Top

Society

Published in:

12-10-2023 | ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Land as Common Property: The Fit of Land Governance with Ostrom’s Design Principles

Authors: Abdul-Salam Ibrahim, Mohammed Abubakari, Thembela Kepe

Published in: Society | Issue 6/2023

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

Ostrom’s design principles have been widely recognized in sustaining commons governance. However, studies focusing on the assessment of the design principles in land governance are limited, especially in Africa. Focusing on Ghana, this study examines the fit of the local land governance structure with the design principles, using four case study areas with operational Land Management Committees (LMCs). Through in-depth interviews with local land governance stakeholders, the findings show that the existing legal and institutional frameworks for land governance in Ghana fit the Ostrom design principles. However, operational challenges such as undocumented customary land boundaries, absence of graduated sanctions, restricted proportional equivalence, and collective choice in some areas, as well as limited platforms for horizontal cooperation among the LMCs, threaten the sustainability of some land management regimes. The strong social capital in the study areas makes the existing weak sanctioning regime imperceptible. We argue that land as a common property resource when managed within the framework of the Ostrom design principles could enhance sustainability of both the management regimes and the resource system.

previous article College Diversity Politics and American Higher Education: An Institutional Analysis

next article The Unnamed: Exploring the Erasure of Women from the History of Ghana

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Abubakari, Z., Van der Molen, P., Bennett, R. M., & Kuusaana, E. D. (2016). Land consolidation, customary lands, and Ghana’s Northern Savannah Ecological Zone: An evaluation of the possibilities and pitfalls. Land Use Policy, 54, 386-398. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.02.033CrossRef

Akanbang, B. A. A., Ibrahim, A. S., & Yakubu, Z. (2021). The evolving dynamics of land administration and its implications for physical planning in Sub-Saharan Africa: experiences from Wa, Ghana. SN Social Sciences, 1(10), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-021-00269-5CrossRef

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Act 798 (2010). Available here: https://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/gh/gh036en.pdf

Anane, G. K., & Cobbinah, P. B. (2022). Everyday politics of land use planning in peri-urbanization. Habitat International, 120, 102497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2021.102497CrossRef

Baggio, J. A., Barnett, A. J., Perez-Ibara, I., Brady, U., Ratajczyk, E., Rollins, N., ... & Janssen, M. A. (2016). Explaining success and failure in the commons: the configural nature of Ostrom’s institutional design principles. International Journal of the Commons, 10(2), 417–439.

Biitir, S. B., & Nara, B. B. (2016). The role of Customary Land Secretariats in promoting good local land governance in Ghana. Land Use Policy, 50, 528-536. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.10.024CrossRef

Cobbinah, P. B., & Nyame, V. (2021). A city on the edge: the political ecology of urban green space. Environment and Urbanization, 33(2), 413-435. https://doi.org/10.1177/09562478211019836CrossRef

Cox, M., Arnold, G., & Tomás, S. V. (2010). A review of design principles for community-based natural resource management. Ecology and Society, 15(4): 38.CrossRef

Ferrando, T., Vispo, I. Á., Anderson, M., Dowllar, S., Friedmann, H., Gonzalez, A., ... & McKeon, N. (2020). Land, territory and commons: voices and visions from the struggles. Globalizations, 17(7), 1276–1290. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2020.1783819

Goodwin, N., Harris, J.M., Nelson, J.A, Rajkarnikar, P.J., Roach, B., & Torras, M. (2022). Common Property Resources and Public Goods, Microeconomics in Context, 5th Edition. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003252207-18

Government of Ghana (1992). Constitution, the Republic Of Ghana, Accra-Ghana

Government of Ghana’s Land Act (2020). Act 1036, Ghana. Available here: https://ocr-aa.s3.amazonaws.com/media/public/documents/LAND_ACT2020._ACT_1036.pdf

Gyamera, E. A., Duncan, E. E., Kuma, J. S. Y. & Arko-Adjei, A. (2016). Land conflicts in Ghana; causes, effects and resolution. In Proceedings of 4^th UMaT Biennial International Mining and Mineral Conference, August 3–6, 2016. UMaT Auditorium, University of Mines and Technology, Tarkwa, Ghana

Hardin, G. (1968). The Tragedy of the Commons, Science 162, 1243-1248.CrossRef

Ibrahim, A. S., Akanbang, B. A., Nunbogu, A. M., Kuusaana, E. D., & Ahmed, A. (2020). Collaborative customary land governance: Motivations and challenges of forming Land Management Committees (LMCs) in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Land Use Policy, 99, 105051. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105051CrossRef

Ibrahim, A. S., Akanbang, B. A. A., & Laube, W. (2022a). Sustaining decentralized collaborative governance arrangements in Africa: a case study of Land Management Committees in the Upper West Region, Ghana. GeoJournal, 87, 641–660. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-020-10276-3CrossRef

Ibrahim, A. S., Abubakari, M., Akanbang, B. A., & Kepe, T. (2022b). Resolving land conflicts through Alternative Dispute Resolution: Exploring the motivations and challenges in Ghana. Land Use Policy, 120, 106272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106272CrossRef

Ido, A. (2019). The effect of social capital on collective action in community forest management in Cambodia. International Journal of the Commons, 13(1), 777-803.CrossRef

Kakraba-Ambeh, M. (2008). Administration of rural lands–Customary Land Secretariats as local structures for effective rural land administration in Ghana. In Accra: Customary Land Administration Unit, Ghana Land Administration Project, Ministry of Forestry and Mines.

