The General Assembly Resolution 55/282 of 7 September 2001 dedicated 21st September as the International Day of Peace. The theme for this year is Global Ceasefire and non Violence.
''Security for a few is insecurity for all''
Nelson Mandela
If the benefits of land reform are as apparent as academics and practisioners indicate, why is it that there is so little progress in improving the resource rights of the rural poor? On the one hand, we seem to know the answers to the technical questions of what needs to be done and how to do it. On the other, the lack of political incentives leaves an open question of why, with few exceptions, is land reform not on the political agenda?
At one end of the spectrum, it seems to be a matter of getting
the “ rights” right. At the other, it seems to be a highly complex
problem of fitting many interconnected technical pieces into a politically
challenging jig saw puzzle where one misplaced piece prevents success.
What
is well known about the development puzzle is that when people feel excluded
there will be no stability, without which there will be no sustainability.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the external costs of poverty do
not respect national borders. Think of the transboundary effects of disease,
illegal migration, refugees, pollution, drug trafficing, prostitution
and environmental degradation.
Three significant international events in 2002 provided critical insights into the imperatives for sustainable human development - the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, the World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum in Porto Alegra, Brasil. All three meetings discussed the direct connection between development and security as reflected in such references as:
“The Summit should recognise that peace, security
and stability are essential for achieving sustainable development and
ensure that sustainable development benefits all.”
Introduction to the Issues and Proposals by the WSSD
Chair of the Preparatory Session, UN, 4 February 2002
“There can be no doubt that the root causes of conflict in Africa includes poverty and underdevelopment – two issues which fall outside the mandate of the Security Council.”
R.T.Mabudafhasi,
Deputy Minister, South Africa to the
World Economic Forum, NYC, 30 January 2002.
The issues before the Agricultural Trade Task Force at the World Economic Forum included the need to eliminate trade distorting practises that disadvantages small holder agriculture, the need to facilitate land ownership by small producers and the landless and the growing evidence that, in many contexts, there is an inverse relationship between farm size and productivity which carries additional benefits in terms of employment generation and ecological management.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development addressed the need improve access by the poor to land and water resources and related factor markets. The Summit Plan for Implementation places importance on the need to foster political stability by empowering the poor through legislative, regulatory and judicial systems to secure their access to resources and to build their capacity to participate in policy processes and decision-making affecting their livelihood systems.
These three world meetings, in particular the recently completed Summit in Johannesburg, serve as a barometer of rising understanding of the links between access to assets, rural poverty eradication and economic and political stability. The strategic thrusts of IFAD’s Rural Poverty Report, the plan of action of the World Food Summit, the Rural Strategy of the World Bank, the rural component of the European Commission’s development strategy, the joint efforts of bilaterals in terms of land policy and the growth in civil society rural partnerships are encouraging signs of a renewed vision for agriculture and rural development.
The strategic requirements for renewing rural development are not new. But, lest we forget, 40 years ago the richest 20% of the world’s people had incomes 30 times the poorest 20%. The gap is now 60 times or more. Over these 40 years, the poor in most places have been more interested in becoming entrepreneurs than revolutionaries. But, progress has been delayed, manipulated or defeated by powerful vested interests that have blocked the poor from gaining secure access to assets. Today, poor rural communities are increasingly aware of the powerful interests that often exclude them from opportunities in farming or related rural enterprises. The growth of the mass media, rural communications and information technology combined with family members working in the city and overseas have raised the awareness that while the symptoms of poverty are endemic the causes are systemic.
During this period of time, the rich have become more conservative, since they have more and more to conserve, while the poor are at risk of becoming more revolutionary. After all who wants to conserve poverty, illiteracy and disease. Stability is threatened by people who are becoming increasingly desperate to provide for their families.
Vast numbers of rural people are landless or near landless. They are becoming even more desperate as they are forced to compete with other poor people who are loosing their livelihoods as a consequence of land degradation, expropriation, demographic pressures, ethnic conflicts over land, privatisation of common property, and the expansion of commercial agriculture with its displacing effects on labour through mechanisation.
