PANEL 1: INTERNAL MOBILITY AND RURAL TRANSFORMATION

‘The cake is in Accra’: a Social Networks Analysis of Youth Urbanization in Ghana (Maya Turolla & Lisa Hoffmann)

The majority of African migrants move within their country, while half of international African migrants move within the continent. Yet, most academic studies on African migration focus on international migration. The academic debate in migration studies is further divided in two main foci: a livelihood perspective that understands mobility as an economic behaviour; and a cultural perspective that focuses on the socio-cultural dimension of mobile lifestyles. This study contributes to the growing yet limited body of literature on the process of urbanization, with a social network analysis of the process of urbanization to Accra. This analytical approach reconciles the two bodies of literature, understanding both livelihood and lifestyle dimensions of urbanization. The gap in the academic literature on internal mobility and urbanization is not only a theoretical one, but also a methodological one since scientific studies focus either on qualitative datasets, or on statistical analysis. While the latter allows to understand generalisable migration patterns on the solid grounds of large samples, qualitative analysis allows to problematise such patterns in the light of culture-bound social meanings, allowing for variation and agency that do not emerge from numbers. With mixed methods comprising descriptive statistics and social network analysis qualitative primary data, this paper investigates the skyrocketing growth of urban population in the Ghanaian capital. We find that the majority of people not born in Accra are youths (below 35 years), equivalently males and females and come from neighbouring regions. Furthermore, we describe how the social network constitutes both an enabling environments that incentivises mobility as well as an economic facilitating factor to the establishment of urban livelihoods and lifestyles. Finally, the social network analysis of qualitative interviews with migrants also highlights discrepancies between genders and socio-economic classes, in the ways in which social networks shape the urbanization patterns and experiences.

Multiple Urbanities: Cohabiting Rural and Urban Spaces on the Periphery of Tamale, Ghana (Lothar Smith & Francis Xavier Jarawura)

Too often African cities still get depicted as spaces of haphazard planning, of spontaneous economic micro developments, and continual population growth. No doubt this poses substantive issues for city planners if they want to meet nominal standards for human habitat and concomitantly ensure the urban economy remains sustainable in all kinds of ways. Yet, despite the obvious need for a sustainable city agenda, this perspective gives little cognition to the emergence of plural lifeworlds within its territory, and then notably in the peripheral zone; a plurality that depicts a history of rural-urban connectivity on the one hand, exemplified by the formation of spontaneous settlements in the peri-urban zone, where land can still be obtained at reasonable prices, while the city remains sufficiently accessible. On the other hand, we also see a gradual shift out of the busy inner city of a somewhat more affluent population, to take up residence in the same peri-urban zone. This implies that rural and urban spaces are not only socio-economically, but also spatially increasingly overlapping, this notably in the periphery of the city. This may well result in stable cohabitation, but potentially also lead to new zones of friction, as the spatial needs may be rather heterogeneous, and potentially conflicting. In this paper we focus on developments in the periphery of Tamale, the economic capital of the northern part of Ghana.

PANEL 2: RESOURCE CONFLICTS, VIOLENCE AND RURAL TRANSFOMATION

“Lords of the Bush”? Vigilantism and the Blind Angles of Transformation (Melina Kalfelis)

