Land Conflict, Migration, and Citizenship in West Africa

Land and property rights, migration, and
citizenship are complex issues that cut across all social,
economic, and political spheres of West Africa. This paper
provides an overarching scoping of the most pressing
contemporary issues related to land, migration, and
citizenship, including how they intersect in various
contexts and locations in West Africa. The way issues are
analytically framed captures structural challenges and sets
them against the regional and global meta-trends of which
policy makers and practitioners should be aware for
conflict-sensitive planning. The paper points to some of the
effective practices in managing and mitigating these issues
and also raises several questions on areas for future
research. Part one lays out the migratory context in West
Africa. It points to the type, nature, and extent of
mobility that characterizes the region. Part two sets out
West Africa’s land tenure and management systems, including
structural challenges, general management policies, and key
issues related to land tenure and migrants. Part three
frames the key land and migration meta-trends in the context
of fragility. Part four concludes with an overall
exploration of the paper’s results and puts forward a series
of research questions that are necessary in order to discern
the most effective and realistic operational approaches.