In the absence of rural opportunities, the poor often follow one of two pathways. First, when property rights are insecure, farmers lack the incentive to invest in the long term productivity of the land. Instead they mine the soil and then move deeper into the forest. This vicious cycle not only degrades the natural resource base but ultimately produces environmental refugees. When moving is no longer an option, the initial insecurity caused by environmental and biodiversity loss, is compounded by economic and political instability as the victims of this re-occurring pattern loose the basis of their livelihood. The second path is to migrate to the cities which, all too often, transfers poverty from the country-side to the city where instability is fueled in the shanty towns - the classical staging ground for political mobilisation of the poor and uprising against the state.
For the rural poor, secure access to land provides the most realistic opportunity for them to improve their livelihoods and develop assets that can reduce their vulnerabilities. This means food and income security. Secure access to land provides the most powerful incentive for the sustainable management of natural resources. This means environmental security. Asset ownership by the poor is increasingly being recognised as being essential to sustained and broad based economic growth. This means economic security.
The economic, social and environmental functions of land provides a platform for a more holistic approach to empowering the rural poor to become agents of their own well-being and in so doing, to contribute to greater political stability. Political stability is an embedded benefit in legislative, regulatory and judicial systems of transparent and accountable property rights.
Despite these convincing reasons, few countries have undertaken major resource reform measures. In many countries, the political and economic difficulties have been formidable. As difficult as it may be, pro-poor land policies can not only improve rural livelihoods, but can also increase aggregate food supplies, raise rural employment and foster the uptake of more sustainable agricultural practices.
The catalytic role of land reform policies and tenure security is well known as are the lessons from past. Among these, it is clear that government-led resource reform without the active support of civil-society, and civil-society movements without the institutional and enabling support of government have both failed. The record confirms that the active participation by communities in the planning and implementation of land policies and programmes is an essential prerequisite to sustained and stable human development. These lessons point to the need for more effective alliances linking governments to their civil-society organisations, coupled with the moral and financial persuasion of the international community.
The complexities of land policies and resource reform requires robust partnerships of citizen, governmental and international organisations that can share and replicate successful sustainable development experiences and build common platforms for action among affected groups.
Land reform experience also points to the importance of social, economic and institutional factors and the need to avoid an exclusive focus on the technical aspects. While land reform has most often been considered to define property relationships since it involves a wide range of technical elements, it is first and foremost, about sustainable development. And, sustainable development is essentially about people and the way they organise their social, economic and political systems to make the critical decisions on who has the right to use which resources, in which ways, for how long and for which purposes.
Land reform policies aim to change inequitable relationships and improve productivity to stimulate the overall economy. The empirical evidence on the multiplier effect of investments in agriculture supports this approach. Land reform aims to change land tenure relationships so that the poor can gain access to credit, technology, markets and other productive services. And, it aims for the poor to become effective interlocutors in developing public policies affecting their communities and livelihoods.
The Popular Coalition believes that the right to land and water is basic to durable solutions to poverty.
The Popular Coalition involves a multitude of civil society, intergovernmental and governmental organisations. It aims to build strategic and innovative alliances between diverse development organisations giving particular emphasis to the role of civil society in gaining access to land and water and by increasing community-based participation in local and national decision-making. The Popular Coalition is governed by seven regional citizen / NGO networks and five intergovernmental organisations; namely, the International Fund for Agricultural Development which serves as the international focal point, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme, the World Bank, the European Commission.
The strength of the Coalition is the different spheres of influence of its partners which range from community-based organisations to United Nations agencies and international institutions. The Coalition has significant capacity to make a difference by bringing the existing policies and resources of its partners into coherent and well-targeted country programmes. The vision is for the partners to incorporate the successful results and lessons learned from the initiatives jointly undertaken through the Popular Coalition into their own organisations.
The experience of the Popular Coalition is that sustainable development means providing the poor with access to assets so they can acquire a stake in the economic system that they are striving to join. Being able to gain and knowing they can sustain their access to land, water, forest and related factor markets can catalyse the entrepreneurial aspirations of the poor. The evidence suggests that this is the critical path to social, economic and environmental security and stability.
Nelson Mandela captured the essence of the challenge to realise economic, social and political justice and stability for the people of South Africa and perhaps for the world the day he said “Security for a few is insecurity for all ”.
This article was contributed by Bruce H. Moore, Director of the Popular Coalition to Eradicate Hunger and Poverty. It is based on the paper he presented in Washington, DC to the Conference on ''The Impact of Rural Poverty, Land Reform Policies and Urban Unemployment on Political Stability: Roots of Terrorism'' sponsored by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State and the National Intelligence Council, February 7, 2002.
