Pierre Etienne Kenfack, Professor of Private Law and Deputy Director of the Institut d'études avancés de Nantes, will be presenting a paper on “Commercialization of customary land and the economic development of legitimate rights holders in Africa” at the EthicsLab 5th Anniversary Conference being held at the Catholic University of Central Africa in Yaoundé from June 10 to 14, 2024.
This contribution assesses the ability of the commercialization of customary land to ensure the economic development of communities that conquered it through war or occupied it with their labor before the arrival of settlers and the creation of states. It puts into perspective two conceptions of the nature of man's relationship with land.
On the one hand, there are African communities for whom land is not a commodity, and who have little awareness of the stakes involved in the commercialization of land.
On the other hand, African states are hoping to make the vast expanses of fertile, unoccupied land on their territories available to investors, in order to create jobs and collect rents to finance economic development and, by extension, the development of neighboring communities.
The contribution puts into perspective the inability of land commercialization to enable the economic development of legitimate rights-holders, given that they are excluded from decision-making and commercialization methods, are only invited to participate in the process, and do not receive the rents. The contribution also questions the opportunity, interest and modalities of economic development for these communities through land commercialization.
