor of protecting the Orma from the Somali. Law enforcement shifted from the Orma to the local chief and the state security system.
This case study also illustrates the possible impacts of climatic variability. During good rainfall years, the Somali pastoralists had little reason to encroach upon Orma territory. With drought, however, the Somalis moved further into Orma territory. This put pressure on the local institutions. In one instance the institutions that govern resource use among the Orma became stronger and resisted the encroachment. In another instance those institutions became weaker.
The Kenyan government has been sponsoring privatization of agricultural land since the mid-1950s. The Swynnerton Plan was a colonial-government program for the registration of private title deeds to agricultural land. Implementation of the Swynnerton Plan began under the colonial government and continued with the postcolonial government. While the original plan did not allow for the registration of individual title deeds to pastoral land, some people took advantage of the provisions of the plan to register individual title deeds to some of the most productive land in Maasailand.
The two districts of Kajiado and Narok that encompass modern Maasailand cover approximately 36,000 square kilometers of land. Average annual rainfall varies from 300 to 800 millimeters in Kajiado and from 500 to 1,000 millimeters in Narok. In 1979, the average population density was 7 persons per square kilometer in Kajiado and 13 persons per square kilometer in Narok (Jaetzold and Schmidt 1983). Group ranches were promoted in the Kenyan Maasailand for several reasons:
It was hoped that, overall, the result would be greater offtake of animals and fewer livestock to counter the prevailing trend of overstocking. Group-ranch development began in the mid-1960s and was mostly completed by 1980. Groups of Maasai men were registered as the legal owners of individual tracts of land ranging from 50 to 1,000 square kilometers (Galaty 1992).
Some positive results undoubtedly came out of the development of the group ranches for the Maasai living in Maasailand. Individual appropriation of land was scaled down and the influx of non-Maasai into Maasailand was stemmed. Development projects funded the construction of some livestock-production infrastructure, such as boreholes, dams, troughs, tanks, pipelines, and cattle dips. Schools, shops, and health clinics were also established (Ruttan 1995).
Nonetheless, despite the heavy investment, stocking rates, herd mobility, and marketing behavior did not change significantly. Indeed, Homewood (1993) reported that, after 20 years of group ranches, there are no significant differences in livestock production, wealth, or human nutrition between the Maasai in Kenya and their counterparts in Tanzania. Negative results commonly noted include the following:
This case study illustrates a dynamic relationship between property rights outside of the pastoral sector and the supply and demand for property-rights change in the pastoral sector. On the supply side, the group-ranch concept was based on the premise that private property would lead to greater efficiency and productivity. The group ranch was seen as a means to strengthen group property rights. On the demand side, some individuals took advantage of the titling scheme and were able to obtain title deeds to rangeland. This reduced security of tenure under the customary system and increased demand for group ranches (Ruttan 1995).
Before, during, and after the development of the group ranches in Kenya, many Maasai expressed a demand for individual title deeds. Individual titles were first granted for better-watered areas close to the urban center of Nairobi. As problems with the group ranches emerged, group ranches were subdivided and areas that had not previously been adjudicated into group ranches were individualized (Grandin 1991). By 1990, owners of 40 of the 51 group ranches had decided to subdivide their land.
Ruttan (1995) conducted research in two of the seven subdivided ranches in Kajiado District. In Okinos, the average ranch size was 47 hectares, while in Embolioi the average ranch size was 93 hectares. Former members of the group-ranch committees obtained ranches twice as large as those received by ordinary members. Between 1986 and 1990, more than one-third of all those holding titles had applied for further subdivision of their land for sale to other parties. Ten percent of all title holders had transferred a total of 2.4 percent of all of the land. Of the 37 plots sold, 84 percent were purchased by non-Maasai. Nominal land prices increased nearly 10-fold between 1986 and 1994.
A smaller number of pastoralists (2.2 percent of title holders) had mortgaged their land to receive loans. Very little had been invested in fences, boreholes, or other capital. Most of the proceeds from the sale of land apparently were invested in the construction of modern homes. Thus it seems that the demand for individual titles to rangeland is driven by three main factors. First, the parts of Maasailand with good overland connections to Nairobi, with good soils, and that receive good rainfall are of high value in nonpastoral land uses. Second, actual demand has resulted in a speculative demand for less-favored areas. Third, people observe that national policies favor private property over common property. The incentive to increase individual investments in grazing land does not appear to be a major factor.
Behnke (1986) summarizes studies undertaken on “spontaneous range enclosure” in the South Darfur Province of Sudan and the central rangelands of Somalia. In South Darfur, range enclosure—appropriation of rangeland by erecting thorn fencing around plots—occurred in two areas. One was an area in the environs of Nyala town, where agropastoralists enclosed land to protect gardens used to produce fodder for sale in Nyala. The second was in an area where land resources were subjected to increasing pressure from permanent residents and seasonal transhumants. Most private enclosures were claimed by the wealthier herd owners who could afford the cost of fencing.
In central Somalia, range enclosure occurred in both the agropastoral and pastoral zones. In the agropastoral zone, range enclosure was stimulated by the development of boreholes, which increased the competition for nearby cultivated land. Some of the enclosures may have been speculative, with people anticipating future increases in land pressure. Traditional usufruct rights to cropland supported claims to private enclosures. Enclosure in the pastoral area around El-Buur town was stimulated by the drought of the 1970s, which increased the relative value of good pasture near town; national agricultural policies that favored cultivation; and the interests of particular descent groups to enclose the best pastures for their own exclusive use, while still using what was left of the common pastures.
Behnke concludes that individuals will enclose common pastureland when they judge enclosure to be practical and profitable. Profitability changed as a result of changes in technology (for example, exogenous development of boreholes) and changes in market conditions (for example, increase in urban population). Climatic conditions may also induce individualization. During droughts, plots of land that produce better and more reliable fodder may be enclosed as they acquire a higher scarcity value than other plots in the area. Behnke also concludes that national policies and local institutions determine the ease with which individuals defy customary rules against enclosure. Local institutions were more consistent with individualization in the agropastoral area than in the pastoral area.
Stiles (1992) and McCabe (1990) describe two situations in arid and semi-arid regions of northern Kenya in which customary systems of production and property rights appear to be very resilient. Customary systems continue to be viable despite variable environmental conditions, conflict with neighboring groups, and changes in the economic and political environment. Stiles (1992) describes the case of the Gabbra, a group of 35,000 pastoral people living in an area measuring 40,000 square kilometers of north-central Kenya. Rainfall in the Gabbra area increases as the elevation changes, with average annual rainfall ranging from 150 millimeters in the Chalbi Desert to nearly 1,000 millimeters in the Marsabit and Kulal highlands. McCabe (1990) describes the case of the Ngisonyoka Turkana—10,000 people living in an area of about 10,000 kilometers in northeastern Kenya. Mean annual rainfall across the area is about 220 millimeters per year. The areas occupied by either group is not cultivated, although some of boundary of the area occupied by the Gabbra is cultivated.
The Ngisonyoka Turkana and the Gabbra defend the boundaries of their territories with military force. Drought conditions result in greater conflict as the groups residing in the area try to spread over more land, while at the same time, neighboring groups increasingly do the same. In normal years, the Ngisonyoka Turkana only use about three-quarters of their territory to avoid the risk of violent conflict and banditry from the neighboring Pokot and Karamojong groups. However, in drought years, they run the risks and rely quite heavily on the contested areas.
