ABSTRACT
The principles underlying customary tenure—collective ownership, inclusion as a social right but status differentiated by gender and other social factors—are among the most consequential contextual factors affecting the outcomes of land reform interventions. Some reforms have sought to reorder and disrupt these principles, in the name of promoting agricultural productivity, gender equity, and accountable governance. Customary systems have proven resistant to many—though not all—of these interventions, not because these systems are inherently regressive or backwards, but because they continue to serve the interests of large sections of their members. Our research demonstrates the value to tenure reform policy of understanding how interventions may interact with relevant aspects of the social, economic, and political contexts into which they are introduced. Certification has been used effectively to validate existing customary tenure arrangements, where these have been called into question due to internal social and economic changes or political shocks. Certification is also used as a means to introduce selected, new principles into customary systems, while preserving the core principles of the systems. However, certification, when used as an instrument of customary system transformation to individual, marketable tenure, can pose great risks to the vital, socially inclusive purposes of African rural social systems.
