Looking for Peace on the Pastures: Rural Land Relations in Afghanistan

125 Pages·2004·1.08 MB·English

Synthesis Paper Series
Looking for Peace
on the Pastures:
Rural Land Relations
in Afghanistan
Liz Alden Wily
December 2004
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit
Synthesis Paper Series
Looking for Peace
on the Pastures:
Rural Land Relations
in Afghanistan
Liz Alden Wily
December 2004
Funding for this study
was provided by the
European Commission (EC) and the
governments of Sweden and
Switzerland
© 2004. The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU). All rights reserved. The
views and opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of AREU.
About the Author
Liz Alden Wily is an independent political economist specialising in land tenure. She gainedher PhD in political economy from the University of East Anglia, England. For more than 20years she has provided project design and policy guidance on tenure and related naturalresource management in mainly African states. Since 2002 she has periodically undertakentenure related investigations for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.
About the Afghanistan Research and
Evaluation Unit (AREU)
The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) is an independent research organisationthat conducts and facilitates action-oriented research and learning that informs and influencespolicy and practice. AREU also actively promotes a culture of research and learning bystrengthening analytical capacity in Afghanistan and by creating opportunities for analysisand debate. Fundamental to AREU’s vision is that its work should improve Afghan lives. AREUwas established by the assistance community working in Afghanistan and has a board ofdirectors with representation from donors, UN and multilateral organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Current funding for the AREU has been provided by the European Commission (EC), theUnited Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the governments of Britain,Sweden and Switzerland.
Acknowledgements
Many people have contributed information to this report. I am especially indebted to thesepersons: Mervyn Patterson, who undertook the third field study from Badakhshan Alhaj Q.Bakhtiari and Zarina Majeed of the Supreme Court for making data on land cases available,Renos Vakis of The World Bank for sharing some of his data analysis of the Rural VulnerabilityAssessment, and Katharina Lumpp of UNHCR and Conor Foley of the Norwegian RefugeeCouncil for providing some of the information on refugee land cases. I am also grateful toFaraidoon Shariq of AREU for chasing up data and Brandy Bauer of AREU for editing inputs.
Note: This report was initially prepared in early summer 2004. The data analysis used in thereport was therefore current at the time of writing, but may not reflect additional analysisof (NRVA) data that may have occurred in the interim.
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Table of Contents
Map of Afghanistan and Province Study Area........................................................i
Glossary...................................................................................................ii
Executive Summary.....................................................................................1
1. Introduction.........................................................................................4
2. An Overview of Rural Land Relations ...........................................................7
2.1 Land Distribution..........................................................................7
2.1.1. The Rural Economy..............................................................8
2.1.2. Skewed Distribution of Land Ownership....................................11
2.1.3. Distinguishing between Land Access and Ownership.....................17
2.2. Labour Distribution.....................................................................21
2.2.1. Landlordism.....................................................................21
2.2.2. The Low Value of Labour .....................................................22
2.2.3. The Hidden Reality of Rural Homelessness ................................24
2.2.4. Female Land Ownership ......................................................26
3. Land Law, Policy and Dispute ..................................................................28
3.1. Land Law.................................................................................28
3.1.1. Customary Law.................................................................28
3.1.2. Religious Law...................................................................29
3.1.3. Civil Law.........................................................................29
3.1.4. Statutory Law...................................................................29
3.1.5. New Legislation ................................................................31
3.1.6. The Current Utility of Law....................................................31
3.2. Land Policy...............................................................................32
3.3. Land Administration....................................................................34
3.3.1. Administrators..................................................................34
3.3.2. Sources of Evidence of Ownership ..........................................34
3.4. Land Disputes 37
3.4.1. Widespread Dispute over Property..........................................37
3.4.2. Refugees and IDPs: A Prominent Group of Disputants....................37
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3.4.3. Farms and Pasture as the Focus of Rural Land Dispute..................38
