Structural adjustment and natural resources in sub‐Saharan Africa: The role of tenure reform

Current critiques of African resource management policies have been influenced by some of the key precepts of World Bank and International Monetary Fund “structural adjustment”; programs, especially the notion that state agencies should play a reduced role in directing and managing economic activity. Many Western donors argue that better resource management will result from policies that extend clearer property rights to users and give greater authority to local institutions, believed to be more accountable to the public. The author agrees with the need for tenure reforms, but argues that devolution of tenure rights and withdrawal of the overbearing state will not alone result in sustainable resource management. Tenure policy needs to be conceived in broad terms, with the aim of achieving an appropriate distribution of rights among all parties with interests in natural resources: farmers, communities, and the state.