The politics of large-scale land acquisitions in Ethiopia: state and corporate elites and subaltern villagers

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between federal and regional state elites’ land authority and corporate elites, and how this intersects with the politics of subaltern villagers in the context of ongoing land acquisitions in Ethiopia. In the borderland region of Benishangul-Gumuz, the central state is concerned with the control of territory and people and cannot, it is argued, effectively devolve authority to the regional state. Competition over control of land resources is very much an intra-elite dynamic. The complexities that occur, fuelled by the politics of decentralisation, are played out in terms of contradictions in the land deal making, but are also reflected in land disputes and loss of local livelihoods.

Résumé

Cet article examine les rapports entre les élites gouvernementales fédérale et régionales éthiopiennes dans le contrôle sur la terre et les relations qu'elles entretiennent avec la grande entreprise. Dans un contexte d'accaparement des terres, il s'intéresse également à l'entrecroisement de ce jeu de relations entre élites et de la politique de la petite paysannerie. Préoccupé par le contrôle du territoire et de la population dans la région périphérique de Benishangul-Gumuz, le gouvernement central prétend qu'il ne peut déléguer son pouvoir au gouvernement régional. La complexité qui découle de cette situation, alimentée par la politique de décentralisation, se reflète dans l'incohérence des transactions foncières, les conflits fonciers et la perte de moyens locaux de subsistance.

Keywords:

• large-scale land acquisition
• intra-elite dynamics
• livelihoods
• Benishangul-Gumuz
• Ethiopia

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jun Borras and Ian Scoones for their constructive comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this article. We are also grateful to Wendy Wolford, Martha Snodgrass and two anonymous referees for their helpful feedback, and to the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP) and the Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI) for providing financial support to conduct the fieldwork.

Notes

1. This article partly draws on Moreda (2013).

2. There are five tiers of government administration in the country, which are (from the highest to lowest administrative unit): federal, region, zone, woreda and kebele. Woreda is roughly equivalent to district, while kebele, especially in rural areas, corresponds to a group of villages.

3. For the intensive fieldwork, two woredas from Metekel zone, namely Dangur and Guba woreda, were selected. In addition, a short visit was made to Homosha woreda in Assosa zone. These areas are the main foci of recent large-scale land acquisitions in the region. Within these woredas, we selected some villages based on investment concentration as well as expert opinion, particularly regarding accessibility and representativeness. These are three kebeles, namely Gimtiya, Dachigeri and Qotta from Dangur woreda, and two kebeles, namely Ayicid and Mankush, from Guba woreda. In addition, the Berta ethnic group-dominated Tsori-al-metema kebele in Homosha woreda was included. A brief field trip from Mankush town to Almehal town was made in order to capture through direct observation some important aspects that were not fully represented in the selected kebeles.

4. The Gumuz ethnic group largely inhabit Metekel and Kemashi administrative zones, while the Berta ethnic group inhabit the Assosa administrative zone of the region, both constituting the most numerous indigenous ethnic groups of the region (Figure 1).

5. For a detailed analysis of the terra nullius discourse, see Makki (2014).

6. Although due attention on both agricultural commercialisation and promotion of the private sector investment was given since the last poverty reduction document (PASDEP), various support and incentive mechanisms to attract foreign direct investment have been put in place since 2002/2003 (see FDRE 2002, 2003) and were amended in 2008 (FDRE 2008).

7. Under the overarching policy framework of Agricultural Development-Led Industrialisation (ADLI), the country pursued successive poverty reduction strategies: the Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP), the Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) and the current Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP), which is being implemented from 2010/2011 to 2014/2015.

8. MoFED (2010) shows that the country has been able to register a success record of increasing export markets for flowers by private investors over the last five-year period. According to a recent government report, a revenue of USD 186.1 million was generated from the export of flowers in 2012/2013 (MoFED 2014, 22). However, this was USD 12.6 million in 2004/2005.

9. While government sources show that agriculture grew at an average annual rate of 8.4 per cent over the last five years (MoFED 2010, 4), roughly 7–8 million people have always been chronically food insecure. In 2012/2013, for example, the total number of beneficiaries from the country's Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), a key progam designed for food insecure areas, was 6.89 million (MoFED 2014, 37).

10. As of 2013, the AISD was reorganised as the Agricultural Investment Land Administration Agency (AILAA) under the Council of Ministers Regulation No. 283/2013.

11. The Constitution of Ethiopia adopted in 1995 gives regional states the power to administer all land and other natural resources; the recent centralisation into AISD/AILAA is thus contrary to the constitution (Markakis 2011; Lavers 2012b).

12. The Regional Investment Board is composed of members from the regional state council, the investment office, Bureau of Environmental Protection, Land Administration and Use, Bureau of Agriculture, Bureau of Finance and Economic Development and the Revenue Office.

13. The lease period in the regional state ranges from 15 to 40 years.

14. Interview with BoEPLAU senior official, conducted by the first author in April 2012, in Assosa.

15. All interviews for this study were conducted in Amharic or Gumuz, with the help of a research assistant fluent in both languages. The English translations from Amharic were done by the lead author of this article. The translations from Gumuz were first rendered into Amharic by the research assistant and then into English by the author.

16. BGRS (2010). Note that the term “land speculation” is used here not in its full sense.

17. Note that the figures do not include land transfers in the region that are administered by the federal government.

18. The informant contended that they are called investors only for the reason that they have leased land, in a way to explicitly question their competence.

19. This happened while the first author was at Guba woreda Environmental Protection, Land Administration and Use Branch Office and Agriculture Office for consultations as part of the fieldwork.

20. This was a joint assessment report on agricultural investment projects by BoEPLAU and Investment Office, May 2012, Assosa.

21. See also Alden-Wily (2003, i). In the case of post-1991 Ethiopia, despite the establishment of a federal political system aimed at decentralising state power to regional constituents, the way in which the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) – a coalition of ethnic-based parties – has been organized under a centralized party structure appears to undermine the objective of devolving power to regional state governments. The EPRDF controls all regional state governments either directly through its coalition member parties or indirectly through its affiliates. Regional state governments are not likely to operate independently of this party in power at federal level to pursue their regional interests or genuinely represent them at the federal level (Aalen 2002; Makki 2012).

Additional information

Biographical notes

Tsegaye Moreda is a PhD candidate at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. His research interests focus on the political economy of land and livelihoods in rural Ethiopia, particularly on land tenure, land conflicts, migration and resettlement, environmental degradation, agricultural commercialisation, large-scale land acquisitions and political reactions “from below” and civil society and land advocacy.

Max Spoor is Professor of Development Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam, Visiting Professor at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies and Guest Professor at the Nanjing Agricultural University in China. He is the chair of the research program “Political Economy of Resources, Environment and Population” at ISS. His current work is on land grabbing and food sovereignty.