Governance della terra e sviluppo rurale: le sfide del processo di riforma fondiaria in Burkina Faso

The ongoing international debate on rural development focuses on the legalization of land property rights as a mean to guarantee land tenure security, to promote agricultural investment and rural development. As a result in francophone West Africa new land policies have been elaborated with the specific aim of resolving a dual institutional and juridical system of land tenure which causes land conflicts and hinder economic growth. My thesis aims to analyze the ongoing process of land tenure reform in Burkina Faso in light of the rural development policies implemented in francophone West Africa since the colonial period. It also takes into account the rural development paths adopted by the Government of Burkina Faso from the French colonial conquest to the late democratization period. By retracing the main strategies of land and agrarian reform at regional and national level I shed light on the unresolved political relationship that the State has built with the rural population since independence. In particular I identify statutory and customary institutions who have been entrusted over time with the power to manage natural resources and to allocate land rights in order to bring out some of the power relationships existing between national and local levels. Through the historical analysis of land tenure systems I advance considerations on the inclusion of rural people in the rural development policies. The main aim is to reflect on the possibility of the ongoing land tenure reform in Burkina Faso to ensure a democratic governance of the land and a more inclusive process of rural development. With this focus on land tenure reform in Burkina Faso my thesis will lead to a critical analysis of the new wave of land policies in West Africa and contribute to the ongoing debate on rural development from a political point of view.