The Gabbra maintain particularly strong and centralized sociopolitical–religious institutions that support the common-property regime. Wells belong to the clan or group that dug them and are managed by a “father of the well.” Elected leaders, called hayu, act as judges. Their appointees, jallabu, serve as mediators. The Nginsonyoka Turkana have a more decentralized form of governance. Wells are owned by individual families and councils of elders resolve disputes.
McCabe (1990) and Stiles (1992) argue that these systems continue functioning smoothly despite changes in national policies toward property rights, in environmental conditions, in technology, and in the activities of donor and international agencies. National policies on property rights that had so much impact in Maasailand have had little impact on the Turkana and Gabbra. However, technical and social changes initiated and promoted by nongovernmental organizations and development-assistance agencies have had a greater impact. The construction of modern wells has threatened the social bases of resource-management regimes. The availability of modern weaponry has escalated intergroup conflicts. Education has reduced the availability of labor, and the Christian religion has reduced the social bases of the property-rights regime. Population growth has not been a major driving force. On the contrary, out-migration and children’s going to school are reducing the labor available for herding. This is critical, since the systems of herd splitting and hand elevation of water from deep wells “… results in the highest level of work recorded for any society in the world” (Stiles 1992, 46).
The Butana area of Sudan is located to the east of Khartoum, between the White Nile and Atbara rivers. Rainfall is extremely variable in space and time. Mean annual rainfall over the last 90 years has been 150 millimeters. The main natural resources are grazing land, wadi or riverine areas, and water. The indigenous residents of the area are the Shukriya. In contrast to the northern Kenyan study-areas described above, the Butana has undergone monumental changes, especially during the last three to four decades. Kirk (1994) describes how those changes have led to the destruction of a functional common-property regime and the creation of open access to the grazing resources.
According to Kirk (1994), a common-property regime was established throughout the plains of eastern Sudan between the seventh and thirteenth centuries. Land use in the area has changed gradually, with mechanized cultivation of durra beginning in the 1940s to supply British army troops. Mechanized, rainfed agriculture and irrigation schemes expanded after the 1940s, with durra, groundnuts, and wheat being the main crops. Now most of the south of the Butana is cultivated.
Despite these changes in the external environment and land use, the regime for common property remained intact and functional until 1971. Between 1969 and 1971, the Native Administration was abolished and two new laws were imposed: the Land Administration Act and the Unregistered Land Act. These changes in national policy resulted in strengthening the state’s claim of ownership to communal land, disenfranchising the customary authorities, and creating open access to grazing land. The results have been reduced mobility for the Shukriya; increased competition between Shukriya and other ethnic groups for the available pasture lands (Kirk 1994); and reduction in the quality of the pasture, with perennial grasses and the best browsing shrubs virtually disappearing from the landscape (Kirk, Rahmann, and Weiser 1994).
From this review, it is possible to identify some similarities and numerous differences across the semi-arid areas of East Africa. Internal population growth has been a ubiquitous catalyst of change across East Africa, although local demographic changes have varied from one place to the other. Permanent and temporary out-migration have reduced total labor supply in northern Kenya, while net in-migration has added to local growth and thus further increased the total labor supply in the Kenyan Maasailand. Commercialization has resulted in increased incentives for livestock production in northeastern Kenya and the Butana of Sudan but appears to have had very little impact in northern Kenya. The land-titling program that was instituted in Kenya had major impacts in Maasailand but has not had major impacts in the drier pastoral areas.
Changes in environmental conditions appear to have had similar effects in all of the study sites. During good rainfall years, people are able to obtain most of the feed that their livestock need from nearby pastures, where property rights are most secure. Grazing lands that are contested by more than one group, or normally controlled by another group, are left alone. Grazing or fallow lands that have favorable soil and water conditions may be cultivated. Most customary systems support the rights of individual families to appropriate land for crop cultivation. In some instances, people take advantage of those provisions to appropriate much larger areas than they need to cultivate.
During drought years, neighboring pasture cannot adequately feed livestock. Pastoralists with large herds and highly mobile production systems are willing to travel long distances in search of feed. This may take them onto contested rangelands and into the normal home pastures of other groups. Conflict over control of pasture land is common. Three outcomes of conflict have been observed in these case studies: some areas become permanently insecure and contested, some areas that were previously claimed by one group are appropriated by another group, or some areas that were previously governed very loosely are governed more tightly.
The following section of the chapter reviews existing models of changes in land use and property rights. The models go from the simple demand-driven model to the more complete conceptual framework provided by Douglass North. Elements of those models are then used in the analytical framework.
Demsetz (1967) and Posner (1977) first developed what is called here the “demand-driven” model of property-rights change. The essence of that model is that society will define and enforce more exclusive and secure rights when the benefits exceed the costs. The benefits of more exclusive and secure rights include the transfer of resources to more efficient uses and users, increased investment in the resources, using land as collateral, and reducing litigation over obscure property rights. The costs of more exclusive and secure rights are the transaction costs associated with the definition and enforcement of rights over smaller and more individualised units of land. The net benefits of exclusive and secure rights increase as populations grow and markets become more commercialised.
Several authors have criticized the demand-driven model and its applicability in Africa. The main criticisms are as follows:
However, even the critics admit that the demand-driven model captures at least two important dimensions of property-rights change. First, changes in the scarcities of production inputs and market opportunities change people’s perceptions of the merits of different property rights. Second, the general trend in contemporary Africa is toward more individualised property rights (Plateau 1995; Netting 1993).
Bromley (1991) distinguishes four property regimes: private property, common property, state property, and open access. Private property provides the greatest opportunities for extraction of economic surplus but involves the highest transaction costs. Common property is next in terms of both economic rent and transaction costs, followed by state property and open access. As a result, therefore, the gradient of property rights and economic rent will be socially efficient, with land that would generate the highest rent as private property, land that can generate the next highest level of rent as common property, followed by state property and open access for land that would generate lower levels of economic rents. With everything else equal, therefore, this model predicts a pathway of property-rights change with resources gradually moving from open access, to state property, to common property, and ultimately to private property as population growth and increased commercialisation lead to increases in the scarcity of the land.
Anderson and Hill (1975) recognized that costs are associated with institutional change. Property-rights institutions gradually change in response to changes in the marginal benefits and marginal costs associated with the definition and enforcement of property rights. Howitt (1995) added to the Anderson and Hill model. He proposed that changes in property rights will occur in discrete jumps because of the lumpy and irreversible nature of reforms in property rights and uncertainty over the streams of benefits emanating from many natural resources. Two important results follow. One, the switch from one property regime to another will occur when the present value of the costs of unmet future demands minus the value of the option to switch in the future equals the lump-sum cost of making the switch. Two, increases in uncertainty about benefit streams increase the value of the option to switch in the future. Efficient switches in property rights will thus require greater excess demand when physical deliveries are more uncertain.
Hayami and Ruttan (1984) and Feeny (1988) develop a model of “induced institutional innovation” that pays more attention to factors affecting the supply of institutional innovation. These authors accept that efficient institutions may not be forthcoming for two reasons: the overall national interest diverges from economic efficiency, or the interests of elite government officials diverge from the economic interests of society. Feeny (1988) provides an example from Thailand in which these two divergences slowed the development of irrigated rice. The supply of institutional change therefore depends upon the costs of such change and the capacity and keenness of the political establishment to set up new institutions.
