MEL study: small farmer and pastoralist land rights in Burkina Faso
Two surveys at the start and end of a development programme will assess the impact of formalising land rights on perceived tenure security over time and unpack how changes in attitude affect people’s actions.
The expansion of commercial agriculture and gold mining in Burkina Faso has led to a scarcity of fertile land for small farmers and cattle herders and an increase in land-related conflict. Competition over quality land has been further exacerbated by droughts, migration and poorly managed land reforms and institutions.
"48% of people in rural Burkina Faso feel insecure in their land and property rights" - Prindex 2020
To address these issues, Germany’s ministry for development cooperation BMZ will manage a five-year programme to:
- support communes in registering and issuing land ownership and user-rights certificates
- strengthen the role of civil society in policy reforms and village committees in conflict resolution
- promote responsible investment practices to gold mining and agricultural businesses
GIZ invited Prindex to monitor and evaluate the impact of these interventions. To do this, we will conduct a baseline and endline survey to see how the attitudes and behaviours of smallholders and pastoralists, especially internally displaced people and women, change over time.
The study will look at how changes to perceived tenure security affect:
- people’s short- and long-term investment decisions
- agricultural productivity and environmental degradation
- household income and health and education outcomes
This study is funded by BMZ (the German federal ministry of economic cooperation and development) via GIZ.
Photo: TREEAID
