Land tenure insecurity does not necessarily imply widespread land conflict at the parcel level or dissatisfaction with existing conflict resolution processes. Assumptions around the specific nature of land tenure insecurity and land conflict should continue to be carefully addressed at the time of project design and evaluation design. A foundation of the project was the concern that generalized land tenure insecurity could lead to wider patterns of land conflict and broader insecurity, a significant and documented risk in Burkina Faso and the West Africa region. The intent of the project was to test tools and approaches to reduce tenure insecurity and tenure-based conflict, including as conflict mediation mechanisms were a key part of the 2009 Rural Land Law. However, the evaluation detected that individual level or plot level land conflicts are relatively rare, and this finding has not changed since baseline data collection. Where conflicts were reported, the evaluation found that village and land chiefs remain the primary actors involved in conflict resolution, and there is a high level of satisfaction with their management of conflict. One possible conclusion is that broader climates of high tenure insecurity do not necessarily coexist with high levels of discrete household level or plot level conflict, and another explanation may be that the project’s interventions as a whole were effective in preventing conflicts from increasing and ensuring that those that did emerge were addressed, even if by entities other than those expected. Finally, it is possible that respondents were uncomfortable speaking to an enumerator about conflict, something that they may consider a personal or private matter. Regardless, the original assumption in the theory of change that improved access to formal land administration would reduce overall levels of land conflict was not borne out by the evaluation.
Lesson Learned