A new World Bank report, “Securing Africa’s Land for Shared Prosperity,” claims that Africa could end land grabs, grow more food and improve development, if its governments champion the reforms needed to document communual lands. The report says 90 per cent of Africa’s rural land is undocumented, making it vulnerable to land grabs and expropriation without adequate compensation.
The report contains an action plan for change that includes steps such as regularizing tenure rights for squatters on public land, tackling the weak governance and corruption endemic to land governance in many countries and reforms to customary ownership laws. Laws that exclude the 70 per cent of Africa’s farmers who are women.