Concern with the keenness of the political establishment to found new institutions is illustrated in the interest-group and rent-seeking models of property rights. According to Eggertsson (1990, 275–276),
The interest group theory of property rights takes the fundamental social and political institutions of the community as given, and seeks to explain the property rights in various industries in terms of interaction between interest groups in the political market.
Another way to articulate the interest-group theory is in terms of rent-seeking. Eggertsson (1990, 279) defines rent-seeking as
attempts by individuals to increase their personal wealth while at the same time making a negative contribution to the net wealth of their community.
A limitation of the models of rent seeking is that they are based on the assumption that states will supply workable systems to govern property rights in the absence of pressure from interest groups.
Figure 9.1 shows a model of institutional change that draws upon several recent papers written by D. C. North (1989, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995) and by Denzau and North (1994). At the bottom right corner are the factors normally considered to be exogenous demand-shift variables: prices, technology, and culture. Changes in those variables can cause changes in preferences for economic institutions and for membership in different types of local organizations (such as cooperatives or women’s savings groups) and interest groups. Filtering those preferences are mental models—“internal representations that individual cognitive systems create to interpret the environment” (Denzau and North 1994). Informal institutions—norms and conventions—can change directly as a result of changes in preferences. Formal institutions change as a result of political processes resulting from the interactions between interest groups and organizations and the interactions between these two kinds of groups and the rulemakers.
FIGURE 9.1 A depiction of North’s model of institutional change
Sources: Based on North (1989, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995); Denzau and North (1994).
The outcome of these interactions will depend upon the transaction costs associated with institutional change and the bargaining power of the different interest groups and organizations. North (1990) defines transaction costs as the costs of measuring and enforcing the valuable attributes of goods, services, and performance.
North separates the state into rulemakers and rule enforcers (for example, parliament and the judiciary, respectively). The objectives of rulemakers and rule enforcers may differ and may or may not be consistent with economic efficiency or growth. Political institutions shape the behavior of rulemakers and rule enforcers in the way that mental models shape individual behavior. North also explicitly considers the possibility that there may be economies of scope in the operation and change of institutions. That is, a change in one economic institution may reduce or increase the costs associated with changing a related institution.
Economic actors engage in production and exchange (transformation and transaction) within a given set of economic institutions, norms, and conventions. The level and distribution of income is one of the outcomes.
North is also concerned with the feedback processes by which economic outcomes have impacts on relative prices, technology, and culture and on individual and shared mental-models. The feedback effects take the form of “information”; the process by which that information influences prices, technology, and mental models is “learning.”
This section describes a conceptual model of property-rights and land-use change. The model builds upon previous models and the case-study literature reviewed in the preceding sections. The model is most appropriate for studying property-rights and land-use change in semi-arid East Africa. Minor modifications could make it appropriate for other regimes and resource use situations.
Several components of the model are inspired by North’s model of institutional change. First, individuals channel their demands for institutional change through local interest groups and organizations. Second, rule- makers and rule- enforcers may be distinct entities that respond to different incentives. Third, endogenous feedback from outcomes to individual decision making may be an important source of institutional change. Fourth, transaction costs and bargaining power are important to the outcome of the interactions between local interest groups, organizations, rule- makers, and rule enforcers.
This study follows a plural legal approach; that is, it looks at the behavior of individual resource users and the institutions affecting that behavior. Resource users respond to a variety of institutions that emanate from different social groupings and are enforced by different types of social and legal authorities. Those institutions are likely to overlap. This is to say that more than one institution will provide sanctions, support, or both for the same type of behavior (Spiertz and Wiber 1996). People will “forum shop” among different institutions to obtain the best interpretation of their position. Other things being equal, the greater the differences between the institutions that affect a particular type of behavior, the greater the incentive for people to forum shop. Individuals, local interest groups, and organizations that seek changes in property rights will also forum shop with local, regional, and national rule- makers and rule- enforcers to find the best response to their demands.
This model focuses on the determination of property rights and land use at the community level. It assumes that property rights and land use are primarily determined by processes that are endogenous to local communities. In addition, the model depicts two-way relationships between the local, regional, and national levels. Institutions that are created and enforced at the national and regional levels affect local-level institutions.
Local interest groups and organizations in turn can have some influence on regional- and national-level legislation. The case studies reviewed in the preceding section suggest that national rule makers and rule-enforcers have important positive and negative influences on local-level circumstances. In some instances, national rule makers may be responsive to pressures from local interest groups and organizations. Ensminger (1992) describes a case in which the national government had relatively positive impacts and was responsive to interest groups constituted by Orma people. On the other hand, Kirk (1994) describes a case in which the national government had a number of negative impacts and was unresponsive to circumstances in the Butana of Sudan.
Because external agencies often drive property-rights change in Africa, development-assistance agencies and nongovernmental organizations are explicitly included in the model. Development assistance agencies and nongovernmental organizations have a direct influence on institutional change through local interest groups and organizations, and through various levels of rule-making and rule-enforcing bodies. For example, the World Bank has more influence at the national level, while many nongovernmental organizations have influence at the local level. Development-assistance agencies also have indirect impacts on property rights through their effects on market conditions and technology (for example, distribution of fertilizer, vaccines, and animal-drawn implements) and on the incentive of individuals.
The main driving forces behind institutional change are changes in population, density, population structure, climatic conditions, market conditions, and the technologies that are available. Population density affects the relative price of labor and land and the demand for subsistence foods. Population density fluctuates in response to endogenous population growth and from net migration into or out of the area.
Changes in population structure are also an important driving force. In the semi-arid regions of Africa, population structure has changed as adult men and women have moved to urban areas in search of employment. Mortality due to auto-immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) has further reduced the availability of laborers and increased the number of children and elderly people each laborer has to support.
Market conditions and technology are generally regarded as important determinants of the demand for property rights and institutional change. Relevant market conditions include the level and variability of prices, price and income elasticities of demand, market distortions, and transaction costs. Important markets are those for key inputs for livestock and crop production—labor, land, water, veterinary supplies, and fertilizer—and markets for possible outputs—food crops, cash crops, tree products, milk, and meat. Important production and harvesting techniques in pastoral and agropastoral areas include wells and water tanks for providing water for people and livestock, irrigation for crop production, livestock-disease control, livestock feed-production techniques, and techniques for harvesting tree products.
Climatic conditions are also particularly important in the African savanna. Of importance are both the level and distribution of rainfall that people expect in the near future and the level of rainfall recently realized. The case studies presented above and available literature support several hypotheses about the effects of climatic variability:
This model has endogenous variables at both the individual and community levels. “Individual” here refers to an individual unit that makes decisions about production and resource use. Depending upon the situation, the relevant unit may be a person, a production unit within a household, a household, or an aggregation of households. “Community” here means the lowest-level grouping of decision-making units that exerts some control over resource use in a defined land area.
The driving forces described above affect the incentives that individuals have to allocate resources and the incentives for joining organizations, following rules, and demanding more institutional arrangements (Eggertsson 1990). For the case of property rights and land use in semi-arid East Africa, the most important incentives are those for
Figure 9.2 illustrates four types of community-level variables: community rule- makers and rule-enforcers; local interest groups and organizations; the constellation of social and legal institutions, including those related to resource use; and community-level property rights, cultivation, investment, and resource use. Rapid and disruptive changes in local rule-makers and rule enforcers may occur in response to political changes at the regional and national level. For example, changes in the policies of the Sudanese government between 1969 and 1971 resulted in fundamental changes in local rule-making and rule-enforcing in the Butana. Community rule-makers and rule-enforcers change in a more incremental way in response to pressures exerted by interest groups and organizations or to the changes in the costs of rule enforcement through different types of institutions (Ensminger 1992).