In 2015, the vigilante groups of Koglweogo (kogle „to protect“; weogo „territory”) spread through Burkina Faso to restore security in communities. For decades, the increase of thievery and conflicts over natural resources in the region intensified the population's sense of insecurity, distrust and injustice. On the basis of extra-legal hearings, Koglweogo pronounces judgments on criminal cases and imposes physical punishments. These mainly entail whiplashes and short terms of imprisonments, which is why international organizations accuse the Koglweogos of human rights violations. However, neither the groups’ legitimacy in society nor their transformative potentials in rural areas should be underestimated. For example, crime rates have dropped significantly and, due to the decline of cattle theft, meat prices are higher. Besides, city districts and communities request the installation of new groups until today, leaving little doubt that the Koglweogos presence is considered valuable. Nevertheless, depending on the levels of analysis, the extra-legal governance of the Koglweogos remains to be a controversial political issue. (Inter)national media discourses majorly frame the Koglweogos as violent, sometimes ethnic-based militias, notwithstanding that the groups have a multi-ethnic and multi-religious basis. There are reports piling up on Koglweogos defending communities from violent attacks by terrorist networks, while they are at the same time being accused for the two major Fulani massacres in Burkina Faso. This paper aims at drawing a nuanced perspective on the transformative potentials of vigilantes in Burkina Faso. It will discuss the internal and external ambiguities connected to their politics and draw some policy-relevant conclusions on their transformative potentials.

States, Pastoralists and Farmers Conflicts in West Africa (Ifeanyi Onwuzuruigbo)

Africa is boiling and bloody on account of pastoralists and farmers conflicts. From the Sahel to the East and Horn of Africa down to Southern Africa, herders and farmers conflagrations complicate growing internecine conflicts, wars and crimes. This paper interrogates state policies and legislations deployed to tackle the conflicts in Ghana and Nigeria. ‘Operation Cow Leg’ (Ghana) and anti-grazing legislations (Nigeria) are identified as the dominant extant instruments for managing the conflicts. These approaches have yielded negligible results because they tend to reinforce the politics of belonging and autochthony which partly underly the conflicts ab initio. The paper suggests policies and legislations that deemphasis autochthony and belonging as holding out prospects for effective management of herders and farmers conflicts in Ghana and Nigeria.   

Understanding the Unfolding Dynamics of Conflicts between Local Farmers and Settler Fulani Herders in the Gusheigu Municipality of Northern Region, Ghana (Osman Alhassan)

Conflicts among competing land and water resource users is no new phenomenon in West Africa including Ghana. While some scholars attribute these rising resource use conflicts to growing scarcity of resources, others contend it is the failure of governance structures and local conflict resolution mechanisms. This paper takes a closer look at the phenomenon of conflicts between local community famers and settled pastoralists in the Gusheigu Municipality in the Northern Region of Ghana. It investigates the genesis of the conflicts and provides conflicting field explanations of why conflicts between local farmers and their settled Fulani herders and guests are escalating. The paper interrogates how both scarcity and social relations explain the conflict situations between local farmers and settler Fulanis in Gusheigu, and concludes by recommending the use of relevant avenues and stakeholders that exist and could be fully harnessed to mitigate these conflicts and reduce disruptions in livelihoods of the community.

PANEL 3: LARGE-SCALE LAND ACQUISITIONS AND LIVELIHOODS

Foreign Land Agricultural Investment and Intra-Household Labor Allocation in Rural Nigeria (Uchenna R. Efobi)

Foreign Land Agricultural Investment (FLAI) to Africa is increasing in intensity of flow, size, and form. The promised benefits of these FLAIs include employment opportunities, rural development, and the provision of social amenities like electricity and the construction of road networks in the communities where they are sited. However, FLAIs are also criticized, including the displacement of rural landowners, thereby exacerbating rural poverty. Another important issue, which has not been considered in the recent study, is the effect of FLAIs on the intra-household labour allocation of rural dwellers. To address this issue, this study will match the location of FLAI from the Land Matrix database with the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) dataset for Nigeria to identify two groups of households (treatment and control) depending on whether these households are located in communities with FLAI in the subsequent wave of the LSMS-ISA data. The Difference-in-Difference regression technique will then be estimated, and a subsequent matching technique will be applied for robust checks. The findings of this study will include understanding the labour allocation of households in locations of FLAI, which is essential to formulate policies to insulate smallholders from FLAI shocks, especially considering that the inflow of these investments is rising in Africa and in the two countries in particular.

