A trial of land legislation tailored to the realities Burkina Faso

Land tenure insecurity is a major cause of social instability and economic fragility in West African countries. It manifests itself in a duality of land tenure practices and a diversity of legal rules that are sometimes inconsistent. In Burkina Faso, land management has always been the responsibility of two authorities: the State and customary law. The various land laws enacted to date, which assert the State's sole authority over land, have failed to override the powers held by traditional leaders in land management. The duality of land tenure systems thus persists, resulting in instability and fragility in land rights. The land policies implemented in recent decades, which fail to recognise the existence of genuine customary authority over land, are thus revealing their limitations. In order to contribute to the current debate on the reasons for the failure of these land policies, the author proposes avenues for new legislation that takes into account both modern and customary land practices.