FIGURE 9.2 A framework for evaluating local-, regional-, and national-level processes of property-rights and land-use change
Interest groups and organizations may be somewhat more sensitive to local-level changes, particularly changes in the incentives for individuals to comply with existing institutions or demand new institutions. Most of those changes will be incremental, with many incremental changes adding up to the creation of new organizations or dissolution of existing ones. More rapid and erratic changes are likely to occur in response to the actions of international-development organizations and nongovernmental organizations. For example, the creation of pastoral organizations has been the direct objective of many livestock-development projects since the mid-1980s (de Haan 1994).
The third set of community-level variables—the constellation of social and legal institutions—is responsive to external and local circumstances. Legal institutions will be largely determined by national rule-makers, but they may be interpreted and enforced locally. Social institutions will be more responsive to local circumstances. Some changes will occur in response to the explicit demands for institutional change expressed by local resource-users, either directly in response to demands by local individuals or groups, or indirectly through the actions of rule-makers and rule enforcers. Other changes may occur when local rule-makers and rule-enforcers change rules in response to human welfare or environmental outcomes.
The fourth set of local level variables—local property rights, cultivation, investment and resource use—is primarily determined by local-level circumstances. In more detail, the variables are as follows:
Two other sets of variables can be defined at either the individual or community levels: values, objectives, and assets; and human welfare, resource quality, and environmental outcomes. The first set of variables corresponds roughly to North’s “mental models,” but is here expressed in terms that are more amenable to quantification and measurement. Of particular interest in the semi-arid regions of Africa are differences in objectives due to differences in risk preferences (in turn related to assets) and differences in values and objectives among ethnic groups that are traditionally associated with pastoralism or agriculture.
The second set of variables are outcomes that can be measured at a particular point in time or for a particular period of time. The relevant outcomes will vary from case to case, but generally the model focuses on measures of efficiency, equity, and environmental sustainability. Clearly, definitions and measures of all of these concepts differ. Goldin and Roland-Holst (1995) distinguish between static efficiency (for example, land allocation, investment, and resource-use levels that maximize the value of outputs produced within a single period) and intertemporal efficiency (for example, land allocation, investment, and resource-use levels to maximize long-term welfare). Outcomes could also be measured in terms of project efficiency: do the costs of a change in rules outweigh the potential benefits?
The demand for changes in property rights is a function of a number of incentives: for changing land use, making fixed investments in land or water, moving livestock herds around the landscape, adhering to or deviating from the dictates of existing property rights, and using a resource at different intensities. Each of these incentives in turn depends on some factors that apply across the board to a community or locality (for example, climate), some factors that are general to subgroups in the community (for example, factors such as technology, market conditions, values, and objectives), and other factors that are specific to subgroups or individual members of the community (for example, factors such as assets and transaction costs). These relationships are presented in very general terms in equations (1) and (2a–2e):
DPRChangei = f1 (ICulti, IInvesti, IMovei, IStocki, ICheati), [1]
ICulti = f2 (MkCp, MkLv, MkLb, TchCp,
VCp, VLv, CVCpLv, Assi, Tci, Valuei), [2]
IInvesti = f3 (MkCp, MkLv, MkLb, TchCp,
VCp, VLv, CVCpLv, Assi, Tci, Valuei), [2b]
IMovei = f4 (VLv, MkLb, Assi, ICulti, TchLv, Tci, Valuei), [2c]
IStocki = f5 (MkLv, MkCp, MkLb, VLv, Assi, Tci, Valuei), and [2d]
Icheati = f6 (MkLv, MkLb, VLv, Assi, Tci, Valuei), [2e]
where
DPRChangei = demand for property rights change by individual i;
Iculti = incentive for cultivation by individual i;
Iinvesti = incentive to make fixed land investments by individual i;
Imovei = incentive to move livestock around the landscape by individual i;
Istocki = incentive to keep different numbers of livestock by individual i;
Icheati = incentive to comply with or deviate from the terms of existing property rights;
MkCp, MkLv, MkLb = market conditions of the crop, livestock, and labor markets, respectively;
TchCp, TchLv = techniques for crop and livestock production, respectively;
VLv, VCp, CVCpLv = variation in livestock production, crop production, and covariation;
Assi = assets held by household i;
Tci = transaction costs for household i; and
Valuei = values and objectives of individual i.
McCarthy (Chapter 6) uses a game theoretical approach to explore equations (2d) and (2e). Goodhue and McCarthy (Chapter 7) use the analytics of fuzzy-set theory to explore equation (2c). Both are based on the assumption that livestock owners seek to maximize utility, where utility is a function of the level and variability of income.
Many changes in the demand for property rights that are more secure and for changes in land use are accommodated within the existing constellation of social and legal institutions. Indeed, many analysts have argued that Africa’s customary systems of property rights are flexible enough to accommodate most of the pressures associated with commercialization and population growth (Swift 1995; Platteau 1995). In the framework presented here, those demands for changes in property rights have direct impacts on local property-rights.
However, some demands for changes in property rights, particularly demands regarding the mobility of livestock and exchange of property rights, may not be so accommodated. In that situation, individuals may try to cause direct change in the social and legal institutions, for example, by openly defying the existing institutions. Individuals may also express their demand for a change in property rights by appealing to local rule-makers (for example, village chiefs) or local rule-enforcers (for example, village courts). Alternatively, individuals may form coalitions—interest groups or organizations, in North’s terminology—with others having similar demands, even if those demands are motivated by different factors. The formation of such coalitions, and their effectiveness in undertaking collective action, is the subject of a great deal of economic and sociological theory (for example, Baland and Platteau 1996; Olson 1965; Oliver, Marwell, and Teixeira 1985; Seabright 1993).
Interest groups or organizations will have incentives to forum shop for the best possible avenue for desirable change; there will be different transaction costs associated with lobbying local rule-makers, local rule-enforcers, regional rule-makers, regional rule-enforcers, and national rule-makers. Changes in transportation and communication infrastructure can cause fundamental changes in those transaction costs and discontinuous changes in forum shopping (Ensminger 1992).
Interest groups and organizations may interact somewhat. Those interactions may give rise to greater cooperation and the development of a mutually beneficial alternative to the existing situation. Interactions may also be simple bargaining situations in which the rules are well defined and bargaining power is well balanced (see Colby 1995). On the other hand, interactions may be full-fledged conflict situations in which interest groups have fundamentally different interests. Vanderlin (Chapter 10) is concerned with these latter two cases.
Important interactions will also occur among interest groups, rule-makers, and rule- enforcers. The outcome of these interactions will depend on the bargaining power of the different interest groups and the interests and incentives of the rule-makers and rule enforcers. A great deal of evidence indicates that changes in the incentives of rule-makers and rule enforcers is a fundamental cause of the breakdown in the capacity of local institutions to enforce existing property rights or respond to demands for new rights (for example, Swallow and Bromley 1995). Given its importance, however, more research on the incentives of rule-makers and rule enforcers is needed (Agrawal and Gibson 1997). North (1989, 1990) has proposed a theory of the incentives of rule-makers to explain different historical developments of property rights and economic progress.