Palm Oil Investments and Social Conflicts – Evidence from Surveys and Experiments in Rural Liberia (Lisa Hoffmann, Alexander de Juan, Jann Lay)

How do large-scale agricultural investments (LSAIs) influence the risk of social conflict in in low- and middle-income countries? LSAIs create socio-economic costs and opportunities – for example, in terms of access to land and employment. The distribution of these gains and losses can reinforce inequalities and produce frustration and aggression. The arrival of migrants seeking employment may further intensify distributional competition. Taken together, these dynamics can increase the risk of social conflict in the vicinities of investment sites. We experimentally investigate these potential effects of LSAIs in Liberia. Our pre-registered analyses rely on a household survey and “joy-of-destruction”-experiments with more than 1,900 inhabitants of 73 LSAI-affected and matched control villages. Participants play two-player experiments either with members of the village chief’s or of other ethnic groups. Players each receive an endowment and decide on how much of the other players’ endowments to destroy. We use the results of these experiments as a proxy for the propensity of within-village social conflict – comparing the results across affected and control villages. Our preliminary results support our hypotheses. While 36 percent of participants in control villages destroy money of their interaction partners, the share rises to around 52 percent in villages close to the investment sites. Moreover, the intensity of destruction is substantially higher in affected villages: on average participants destroy 17 percent of the maximum amount in control villages compared to 23 percent in LSAI-affected villages. Such conflict-inducing effects of LSAIs could be mitigated by paying more attention to the distribution of gains and losses in affected communities and to the capacity of village-level institutions to handle distributive conflicts.

Large-scale Agricultural Investments and Female Employment in Nigeria (Evans Osabuohien, Oluwatosin Edafe & Romanus Osabohien)

This study examines how large-scale agricultural investments (LSAIs) affect employment outcomes of female households in Nigeria. It focuses on wage income and labour allocations to agricultural activities for households in communities with LSAIs in comparison with households in communities without LSAIs. It engages Wave 4 (2018/2019) of the Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) dataset using the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) technique. Preliminary results reveal a positive relationship with the household income living in communities with LSAIs but a negative relationship with the labour allocation to agricultural activities. Furthermore, the findings show that households in communities with LSAIs received higher wages and spend fewer hours in agricultural activities. Also, even though female-head households spend more hours on agricultural activities than the male-headed households, they earn less. Therefore, the study preliminarily submits with some recommendations on how to reduce the possible adverse effects of LSAIs and optimise its positive impact, especially for females in rural communities where most of such investments occur.

PANEL 4: ENVIRONMENTAL AND RESOURCE IMPACTS, TECHNOLOGY AND AGRICULTURE

Farmer Behavior and Rural Transformation in a Water-Energy-Food Nexus Context (Michael Jacobson)

New and adaptive ways of farming is critical to solve growing food security issues, especially in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally, growing population demand and more affluent lifestyles suggest 70% more food needs to be produced by 2050. However agricultural systems are also major causes of environmental degradation. The sector contributes 24% of greenhouse gas emissions and consumes 70% of blue water. Notwithstanding these acute global challenges, in many African countries, food, water and energy insecurities remain and are getting more severe during this pandemic, as those already marginalized are finding it harder to meet their livelihood needs. Focusing on farmer behavior and adoption of agricultural technologies, this talk discusses how a water-energy-food nexus (WEF Nexus) approach can help frame and address these pressing societal choices, challenges and tradeoffs to promote sustainable food systems and meet rural transformation objectives in a post COVID-19 environment.

