Human Rights and Land in Africa: Highlighting the Need for Democratic Land Governance

Abstract

Human rights principles form the foundation for the move towards responsible land administration. They are embedded in such international treatises as the Sustainable Development Goals, New Urban Agenda, and Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure, among others. These treatises provide the backdrop to the development of land policies and administration systems that seek to secure land tenure and land rights for all through adherence to human rights principles such as non-discrimination, equity and justice, gender responsiveness, transparency and accountability. Yet the human rights tradition is built on Western values and biases, and there is some contention as to the universal acceptance of this. In discussing land rights in Africa, assumptions about the universality of human rights should be weighed against such contentions if land reform programmes are to sustainably succeed. In this chapter, the arguments around human rights are presented in the context of African land reform, and a model of democratic land governance is proposed.