Sharing scarcity: Issues of land tenure in South-east Rwanda

Abstract

Access to land is of crucial importance in Rwanda where the population density is the highest in Africa, many people have been displaced and land is a scarce resource. Even before the 1990-1994 war and the genocide in 1994, there was severe competition for land and a shortage of off-farm income-generating opportunities, which resulted in unequal land distribution, rapid processes of land dispossession, increasing incidences of land disputes and greater social tension (Andre and Platteau, 1998). In recent years, land scarcity, land inequality and land disputes have aggravated even further (Van Hoyweghen, 1999; Bigagaza et alii, 2002; Des Forges, 2006; Pottier, 2006; Wyss, 2006).