Research using the plural legal framework is shedding light on one key component of the institutional-change process. One cannot judge the relative ability of different interest groups to motivate change in the constellation of social and legal institutions by their bargaining power compared with a particular rule-maker or rule enforcer. On the contrary, bargaining power must be considered across the range of relevant institutions (Van Dijk 1996; Ensminger 1992).
Completing the conceptual framework requires giving more consideration to the internal dynamics of property-rights change. Again, the authors of this study concur with North that outcomes that are fed back to local rule-makers, individuals, and organizations can be an important source of property-rights change and that the result of those feedback effects depend on the path taken. Such feedback seems to be evident in the Maasai case study described in the section Review of Literature on Property-Rights and Land-Use Change in East Africa. In that case, changes in property rights elsewhere in Kenya apparently generated two types of changes in Maasai land: creation of a new, powerful forum for those demanding more individualized property rights; and decreased security of property rights for other Maasai. These changes created conditions for the adoption of the group ranch; disappointing outcomes associated with the group ranch led to the demand for individualization of group ranches.
In this section the model used in the previous section is used to frame an analysis of land-use and property-rights change in the Borana plateau of southern Ethiopia.
The Borana plateau occupies an area of about 95,000 square kilometers in the southern part of the Ethiopian lowlands. The population of about 600,000 people is widely distributed across the plateau, with an estimated density of six people per square kilometer (Coppock 1994). The area is semi-arid, with an average annual rainfall that fluctuates between 499 and 869 millimeters per year. Extensive livestock-production is the dominant land use. Grazing resources on the Borana Plateau (pasture and water) are to a large extent owned communally and administered by traditional elders who formulate rules governing resource use, enforce these rules, and ensure that sanctions and penalties are implemented.
The social organization of the Borana pastoral system is generally based on the gada1 system which divides the Borana community into a number of age groups. A new gada is created every eight years. This age-group system is important for distributing duties, responsibilities, and social rights, and for regulating human population. Each gada is administered by an aba gada, or father of the gada, who is traditionally elected to preside, together with his council of ministers, over all issues affecting pastoral life in Borana. A consensus on important community issues—such as redefinition and enforcement of rules, regulations, and norms—is reached through open, participatory assemblies. An assembly of all the Borana, their representatives (gumi gayu), or both is held every eight years to discuss resource conflicts, cardinal rules, intertribal issues, and a divination of the future of the Borana society (Coppock 1994). The system is believed to have begun in the 1600s to provide the society with a reliable social framework to cope with resource management and population problems. The traditional Borana communal-grazing system allows access to pasture and water to every member of the Borana society who complies with prevailing rules and regulations and who performs the duties expected of him or her. Every herd owner under this system can increase his herd size to convert more of the communal resource into private wealth. The gada system is therefore primarily concerned with regulating the use of the Borana resource base, maintaining peace among the resource users, and protecting them and their cattle from external invasion. The way that the Borana organize land use, settlement, and traditional administration is often noted as very effective when compared with other pastoral systems in Africa. However, this system is now changing quite rapidly.
1 For a more comprehensive review of the gada system, refer to Legesse (1973) and Coppock (1994).
The entire Borana plateau is divided into traditional administrative units called maddas. Each madda is constructed around a permanent water source (traditional deep well or permanent pond) that is administered by a “father of the well.” The wells are of vital importance to Borana pastoralism, and all economic and social life revolves around the wells. There are nine groups of such wells in 35 locations around the central part of the plateau (Helland 1982). The father of a well regulates its use, oversees its maintenance, and coordinates with madda elders on the implementation of rules, regulations, and sanctions regarding the water source. Each madda is subdivided into ardas, and each arda is further subdivided into a number of encampments, or ollas. Each arda has jurisdiction over some form of grazing area, cultivation land, and to a lesser extent, water resources. The ollas consist of at least 10 households and are the smallest administrative units in the system. At the madda, arda, and olla levels, officials (usually elders) manage the affairs of their respective communities. At the madda level, decisions are made regarding which areas are left open as pasture (unsettled), which are open to settlements, and which can be brought under cultivation.
Pastures can either be fora, warra, or calf enclosures. Fora grazing areas are available to bulls and nonlactating cows (dry herds), and are open to all Borana people. Fora areas also include transit areas around permanent water points. Permanent settlement is prohibited in fora areas. Such areas are regarded as fall-back areas “for all” during periods of forage scarcity. Otherwise, there are few restrictions on the use of fora areas. Their management approximates open access.
Warra areas are grazing areas for lactating cows and sick and weak animals. Those animals are returned to the encampment every day so that they can be milked and monitored. Areas within an arda designated as warra are open to members of the arda and to members of different arda under special arrangements. Warra areas are not fenced and exhibit somewhat fuzzy boundaries. Membership to a warra area is open to all arda members and is usually very large. Grazing time is not restricted except during periods of forage scarcity, when herd-splitting2 agreements force dry herds to migrate. Management of warra areas approaches the definition of unmanaged common property of Baland and Platteau (1996) and Seabright (1993).
2 “Herd splitting” refers to the separation of dry herds (nonlactating cattle) from the rest of the animals so that they can be moved over long distances in search of better forage. The duration of stay may vary from a few days to a whole season.
Calf enclosures are thorn-fenced fodder-banks for calves and, to a lesser extent, milking cows. Calf enclosures are only used in the dry season and only by members of a particular arda or olla. Calf enclosures have clearly defined boundaries demarcated by thorn fences. Group size is small, and membership is restricted only to members of the same encampment; there are also a few instances of calf enclosures belonging to private individuals. Access to an enclosure is restricted only to periods of absolute forage scarcity and for specific types of animals. The rules and regulations here are more strictly implemented; collective investment in fencing and, to a lesser extent, bush-clearing is a common practice. Management of calf enclosures approaches the definition of managed common property of Baland and Platteau (1996) and Seabright (1993).
The private regime in Borana is predominantly observed in communities where communal rangeland has been converted to either cultivation or private enclosures. All cultivated areas3 are under private ownership, and fencing is common to secure private claims. Frequently the areas adjacent to cultivated plots are included in the fence and used as private range for draught animals and, to a lesser extent, for calves. In such communities with private enclosures, communal calf-enclosures have almost completely disappeared. This is evident in communities around Arero and Wachile, among others. Privatization is also associated with some investment, such as fencing and bush-clearing.
3 The cultivated areas are mainly around the outskirts (10-kilometer radius) of each of the woreda administrative settlements. The cultivators around such settlements are mainly highlanders coming from the neighboring Guji, Gabbra, or Konso tribes; or Borans who lost all their cattle and ran out of the “pastoral business.” However, there is also a general trend of pastoralists adopting cultivation in almost about 80 percent of all the communities studied.
A survey of Borana pastoral communities (ardas) was conducted between September 1997 and August 1998. Interviews were conducted in 40 ardas. One reason for the survey was to test the model of property-rights and land-use change described previously in this chapter. Field activities consisted of a community survey of 40 communities, followed by in-depth surveys of a subsample of the communities.
The major criteria used to stratify communities were the level of rainfall, variation of rainfall, and access to markets. The rainfall data used in the stratification consisted of monthly time-series data from six years (1992 to 1997) from 12 weather stations distributed across the Borana Plateau. Ardas that were too far from a weather station, that were without permanent residences, or that were dominated by crop production were excluded from the sampling. Four rainfall categories were identified: low rainfall, low coefficient of variation; low rainfall, high coefficient of variation; high rainfall,4 low coefficient of variation; and high rainfall, high coefficient of variation.
