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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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‘It is Only those Who have Money who can Access Land’: Changing Land Access and Livelihoods in Peri-Urban Ghana
| Panel |
43. Making the African Suburbia
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| Paper ID | 494 |
| Author(s) |
Owusu, George ; Agyei, John
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Studies on land in Sub-Saharan Africa have largely focused on land tenure reforms and customary tenure systems. Little attention has therefore been given to changing land access and its effects on livelihoods, especially in the peri-urban areas of cities in Africa. This study examines changing land access and its impacts on livelihoods in peri-urban areas of the two largest cities in Ghana, namely Accra and Kumasi. Based on questionnaires survey and focus group discussions (FGDs), the study found that gender, religion, membership of a lineage and one’s status as a migrant or indigene do not play significant role in determining land access. What rather accounts is one’s ‘ability to pay’ for a given plot of land, mainly for the purposes of housing. The study found that the increasing conversion of land from agricultural use to residential housing is resulting in loss of livelihoods in agriculture, the dominant activity in peri-urban Ghana. More significantly, displaced farmers are not compensated for the loss of their livelihoods as well as their usufruct rights. However, the changing land access is impacting differentially on men and women. The study found that in general terms, women compared to men have been positively affected by the changing access to land in peri-urban Ghana. |
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