3.4.4. Formal Land Dispute Resolution.............................................39
3.4.5. Informal Land Dispute Resolution and Lack of Resolution...............41
3.4.6. Conflict Over Land May Be Rising............................................42
4. The Pasture Issue 44
4.1. Defining Pasture ........................................................................44
4.2. The Ownership of Pasture.............................................................45
4.3. The History of Contested Pastoral Rights...........................................48
4.4. The Bamyan Case.......................................................................50
4.5. The Faryab Case ........................................................................58
4.6. The Badakhshan Case ..................................................................65
4.7. Comparing the Cases...................................................................70
5. Finding a Way Forward ..........................................................................71
5.1. General Implications ...................................................................72
5.2. Major Areas for Moving Forward......................................................73
5.2.1. Acute Disadvantage in the Landholding Sector Needs Reduction.......73
5.2.2. Land Conflicts Need More Attention........................................75
5.2.3. Land Administration Needs Reform.........................................80
5.2.4. Lessons Can Be Learnt From Elsewhere ....................................81
5.3. Adopting a Strategy ....................................................................83
5.3.1. Prioritisation: Beginning, not Ending, with the Commons................84
5.3.2. Implementation: Adopting an Empirical Approach .......................85
5.3.3. Getting "Learning by Doing" off the Ground................................86
Appendices
Appendix A: Field Areas in Bamyan and Faryab Provinces...............................89
Appendix B: Landlessness by Region, Debts and Mortgaging............................90
Appendix C: Cases in the Central Land Disputes Court, Kabul,
March 21, 2003 - March 20, 2004.............................................93
Appendix D: Pasture Legislation .............................................................94
Appendix E: Data on Access to Pastures from NRVA 2003 ...............................98
Abbreviations and Acronyms........................................................................103
Bibliography...........................................................................................104
Tables
Table 1: Vulnerable Groups in the NRVA 2003 Sample...................................10
Table 2: Base Rural Asset Holding by Vulnerable Groups in the
NRVA 2003 Sample..................................................................10
Table 3: Summary of Findings of Land Holding in Badakhshan Province 2001........12
Table 4: Rural Land Ownership in NRVA 2003.............................................13
Table 5: Farm Land Ownership of Returning Refugees 2002-2004 .....................13
Table 6: Distribution of Land Including Landless 2003...................................14
Table 7: Concentration of Land Among Landed 2003 ....................................15
Table 8: Reasons for Changes in Land Ownership in 2002
by Food Consumption Quintiles...................................................15
Table 9: Anticipated Changes in Farm Land Ownership by
Food Consumption Quintiles.......................................................16
Table 10: Farming Constraints by Good Consumption Quintiles .........................16
Table 11: Farm Size by Access, Type and Wealth..........................................19
Table 12: Rural Land Ownership in NRVA 2003.............................................21
Table 13: House Ownership by Wealth Group...............................................24
Table 14: House Ownership of Returning Refugees........................................25
Table 15: Land Cases in the Courts, March 2003-March 2004 ............................40
Table 16: The Pastures of Turkul Baluch Mantiqa..........................................63
Boxes
Box 1: Land Classes in Faryab................................................................18
Box 2: Examples of Absentee Landowners in One Community..........................22
Box 3: Women and the Law...................................................................26
Box 4: Key Original Statutory Legislation on Rural Land.................................30
Box 5: Sources of Legally Accepted Evidence of Tenure.................................35
Box 6: Examples of Legal Documents Issued in Shiwa in 1983...........................36
Box 7: Examples of Cases Handled by the ILACs of the NRC in May 2004 .............38
Box 8: Examples of Cases in the Yakawlang Primary Court,
Bamyan, June 2003....................................................................40
Box 9: Who are the Kuchis?...................................................................49
Box 10: The Ghor Ghori Valley in Panjao District...........................................57
Box 11: Examples of Land Conflict in Shiwa.................................................68
Box 12: Outline of an Approach to Pasture-Centered Dispute Resolution
and Management Planning............................................................88
Maps
Map 1: Kuchi Migration Routes .................................................................50
Map 2: The Area of Hazarajat ..................................................................51

Map of Afghanistan and Province Study Areas
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) i