On Tuesday, February 6, 2024, our team attended a conference on the commons in Africa entitled “What public policies for the commons?“, organized by the AFD (French Development Agency) in Paris. Going beyond public policy, this event brought to the fore some enlightening notions for agricultural development in Africa, and economic development across the continent. The concepts discussed were based in particular on the book “L’Afrique en communs”, edited by Stéphanie Leyronas, Kako Nubukpo and Benjamin Coriat and published in June 2023. Here’s a closer look at what we’ve learned from these exchanges, from the angle of agricultural value chain development and sustainability, which is so dear to Apexagri!
The commons in Africa: societal and environmental pillars
Definition
The “commons” are defined as shared-access resources, managed and maintained collectively by all the people or communities who have access to them. These people share the obligation to preserve this resource. The community thus establishes rules to preserve and perpetuate these resources. These rules may involve setting up a governance structure to ensure that access and obligations are respected.
The resources that make up the “commons” can be natural (a body of water, a river, a forest), material (a machine, a mill, a building, a power station) or immaterial (know-how, software).
According to Benjamin Coriat, we shouldn’t confuse “common” with “common good”. Indeed, while a common good is something that is shared and belongs to everyone, it is not necessarily managed collectively. Or at least, not in the way a common good is managed, with the rules of sharing and governance that this implies. The air we breathe, for example, belongs to all of us, but it is not a “common” because there is no governance to manage it.
A societal value
Historically, African modes of organization have had an inherent commonality, based on a refusal to institutionalize power. A majority of states have redistributed power to communities, with few public forces in the country.
The commons in Africa can make up for some of the state’s shortcomings. Indeed, they are often located in areas where public power is absent or lacking. The commons thus carry their own societal and environmental value, at levels to which public power has no access.
They embody the general interest and create social ties, value and social peace. This can sometimes cause certain difficulties or contradictions, but the way to resolve these conflicts is often through collective deliberation.
Agriculture and commons in Africa
Agriculture is the mainstay of the region
Despite its progressive urban development, Africa is predominantly characterized by its rural character. With around 456 million hectares of available agricultural land, much of it is made up of forests and areas in need of conservation. Agriculture, which will account for 53% of the workforce in 2019, continues to dominate the job market.
Land and natural resources thus form the economic foundation for millions of rural inhabitants, directly influencing issues of food sovereignty, social peace and economic development.
Managing the commons in Africa is therefore a key issue for the agricultural sector, in order to meet the challenge of feeding the entire population, in a context of demographic explosion on the continent over the coming decades.
Increased pressure on the “commons”
The issue of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) was raised to illustrate the increasing pressure on the commons. The aim of these SEZs is to promote investment and foster industrial development. However, they are regularly challenged (in Senegal in 2017, in Madagascar in 2020) due to the appropriation of land by the state and the transfer of its management to the administration. This also raises the question of corruption and the misappropriation of the “commons” in the interests of the state or private interests.
The question of SEZs comes on top of the phenomenon of increasing urbanization on the continent, which is also a challenge for the “commons”. Indeed, the explosion in demand for housing is competing with the need for agricultural land, which is disrupting local economies.
As a result, pressure is intensifying on the commons in Africa, threatening agriculture through the conversion of land use that is often already exploited by local communities for food production (crops, livestock, harvesting or fishing). Individuals dispossessed of their land are then forced to find new areas for their agricultural or pastoral activities, or consider emigration as an alternative.
It is therefore necessary to take the societal dimension into account in every project, and this is what we at Apexagri strive to do, by systematically involving the local populations in the process.
The challenge of combining food sovereignty and sustainability
- Food sovereignty is a challenge for the African continent, and the commons play a central role. Resources must be protected against land grabbing, deforestation and climate change, against a backdrop of rapid population growth.
- To meet this challenge, we need to promote agricultural development projects at all levels. Beyond financing, the implementation of public policies and local initiatives to support short circuits and local markets can strengthen food sovereignty, while ensuring that production directly benefits local communities.
- But these projects must include the promotion of sustainable farming practices, such as agroecology or regenerative agriculture. In addition to maximizing land productivity, these methods promote biodiversity and the resilience of food systems to climate change.