Rural Livelihood Outcomes of Large Scale Land Acquisitions in Northern Ghana in the Context of Water, Energy and Food Nexus (Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei)

This paper attempts to answer two fundamental questions: First, how does rural transformation through large-scale land investments (LSLI) affect livelihood assets and outcomes of local inhabitants particularly smallholder farmers to whom land remains primary productive asset for sustainable living? Second, what is the nature of tradeoffs associated with such LSLI cases within the context of water, energy and food (WEF) nexus, and how are these tradeoffs beneficial at scale? The paper draws experiences and insights from two LSLI cases in three predominantly rural districts specifically Sene West, Banda and Bole Districts in northern Ghana. This study followed cross-sectional case study design with comparative analysis using mixed methods approach. Main findings are that, whereas LSLIs have generally improved availability and access to water resources for domestic purposes, whilst undermining productivity of major food crops and community access to fuel-wood due to limited access to arable lands with regard to Case A observed in Sene West District, in Case B observed in Bole and Banda Districts, LSLIs have subverted food crop productivity and limited access to water resources for farming and fishing, but at the same time improved community access to hydro-electric power. Thus, contrary to dominant assumptions that large-scale land acquisitions hold significant potentials for developing countries through such pathways as increased foreign direct investment for employment generation, transformation and diversification of rural economies; it is concluded in this paper that, LSLIs (land grabbing) have stronger tendency to subvert livelihood sustainability, exacerbate vulnerability and deepen poverty traps for most rural households, hence, could engender retrogressive rural transformation.

Gendered Perspectives on Access to and Control Over Land – Water, Energy and Food Resources in Three Districts with Large Scale Land Investments (John Kwame Boateng)

The paper reports the outcome of an investigation on men and women’s access to and control over land, water, energy and food resources in the Sene West, Denkyembour and Kwaebibirim districts of Ghana. The objectives were to understand gender-specific constraints prevailing in areas with large scale land investments in the three districts. Secondly to improve decision making about gendered access to land, water, energy and food resources leading to improvement in agricultural productivity and rural transformation. The study employed series of qualitative research methods namely, in-depth interviews of selected male and female key informants, focus group discussions with male only and female only groups, expert opinion harvesting, observations and use of secondary information.  Results showed that faming and processing farm produce were the main occupation for men and women in the communities studied.  Further, there were differences in the roles played by men and women. While women in Denkyembour and Kwaebibirim districts involved more in food and cash crop farming and   involved in farming related trading and processing, men focussed largely on crop and cash crop farming. In the Sene West District, however, it was largely men doing the farm work and raising livestock while most women concentrated on processing and selling of processed food. Significant differences were observed with regard to women’s and men’s access to and control over land and related resources in the three districts.  Most respondents’ believed that, increasing women’s access to and control over land will positively influence household access to clean and portable water, energy and food and even a greater positive impact on the community in terms of health, welfare, income and food security.

Conservation Infrastructure in Agricultural Intensification: Towards a Framework for Farmer Freedoms (Peter Narh)

The current approach to agricultural intensification involves the use of extensive industrially-produced capital inputs on agricultural land to increase yields. In this paper, the author contends that capital-based agricultural intensification is a linear, prescriptive, and rigid agricultural approach that stifles the freedom, potentials, and capacities of farmers. It demonstrates this contention with some qualitative field data from the sugarcane plantations in Mumias in western Kenya. To this end, the paper proposes and attempts an explication of the concept of conservation infrastructure in agricultural intensification, to emphases that infrastructure can open up long-term opportunities for farmers to bring to practice in agriculture their own innovations, technologies, and skills. In this way, they are able more to decide how they conserve and harness their lands to meet the same intensification goals of increased land productivity. This work is not against agricultural intensification; in fact it supports it but challenges its current tenets in order to open up space for farmers to realise their freedom and capacities towards their lands. To this end, the work sees freedoms and capacities to develop their lands and livelihoods as the ends to sustainable rural transformation for rural farmers. In this way, intensification of agriculture that provides for farmers to earn income, market access, and employment are not ends in themselves but should be seen as only some of the means to this ultimate freedom and capacity. The current paper is the initial stage of the development of the concept of conservation infrastructure for agriculture. It therefore acknowledges its limited appeal. Yet, this initial explication will pave way for further development of the concept and its application in research in other geographical and agricultural settings beyond Mumias sugarcane plantations.

Keywords: agricultural intensification, freedom, farmer, infrastructure, Mumias