Kansanga, M., Andersen, P., Atuoye, K., & Mason-Renton, S. (2018). Contested commons: Agricultural modernization, tenure ambiguities and intra-familial land grabbing in Ghana. Land Use Policy, 75, 215-224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.03.047CrossRef

Kansanga, M. M., Arku, G., & Luginaah, I. (2019). Powers of exclusion and counter-exclusion: The political ecology of ethno-territorial customary land boundary conflicts in Ghana. Land Use Policy, 86, 12-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.04.031CrossRef

Kasanga, R.K. & Kotey, N.A. (2001). Land Management in Ghana: Building on Tradition and Modernity. Retrieved from. International Institute for Environment and Development London https://www.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/9002IIED.pdf?pagewanted=all%26sa=U%26ei=_oVZU538AqTh4wSgtIHwAQ%26ved=0CEcQFjAI%26usg=AFQjCNHdUIlyYPOPQpEDPOLSCQqdhr0I7Q

Kebede, B. (2002). Land tenure and common pool resources in rural Ethiopia: A study based on fifteen sites. African development review, 14(1), 113-149. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8268.00048CrossRef

Khoa, B. T., Hung, B. P., & Hejsalem-Brahmi, M. (2023). Qualitative research in social sciences: data collection, data analysis and report writing. International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management, 12(1-2), 187-209. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJPSPM.2023.132247CrossRef

Lorenzen, M., Orozco-Ramírez, Q., Ramírez-Santiago, R., & Garza, G. G. (2022). Governing the commons in Mexico’s Mixteca Alta: Linking Ostrom’s design principles and comunalidad. Forest Policy and Economics, 145, 102862. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102862CrossRef

Ministry of Lands and Forestry (1999). Ghana Land Policy, Accra.

Mudliar, P. & Koontz, T.M. (2021). Locating power in Ostrom’s design principles: Watershed management in India and the United States. Society & Natural Resources, 34(5), 639–658. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2020.1864535CrossRef

Nsoh, W. (2022). Achieving groundwater governance: Ostrom’s design principles and payments for ecosystem services approaches. Transnational Environmental Law, 11(2), 381-406. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2047102522000164CrossRef

Obeng-Odoom, F. (2014). Urban land policies in Ghana: a case of the emperor’s new clothes?. The Review of Black Political Economy, 41(2), 119-143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-013-9175-5CrossRef

Obeng-Odoom, F. (2016). Understanding land reform in Ghana: A critical postcolonial institutional approach. Review of Radical Political Economics, 48(4), 661-680. https://doi.org/10.1177/0486613415603161CrossRef

Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands (OASL) Act (1994). ACT 481, Ghana.

Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action: Public groups and the theory of groups. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press.

Ostrom, E. (2010). Beyond markets and states: polycentric governance of complex economic systems. American Economic Review, 100(3), 641-72.CrossRef

Ostrom, E., Gardner, R., Walker, J., & Walker, J. (1993). Rules, games, and common-pool resources. University of Michigan press.

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press.

Ostrom, E. (2005). Understanding institutional diversity Princeton University press. New Jersey, 393–432.

Paaga, D. T., & Dandeebo, G. (2013). Customary land tenure and its implications for land disputes in Ghana: Cases from Wa, Wechau and Lambussie. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 3(18), 263–270. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=8175a57dcd8595c20bf374314636819da8fd2954

Perez-Quesada, G., & Hendricks, N. P. (2021). Lessons from local governance and collective action efforts to manage irrigation withdrawals in Kansas. Agricultural Water Management, 247, 106736. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2021.106736CrossRef

Schlager, E. (2016). Introducing the “The importance of context, scale, and interdependencies in understanding and applying ostrom’s design principles for successful governance of the commons”. International Journal of the Commons, 10(2).

Singleton, B.E. (2017). What’s missing from Ostrom? Combining design principles with the theory of sociocultural viability. Environmental Politics, 26(6), 994-1014. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2017.1364150CrossRef

Turner, M. D. (1999). Conflict, environmental change, and social institutions in dryland Africa: Limitations of the community resource management approach. Society & Natural Resources, 12(7), 643-657. https://doi.org/10.1080/089419299279362CrossRef

Valsecchi, P. (2007). ‘He who Sets the Boundary’: Chieftaincy as a ‘Necessary’ Institution in Modern Ghana. Beside the State. Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa. Köln: Köppe, 139–161. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/6775938.pdf

Van Laerhoven, F., & Ostrom, E. (2007). Traditions and trends in the study of the Commons. International Journal of the Commons, 1(1), 3–28. https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.76

World Bank. (2018). Implementation completion and results report—Ghana: Land Administration Project 2(Report No. ICR00004453). Washington, DC: The World Bank.

Yaro, J. A. (2010). Customary tenure systems under siege: contemporary access to land in Northern Ghana. GeoJournal, 75(2), 199-214. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-009-9301-xCrossRef

Title: Land as Common Property: The Fit of Land Governance with Ostrom’s Design Principles
Authors: Abdul-Salam Ibrahim
Mohammed Abubakari
Thembela Kepe
Publication date: 12-10-2023
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Society / Issue 6/2023
Print ISSN: 0147-2011
Electronic ISSN: 1936-4725
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-023-00913-1

Springer Professional

Abstract

Please log in to get access to your license.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Other articles of this Issue 6/2023

Edward Hall, Value, Conflict, and Order: Berlin, Hampshire, Williams, and the Realist Revival in Political Theory

“This Is Not a Riot”: Activists’ Responses to Accusations of Violence in the Ferguson Unrest

“But why isn’t it an accomplishment not to have children?”: A Qualitative Investigation into Millennial Perceptions of Voluntarily Childless Women

Robert Gildea, Backbone of the Nation: Mining Communities and the Great Strike of 1984-85

When a Club Turns into a Public Event: The Structural Transformation of the British Parliament and the Making of Collective Solidarity

Robin Waterfield, Plato of Athens: A Life in Philosophy