Rethinking Conventional Approaches

New policy briefs challenge conventional wisdom on two critical areas of development policy — land rights and agriculture’s links with health — and suggest new opportunities for action

One recently released set of policy briefs from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) reveals that land rights should be reformed with careful attention to local conditions. Another set reports that much more can be done to productively link agriculture and health initiatives.

Land Rights for African Development: From Knowledge to Action , a series of 12 briefs edited by IFPRI researcher Esther Mwangi, tackles the controversial issue of land-reform policies, which too often give higher legal recognition to individual land rights than to collective ones. In many developed countries, giving individuals title to land appears to have worked well. In Africa, however, where more than 30 percent of the land is owned collectively, titling has weakened land rights, especially for women and pastoralists. Additionally, land rights based solely on individual ownership fail to acknowledge property arrangements found in many African communities, such as flexible boundaries based on customary law.

Customary rights are often adapted to local conditions, so attempts to reform land rights by superimposing Western legal systems without understanding existing customary approaches can backfire. Research shows that formal, individual land titles do not guarantee more security than customary laws and may even be a source of insecurity for impoverished households that rely heavily on common resources such as forests and pastures but have limited access to government land registration.

Nevertheless, the briefs argue that, while customary laws can provide the poor with greater land security, they too need reform. In many African countries, customary laws prevent women from owning and inheriting land. Strengthening the land rights of women and the poor will require reform of both state and customary law. The briefs are available on the website of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Systemwide Program on Collective Action and Property Rights.

A second set of briefs tackles the often overlooked links between agriculture and health. They report that policy initiatives in agriculture and public health are often pursued in a parallel and unconnected fashion, despite the growing recognition that agriculture and health affect each other and that both have profound implications for poverty reduction.

Understanding the Links between Agriculture and Health is a series of 16 briefs edited by IFPRI researchers Corinna Hawkes and Marie T. Ruel. The briefs argue that coherent, joint action in agriculture and health provides important opportunities in the fight against poverty. Based on a wide body of research conducted within and outside CGIAR, the briefs provide the historical context of links between agriculture and health, deal with specific health conditions and agricultural systems, and examine the challenges to linking agriculture and health policies for the benefit of the poor. The briefs are available here.

To carry this work further, IFPRI is spearheading a new CGIAR platform on agriculture and health and promoting better coordination of health-related research among CGIAR Centers and other partners. As the world becomes more integrated, so do the agricultural and health problems it faces. The time is ripe for agriculture and health specialists to work more closely together to develop innovative solutions to help both sectors better contribute to their joint goal of reducing poverty.