4 This is a semi-arid area, and that the highest mean rainfall that has been recorded does not exceed 900 millimeters per year; therefore, the term “high rainfall” is only used in a relative sense to ease the stratification process, and not in the global sense of area receiving far above 1,500 millimeters per year.
In the first phase of the study, participatory rural appraisal-methods were used. Social mapping provided insight into major changes in natural-resource use and the proportions of land area under different land uses—cultivated land, different types of common-property grazing areas, transhumance routes, and private enclosures. Wealth ranking, field visits, geo-referencing of borders, and an intensive interview rounded out the first phase of data collection in each community. The second phase consisted of an in-depth, open-ended interview technique relying on recall information. The survey was further supplemented by information generated through a rapid appraisal of the range condition of the 40 communities by a range expert. For details on the data-collection procedure, see the comprehensive field report of the Borana case study (Kamara [Chapter 15]).
Preliminary analysis shows that several different pathways of property-rights and land-use change have emerged on the Borana plateau. There is evidence of increasing privatization of rangelands motivated by both endogenous and exogenous factors. The observed trend of property rights described here refers not to the property-rights institutions themselves, but their realization at particular points in time as measured by the amount of land or other resources held under different categories of property rights, as described previously in this chapter.
The privatization path is depicted by the percentage of land under cultivation, the percentage of land reserved for grazing with the enclosed fields, and the percentage of land in individual calf-enclosures. Across the 40 communities, an average of 22 percent of the land is privatized, of which 17 percent is enclosed cultivated fields and 5 percent is private calf-enclosures. About 80 percent of the communities in the sample had some cultivation in the 1997/98 agricultural year. Forty-two percent of the communities had some cultivation 10 years ago, 28 percent had some cultivation 20 years ago, and 10 percent had some cultivation 30 years ago. Thus both the total area cultivated and the number of ardas with cultivation have increased rapidly. Rangeland enclosure by private individuals is evident in about 15 percent of the communities and comprises a total of 3 percent of the total area covered by the 40 communities.
Worra grazing is the most significant of all the communal-grazing systems in Borana. It is present in 85 percent of the communities under investigation. Expanded cultivation and privatization of rangelands have encroached a great deal into the worra areas. Despite this encroachment, worra areas still account for about 50 percent of the total land area of the sample communities, suggesting that it is the most important form of common-property regime that still prevails in Borana. Communal calf-enclosures have increased a great deal in the recent past. About 70 percent of communities now have some communal calf-enclosures and 11 percent of the available land area is in communal calf-enclosures.
Communal-grazing areas for dry herds (fora) are present only in about 8 percent of the communities and compose only about 1 percent of the study area. This observation does not imply an insignificantly small fora area all across the plateau, but rather highlights the fact that fora areas are generally unsettled areas that are open to all Borana during periods of forage scarcity. Since fora areas fall outside the borders of the communities under investigation, their proportional representation in terms of community land area is almost nil. The remainder are areas around settlements that are communally grazed by small ruminants, camels, and equines.
The increases in cultivated area and privatization of land rights can be attributed to a variety of exogenous and endogenous factors. An important endogenous factor is population growth. The growth rate of the endogenous Borana population is estimated to be at least 2.5 percent (Coppock 1994), and there is evidence of an influx of non-Borana around the towns. Population growth increases competition among resource users competing for the same resource base. As pressure accumulates on the fixed resource base, negative externalities emerge and the desire for private rights among users increases.
However, greater demand for private-property rights did not result in increases in private-property rights until a major policy change occurred in the mid-1970s. Until the socialist revolution of 1974, rulemaking and rule enforcing was the sole preserve of the traditional Borana elders. These elders were resistant to the spread of cultivation and to the privatization of land rights. Thus, even though cultivation started in about 5 percent of the communities some 40 years ago, it never really took off until the formation of the peasant associations in 1975. Peasant associations are local administrative units that are supported by the national government. Peasant associations in Borana follow laws promulgated at the national and regional levels that support the allocation of private use-rights to households wishing to cultivate. In at least one instance, a single peasant association was recently given jurisdiction over two ardas and individuals from each arda rushed to claim rights to individual plots of land. Increases in cultivation were also stimulated by the national government’s special support program for cultivation. Improved seeds, fertilizer, and extension assistance were made available in the 1980s.
Previous studies also show that market opportunities have been increasing both in terms of better opportunities to sell livestock and livestock products and of improved availability of consumer goods in Borana markets. Moreover, some studies have reported declines in the terms of trade of livestock for grain. These declines were particularly severe in the dry seasons and in drought periods (Cousins and Upton 1988; Coppock 1994).
Private individuals often enclose rangeland under the pretext of increased cultivation. Often, however, less than half of the enclosed area is actually cultivated, while the rest is used for grazing draught animals and calves. The evidence supports two hypotheses for recent increases in private enclosure of rangeland: increased cultivation and increased community enclosure of rangeland has reduced access to dry-season grazing reserves, and the ban on bush fires imposed by the national government in the 1970s led to a dramatic increase in bush encroachment and subsequent loss of grazing areas.
Private enclosure of rangeland requires the construction of thorn fences and some clearing of bushes. Poorer households who cannot afford to erect their own fences often assist wealthier neighbors so that they can be granted grazing rights in the dry season. Poorer households forum shop between two options: aligning themselves with other poorer pastoralists who oppose the enclosures, or joining the wealthy group of investors by occasionally assisting in fencing and other related activities in return for some form of grazing rights in the dry seasons. Interest groups of poorer households that oppose enclosure seem to have made little headway in their opposition to the enclosures. There is evidence that wealthier households have been able to secure their enclosures through affiliation with the heads of the peasant associations. This trend is especially observed in the communities around the towns of Wachile and Arero.
The activities of nongovernmental organizations and other development agencies in Borana have also had effects on property-rights and land-use change. The large ponds constructed by the government agency Southern Rangelands Development Unit and the international nongovernmental organization CARE have contributed to sedentarization and cultivation. The roads and market centers that were constructed to increase access to marketing facilities have in fact had positive effects on stocking rates. Results of these interventions have not been very consistent with expectations, and the reasons for this are numerous (see Coppock 1994). The bush-clearing programs of the German Agency for Technical Cooperation and Norwegian Church Aid have contributed a great deal to the management of worra grazing areas (local commons). These programs facilitate the reclamation of grazing areas that can once again be used by the community. The reclamation program is oriented to the community level: investment and management are in the hands of the entire community.
The case studies reviewed in this chapter do not suggest a ubiquitous trend toward privatization of property rights or cultivation of crops across the semi-arid areas of East Africa. Instead, many different pathways of land-use and property-rights change are observed. The Gabbra and Turkana case studies suggest that the drier parts of the semi-arid region are somewhat immune to change; however, the Butana experience shows that government policies can indeed reach into the driest parts of the semi-arid region. The Butana case is a classic example of a central government’s imposing policies that destroy a functional common-property regime; the Orma case shows a central government assuming the rule-enforcement function from a customary authority that had lost the ability to enforce rules.
