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Some Outstanding Issues in the Debate on External Promotion of Land Privatisation
Author(s) -
Hunt Diana
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
development policy review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.671
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1467-7679
pISSN - 0950-6764
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7679.2005.00283.x
Subject(s) - adjudication , equity (law) , scope (computer science) , land tenure , promotion (chess) , political science , land reform , diversity (politics) , order (exchange) , agriculture , psychological intervention , development economics , public economics , economics , geography , politics , law , programming language , archaeology , finance , computer science , psychology , psychiatry
Since the early 1990s, the dominant consensus in the debate on land rights reform in sub‐Saharan Africa has been that external interventions to privatise land rights are usually inappropriate and likely to remain so. This article suggests that two elements in the debate – the scope for varying adjudication criteria, procedures and support systems in order to enhance equity, and the influence of a region's agro‐ecological and socioeconomic characteristics on the impacts of tenure change – merit further attention. The article urges a shift towards a more pragmatic approach, sensitive to the diversity of both physical and socio‐economic conditions within which tenure systems operate. Illustrative evidence is drawn from a relatively low‐potential farming region in eastern Kenya.