Introduction

Land is of vital importance to the people of Rwanda and the Rwandan State, both in terms of ‘access’ to this scarce resource in a densely populated country, and in terms of the symbolic and practical ramifications of changes to different kinds of land ‘uses’ (subsistence or commercial, individual or cooperative, rural or urban, polyculture or monoculture, etc.). In the past, access to land has been a source of socio-political controversy and conflict, particularly during the colonial era and in the decade prior to the 1994 genocide, when land became increasingly concentrated in the hands of political and economic elites. Competition over land is sometimes cited as one of many factors that made the 1994 genocide possible, as will be discussed below. Currently, land tenure is particularly important because of the role of agricultural land, and in particular, in an ambitious programme of national economic growth. The Government of Rwanda is committed to reaching the status of a middle-income country by 2020 (MINECOFIN – Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, 2000) and wants the rural sector to drive economic growth, through rapid commercialization. Accordingly, the government is engaged in several far-reaching rural transformation strategies including a largescale agricultural reform which relies upon regional crop specialization and compulsory land use consolidation; and a national land registration exercise. In urban areas, many informal or ‘unplanned’ settlements are scheduled for demolition in order to accommodate the construction of buildings for the formal sector (housing, commerce, and infrastructure).

Compared to other Sub-Saharan African countries, the Rwandan State has an unusually strong capacity to monitor and regulate the activities of its local representatives as well as private citizens. It has also demonstrated a general willingness to achieve the ‘Rule of Law’; and so, the State is unlikely to tolerate outright ‘land grabbing’ in the sense of illegal acquisition of land through intimidation, and/or corruption. The registration of land holdings across the country and issuance of land leases to landholders (see Ansoms, Cioffo, Huggins and Murison, this volume) may potentially reduce land grabbing. Nevertheless, it is important to realise that the post-genocide Rwandan State has been willing to curtail the land rights of citizens under certain conditions, and that the extent of land grabbing since the 1994 genocide is far from negligible.

This chapter complements the chapters in this volume by Ansoms et al.