The conceptual framework proposed in this chapter builds on the previous literature to provide a fuller understanding of the ramifications of potential effects of precipitation, policies, prices, and people on land use and property rights. The conceptual framework draws attention to the supply-side factors that are particularly important in pastoral East Africa:
The rapid evolution in land use and property rights that has occurred in the Borana Plateau of Ethiopia stems from both internal and external factors. Internally, gradual increases in population density and market access increased the local demand for subsistence food crops and the commercial incentives for livestock production.
Externally, the national government that came to power in 1974 instituted three nationwide policies that encouraged crop cultivation and privatization of land rights. One policy was the active promotion of crop cultivation through the provision of seeds and fertilizer. A second policy was to create local administrative units, called “peasant associations,” with the power to grant cultivation rights to individual farmers. The creation of the peasant associations devolved power from the customary authorities that had been resisting cultivation and the private appropriation of land. Wealthy individuals with good access to peasant-association officers have been able to appropriate large tracts of land, ostensibly for cultivation. A real increase has undoubtedly occurred in the demand for cultivated land, and much of the land allocated for cultivation is actually used as private grazing land.
A third important policy was the ban on bush fires. Effective enforcement of this ban resulted in an increase in bush encroachment and a reduction in the availability of good pasture land. Individuals have demanded greater private rights for two reasons: good pasture land has become increasingly scarce, and individuals are willing to invest labor in manually clearing the bush from private land but not from communal pasture.
The change in government that occurred in the early 1990s also resulted in increased crop cultivation and the privatization of property rights. The new federal structure of government gives much more power to the Oromo regional government. The regional government has increased the size of certain peasant associations by combining two or more preexisting peasant associations. An unexpected result of this in at least one area of the Borana Plateau has been a rush toward privatization of crop and pasture land. The subdivision of group ranches in the Kenyan Maasailand occurred for similar reasons. Another recent policy change that could have major effects on property rights and land use in the Borana Plateau was the imposition of a ban on exports of livestock to Kenya. If maintained, this ban will further increase the price of food crops relative to the price of livestock.
The policies that appear to have had the greatest effect on land use and property rights in the Borana plateau are policies that were implemented countrywide by the national government. It has been implicitly assumed that “one policy fits all.” Policies were not adjusted to the various local contexts in the highlands or lowlands of Ethiopia. The new federal system of government should provide for greater local-level input into the policies of regional governments. It is important that the regional-government authorities recognize the needs of all people living in the Borana Plateau, not just those of the relatively wealthy with good connections in government. The customary authorities of the Borana people should be given voice to effect new policy changes.
Agrawal, A., and C. Gibson. 1997. Community, resources and development beyond enchantment and disenchantment. Mimeo.
Anderson, J. R., J. L. Dillon, and J. B. Hardaker. 1977. Agricultural decision analysis. Ames, Iowa, U.S.A.: Iowa State University Press.
Anderson, T. L. and P. J. Hill. 1975. The evolution of property rights: A study of the American West. Journal of Law and Economics 18 (1): 163–179.
Baland, J.-M., and J.-P. Platteau. 1996. Halting degradation of natural resources: Is there a role for rural communities? Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Bassett, T. J. 1993. Land-use conflicts in pastoral development in northern Côte d’Ivoire. In Land in African agrarian systems, eds. T. J. Bassett and D. E. Crummey. Madison, Wisc., U.S.A.: University of Wisconsin Press.
Behnke, R. 1986. The implications of spontaneous range enclosure for African livestock development policy. African Livestock Policy Analysis Network Paper No. 12. Addis Ababa: International Livestock Research Institute.
Binswanger, H. P. 1981. Attitudes toward risk: Theoretical implications of an experiment in rural India. The Economic Journal 91: 867–889.
Boserup, E. 1981. Population and technological change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bromley, D. W. 1989. Economic Interests and institutions: The conceptual foundations of public policy. New York: Basil Blackwell.
_____. 1991. Environment and economy: Property rights and public policy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Bromley, D. W., and M. M. Cernea. 1989. The management of common property natural resources: Some conceptual fallacies. World Bank Discussion Papers No. 57. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
Bruce, J. 1993. Do indigenous tenure systems constrain agricultural development? In Land in African agrarian systems, eds. T. J. Bassett and D. E. Crummey. Madison, Wisc., U.S.A.: University of Wisconsin Press.
Colby, B. 1995. Bargaining over agricultural property rights. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 77: 1186–1191.
Coleman, J. S. 1988. Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology 94: S95–S120.
Coppock, D. L. 1994. The Borana Plateau of southern Ethiopia: Synthesis of pastoral research, development and change, 1980–91. Addis Ababa: International Livestock Centre for Africa.
Cousins, N., and N. Upton. 1988. Options for improvement of the Borana pastoral system. Agricultural Systems (27): 251–278.
Deacon, R. 1994. Deforestation and the rule of law in a cross-section of countries. Land Economics 70 (4): 414–430.
de Haan, D. 1994. An overview of the World Bank’s involvement in pastoral development. Overseas Development Institute Network Paper 36b. London: Overseas Development Institute.
Demsetze, H. 1967. Toward a theory of property rights. American Economic Review 57: 347–359.
Denzau, A. T., and D. C. North. 1994. Shared mental models: Ideologies and institutions. Kyklos 47 (1): 3–31.
Eggertsson, T. 1990. Role of transactions costs and property rights in economic analysis. European Economic Review (Netherlands) 34: 450–457.
Ellis, J., and K. A. Galvin. 1994. Climate patterns and land-use practices in the dry zones of Africa. BioScience 44 (5): 340–348.
Ensminger, J. 1992. Making a market: The institutional transformation of an African society. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Feeny, D. 1988. The demand for and supply of institutional arrangements. In Rethinking institutional analysis and development, eds. V. Ostrom, D. Feeny, and H. Picht. San Francisco: International Center for Economic Growth.
Firmin-Seller, K. 1995. The politics of property rights. Bloomington, Ind., U.S.A.: Indiana University.
Galaty, J. G. 1992. The land is yours: Social and economic factors in the privatization, sub-division and sale of Maasai ranches. Nomadic Peoples 30: 26–40.
Goldin, I., and D. Roland-Holst. 1995. Economic policies for sustainable resource use in Morocco. In The Economics of sustainable development, eds. I. Goldin and L. A. Winters. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Grandin, B. E. 1991. The Maasai: Socio-historical context and group ranches. In Maasai herding: An analysis of the livestock production system of Maasai pastoralists in eastern Kajiado District, Kenya, eds. S. Bekure, P. N. de Leeuw, B. E. Grandin, and P. J. H. Neate. Addis Ababa: International Livestock Center for Africa.
Helland, J. 1982. Social organization and water control among the Borana. Development and Change (Netherlands) 13: 239–258.
Hogg, R. 1987. Settlement, pastoralism and the commons: The Ideology and practice of irrigation development in northern Kenya. In Conservation in Africa: People, policies and practice, eds. D. Anderson and R. Grove. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Homewood, K. M. 1993. Development and the ecology of Maasai pastoralist food and nutrition. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 29: 61–80.
Howitt, R. E. 1995. Malleable property rights and smooth-pasting conditions. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 77: 1192–1198.
Hyami, Y., and V. Ruttan. 1985. Agricultural development: An International Perspective. Baltimore, Md. U.S.A.: Johns Hopkins Press.
Jaetzold, R., and H. Schmidt. 1983. Farm management handbook of Kenya. Vol. II, Natural conditions and farm management information. Nairobi: Government of Kenya.
