Land tenure in Eritrea
Habtemicael Weldegiorgis
In Eritrea the economy is on the main agrarian and land is the basic resource for its overall development. Land tenure in Eritrea, as in many other African countries, was mainly communal; kinship (risti) or village owned (diesa or shehena). There was also the gulti tenure or land given by royal power. The fourth type of land tenure was the demoniale or state ownership introduced during the Italian rule. The first two communal types of land tenure had merits in maintaining relative equity within the kinship and village. Despite the stated merits, communal ownership was to a great extent a cause for fragmentation of land, soil erosion, over grazing, over harvesting of forests, in short gross mismanagement of land, which hindered agricultural development and long term investment in land. The State of Eritrea, understanding these critical constraints to development, stated in its Macro-policy (1994) the overall development objectives: the creation of modern technically advanced and internationally competitive economy with the objectives of encouraging longterm investments in agriculture and environmental management, assuring womenns right to land on equal basis with men, and modernizing agriculture. Hence, the land policy with the objective of economic development, social justice and equity, security of tenure, political stability, etc was issued. It was followed by land legislation with the objective of reforming the land tenure system.
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