Land degradation: Problem not finance but property titles

One is a cry last week from a United Nations summit on desertification raising the issue of financial resources to curb land degradation, a standard recipe that is being combated by liberal thinking and constantly reiterated by left wing analysts, those opposed to increased use of banks, land speculation. They prefer aid as a solution.

On account of post-independence Africa treating the felling of trees for charcoal as natural, and the seasonal rainfall mode as natural as well, awareness of the danger of desertification crept in slowly. Even by the mid-1990s where a crisis was brewing already in many African countries and has tended to persist, finding real solutions has been hard. Tanzania has plenty of coal resources and animal manure which if mixed with crop or wood residue could make a feasible substitute for charcoal, and even before gas discoveries. No one thought about it, for 55 years.

In a write up about the summit on desertification, a business analysis pointed out that nearly 500million hectares of once fertile land (five million square kilometers) had now been abandoned owing to desertification. It is also evident that millions of people have been pushed to forage on marginal land to which they would have migrated, many migrating to clogged cities and burgeoning towns, as the land fails to profitably hold more people. It is in view of this situation that African countries seek finance as part of remittances for lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

While African and a number of other countries plead for finance to combat the widening scourge of desertification, ample resources which could be used to secure sufficient finances lie unutilised. The reason is that most African countries do not permit freehold ownership of land, or as it was decided concerning landholding in Dodoma Region lately, obtain land titles of up to 99 year leases with municipal or other levels of government. Such titles could enable cultivators to obtain loans or transfer the titles to other individuals who would be in a position to obtain loans.

That isn’t what top government officials are saying, as the minister responsible for Land, William Lukuvi, keeps reminding banks and financial institutions to accept customary titles of land occupancy. Needless to say banks are not heeding that call and even ward level lending groups balk at the titles. They are too hard to transfer.

It is this kind of attitude which keeps Africa poor, as administrators don’t wish to work with banks as technical instruments for rational lending and recovery, and keep thinking of tricks enabling their constituents, voters, to obtain loans while having an option of not paying, as collateral collection becomes unfeasible. That is the secret of millions of hectares of arable land lying idle as no one has a title to land that is easy to transfer when the land is held commercially, who can secure a bank loan to develop that land. It isn‘t a question of regulations for banks but long lease titles for peasants; they quickly transfer to commercial buyers to get capital.

That is the crucial point, that the core of African economic management thinking is to retain original populations on ancestral land, then seek bank intermediation as a clever way of solving their problems. The methods can’t work; Africa insists on old ownership modes while people perish on unusable land. It is really that simple.