Kirk, M. 1995. Ackerbau und tierhaltung im Sudan: Zerstörung autochthoner bedenrechtsformen: Entwicklung und ländlicher raum. Beiträge zur Internationler Zusammenarbeit 29 (6): 23–26.
Kirk, M., G. Rahmann, and A. Weiser. 1994. The importance of technological change in animal production systems. Animal Research and Development, Animal Production in Semiarid Regions (39): 163–172.
Kituyi, M., and N. Kipuri. 1991. Changing pastoral land tenure and resource management in eastern Africa: A research agenda. Paper presented at the Workshop on Land Tenure and Resource Management among Pastoralists, June, Nairobi, Kenya.
Lawry, S. W. 1989. Tenure policy and natural resource management in Sahelian West Africa. LTC Paper 130. Madison, Wisc., U.S.A.: Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin.
Legesse, A. 1973. The gada: Three approaches to the study of African Society. New York: The Free Press.
McCabe, J. T. 1990. Turkana pastoralism: A case against the tragedy of the commons. Human Ecology 18 (1): 81–103.
McCarthy, N. 1996. Common property and cooperation in rural Mexico. Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.
McIntire, J. D., D. Bourzat, and P. Pingali. 1992. Crop–livestock integration in sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
Migot-Adholla, S. E., and J. W. Bruce. 1994. Introduction: Are indigenous African tenure systems insecure? In Searching for land tenure security in Africa, eds. J. W. Bruce and S. E. Migot-Adholla. Dubuque, Iowa, U.S.A.: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.
Netting, R. 1993. Smallholders, householders: Farm families and the ecology of intensive sustainable agriculture. Stanford, Cal., U.S.A.: Stanford University Press.
Ngaido, T. 1996. Redefining the boundaries of control: Post-colonial tenure policies and dynamics of social and tenure change in western Niger. Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin—Madison, U.S.A.
Noronha, R. 1985. A review of the literature on land tenure systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. Report No. ARU 43, Agriculture and Rural Development Unit. Washington D.C.: World Bank.
North, D. C. 1989. A transaction cost approach to the historical development of polities and economies. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 145: 661–668.
_____. 1990. A transaction cost theory of politics. Journal of Theoretical Politics 2 (4): 355–367.
_____. 1992. Institutions, ideology and economic performance. Cato Journal 11 (3): 477–488.
_____. 1994. Constraints on institutional innovation: Transaction costs, incentive compatibility, and historical considerations. In Agriculture, environment and health: Sustainable development in the 21st century, ed. V. W. Ruttan. Minn., U.S.A.: University of Minnesota Press.
_____. 1995. The new institutional economics and third world development. In The new institutional economics and third world development, eds. J. Hariss, J. Hunter, and C. M. Lewis. London: Routledge.
Oliver, P., G. Marwell, and R. Teixeira. 1985. A theory of critical mass: Interdependence, group heterogeneity and the production of collective action. American Journal of Sociology 91 (3): 522–556.
Olson, M. 1965. The logic of collective action. Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.: Harvard University Press.
Otsuka, K., and F. Place. 1998. Land tenure and the management of land and trees: Issues and analytical framework. Paper presented at the International Workshop on Land Tenure and the Management of Land and Trees: Community and Household Case Studies from Asia and Africa, July 1–3, Tokyo Metropolitan University.
Pender, J., G. Duron, and S. Scherr. 1996. Pathways of development in the central region of Honduras. EPTD Discussion Paper No. 45. Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute.
Place, F., and P. Hazell. 1993. Productivity effects of indigenous land tenure systems in sub-Saharan Africa. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 75: 10–19.
Place, F., and K. Otsuka. 1997. Population pressure, land tenure and tree resource management in Uganda. EPTD Discussion Paper No. 24. Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute.
Platteau, J.-P. 1995. The evolutionary theory of land rights as applied to Sub-Saharan Africa: A critical assessment. Cahiers de la Faculte des Sciences Economiques et Sociales No. 145. Namur, Belgium: Facultes Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix.
Posner, R. A. 1977. Economic analysis of law, 2nd ed. Boston: Little Brown.
Roumasset, J., and J. L.-C. Sumner. 1988. The coevolution of property rights and political order: An illustration from nineteenth-century Hawaii. In Rethinking institutional analysis and development, eds. V. Ostrom, D. Feeny, and H. Picht. San Francisco: International Center for Economic Growth.
Ruttan, M. 1995. The tragedy of individualizing the commons: The outcome of subdividing the Maasai pastoralist group ranches in Kajiado District, Kenya. Paper presented at the IASCP Fifth Common Property Conference, May 24–28, Boboe, Norway.
Scoones, I., ed. 1995. Living with uncertainty: New directions in pastoral development in Africa. London: Intermediate Technology.
Schmid, A. A., and L. J. Robison. 1995. Applications of social capital theory. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Econoimcs 27 (1): 59–66.
Seabright, P. 1993. Managing local commons: Theoretical issues in incentive design. Journal of Economic Perspectives 7 (4): 113–134.
Sjaastad, E., and D. W. Bromley. 1997. Indigenous land rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: Appropriation, security and investment demand. World Development (25) 4: 549–562.
Spiertz, J., and M. G. Wiber. 1996. The bull in the china shop; Regulation, property rights and natural resource management: An introduction. In The role of law in natural resource management, eds. J. Spiertz and M. G. Wiber. Amsterdam: VUGA.
Stiles, D. 1992. The Gabbra: Traditional social factors in aspects of land-use management. Nomadic Peoples 30: 41–52.
Swallow, B. M. 1994. The role of mobility within the risk management strategies of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. SARLs Gatekeeper Series, SA 47. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.
_____. 1997. The multiple products, functions and users of natural resource systems. In Multiple functions of common property regimes, eds. B. M. Swallow, R. S. Meinzen-Dick, L. A. Jackson, T. O. Williams, and T. A. White. EPTD Workshop Summary Paper No. 5. Washington D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute.
Swallow, B. M., and D. W. Bromley. 1995. Institutions, governance and incentives in common property regimes for African rangelands. Environmental and Resource Economics 6: 99–118.
Swift, J. 1995. Dynamic ecological systems and the administration of pastoral development. In Living with uncertainty: New directions in pastoral development in Africa, ed. I. Scoones. London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
Taylor, M., and S. Singleton. 1993. The communal resource: transaction costs and the solution of collective action problems. Politics and Society 21 (2): 195.
van den Brink, R. 1990. Pastoralism, property rights and credit: Three essays on indigenous economic institutions in West Africa, Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin—Madison, U.S.A.
van den Brink, R., D. W. Bromley, and J.-P. Chavas. 1995. The economics of Cain and Abel: Agro-pastoral property rights in the Sahel. Journal of Development Studies 31 (3): 373–399.
Van Dijk, H. 1996. Land tenure, territoriality, and ecological instability: A Sahelian case study. In The role of law in natural resource management, eds. J. Spiertz and M. G. Wiber. Amsterdam: VUGA.
Williams, T. O. 1997. Multiple uses of common pool resources in semiarid West Africa: A survey of existing practices and options for sustainable resource management. In Multiple functions of common property regimes, eds. B. M. Swallow, R. S. Meinzen-Dick, L. A. Jackson, T. O. Williams and T. A. White. EPTD Workshop Summary Paper No. 5. Washington D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute.
Winrock International. 1992. Assessment of animal agriculture in Africa. Morrilton, Ark., U.S.A.: Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development.
