De Soto Land Value Increase for Poverty Alleviation Offset by Procurements of Modernity: A case study of Peri-Urbaisation in Gabane Village, Botswana

De Soto Land Value Increase for Poverty Alleviation Offset by Procurements of Modernity: A case study of Peri-Urbaisation in Gabane Village, Botswana

ABSTRACT

De Soto has argued that many poor people in the world hold much land which is not titled and is often held under customary tenure. Consequently, this form of tenure does not benefit them as much as it would have under more valuable tenure types such as common law, freehold and leasehold. One human development strategy by De Soto contends that when the land held by poor people is appropriately titled to have more value, then many poor people in the world would get out of poverty. The suggested poverty alleviation strategy should be useful to Botswana too where people especially in the rural areas hold a number of land properties under customary tenure and, in a number of cases hold multiple residential, arable, commercial and industrial lands. Although much criticism has been labeled against De Soto, the peri-urbanisation process around Gaborone city in Botswana has shown that peri-urbanisation can raise the value of land under customary tenure rights even when the titles were not changed. The rural population in the urban fringe has taken advantage of the increased land value and has begun an informal land market to sell their lands at higher prices than would be the case under national compensation avenues. This research sought to find out if the De Soto concept could be tested in the Botswana case by documenting land allocations, land transactions as well as subsequent land ownership and living standards. The results showed that the people were not benefitting as expected because instead of using the money to secure assets that would enhance dignified living standards, the people were using the land sale proceeds to pursue modernity and thus to procure liabilities, in the process, some people became poorer and landless.

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Land and access to it has determined the procurement of wealth for many centuries and determined who

became wealthy and who did not (De Soto, 1993). Now, there are arguments that point to information

and knowledge as the current source of wealth creation (Addicott, McGivern, & Ferlie, 2006). Despite

the knowledge possession debate, land still controls paths to wealth and dignified livelihoods to a large

extent (Leonard & Narintarakul, 2006; Quisumbing, Estudillo, & Otsuka, 2004). Land information

systems and their link to supporting a vibrant economic environment attest to this as it is indicated to

support agriculral and economic developments (Ezigbalike & Nkwae, 1999). In his much critiqued book

1

Dr. Mulalu I. MulaluLecturer, University of BotswanaDepartment of Environmental [email protected]

Mr. Nicholas GaokgethelweSingle Major Student, University of BotswanaDepartment of Environmental [email protected]

the Mystery of Capital, De Soto noted that poor people are poor because they hold much land in poor

value titles (De Soto, 2001), such as customary as opposed to leasehold or freehold and other fully titled

and registered types of tenure. This implies that once the land titles are improved, people should then

move out of poverty. Yet peri-urbanization introduces the situation where land owned by the poor

obtains higher value due to its appropriation for urban uses, this increases its value despite its being still

held under customary land rights.

Peri-urbanisation is a form of urban expansion and is noted to be driven by population growth, rising

incomes and falling commuting costs (Brueckner, 2000). It differs from urban sprawl in the sense that it

contains largely non-metropolitan growth initially (Buxton & Choy, 2007). It can however be used to

study the growth of metropolitan areas in developing countries (Hudalah, Winarso, & Woltjer, 2007).

The process of peri-urbanisation itself as encroachment into the rural areas that are inhabited by the

poorer nationals of a country often has negative consequences on them. Toulmin for example notes that

land registration interventions that are intended to raise the value of land through titling processes are

riddled with vested interests at many levels that dispossess the poorer claimants (Toulmin, 2009). The

development of biofuel processes such as bioethanol and biodiesel have been noted to fuel exclusion

because poorer people end up losing access to the land they depend on (Cotula, Dyer, & Vermeulen,

2008). Nonetheless, with the advent of peri-urbanization, there is a tendency for the value of land held

under customary tenure to increase in this urban fringe, this is fuelled by demand for land from city

dwellers who have struggled and failed to find land in the city. The poor peoples lands are then bought

and subsequently titled by those who either have capability and knowledge to register them or develop

the power to influence further developments in the urban fringe in a similar manner to the rural

collectives in China (Zhu & Guo, 2013) which then assume control of land development in the urban

fringe. Despite the increase in the land prices, the consequences have shown an addition to poverty

rather a reduction from it, when individuals find themselves impoverished by procurements of liabilities

and becoming landless too in the process.

Nonetheless, according to de Soto, peri-urbanisation should facilitate the people in urban fringe to start

moving out of poverty. However, the reaction to higher land values by poor people in developing

countries has shown that behavioural changes are not induced by land titling alone. In some cases titling

2

has increased the physical and human capitals which have then driven the behavioural change to

improve the household (Galiani & Schargrodsky, 2010). In Botswana, the indication is that whereas it is

peri-urbaisation that has increased land values, the procured capital initiated and facilitated the pursuit of

lifestyles followed by the middle class groups. These acts essentially manifest the scenario where wealth

is sold to buy poverty (Rutten, 1992). In other areas, research has indicated that country laws (Wily,

2011) and vested interests (Zoomers, 2010) work to disadvantage and to dispossess the poor of their

land. There are also indications that there is an on-going land grab (Cotula, 2009), in the case of

Botswana, this is particularly evident in peri-urban fringes although land is currently being sold in most

of the official rural settlements, especially those that are close to the suburban spaces of larger villages

and towns.

In the Botswana case, Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana is surrounded by rural villages which

contain both arable and residential land held by the poor. Gabane village, the case study in this research

is one of the villages in Gaborone city’s urban fringe. The unfolding scenario in this case is that the

relatively wealthier members of the community from practically the whole country (due to the primacy

nature of Gaborone city) buy arable land and develop it into residential estates (Figure 1) and they also

buy residential plots which they develop into mansions (Figure 2) which they either live in or rent out.

These land procurement processes result in the loss of land by the rural poor because the land

transactions are effected and recorded by the Land Board which is responsible for the land allocations.

This means that further applications for land are rejected by the Land Board when the records show that

the applicants had been allocated land before. However, since some land has been allocated by the chiefs

before the Land Boards were instituted and other lands are inherited or bought, quite a number of people

hold multiple land properties. Thus there is still the opportunity to find out what impacts the increased

value of land has had on the rural community in the peri-urban fringe and to determine the consequences

of the pursuit of moderninty..

3

Modernity has often been viewed as the replacement of an agrarian economy by an industrial one (Dyer,

1989) and is often framed within the period after the middle ages and after the end of the second world

war. In decomposing modernity, Ferguson outlines five basic components of modernity as developed

industries, scientific technologies, liberal and democratic politics, nucleated families and secular world

4

Figure 1 Arable land bought and developed into estates or businesses

Figure 2 Residential plots bought and developed into mansions

views (Ferguson, 2005). Modernity is then expected to facilitate developing countries such as those in

Africa to overpower poverty, take part in globalization and achieve a status of equality with other

countries in the world. This is the view of modernity that has persisted, in 1974 Bates presented the

variables of modernity as education, per capita income, urbanization, political participation, industrial

employment and media participation (Bates, 1974). It is interesting to note that some research points to

Africa as the origin of modernity (Conard, 2010; d'Errico et al., 2009), yet Africa considers herself

backward and regards the consumption of western lifestyle goods to be the modernity. For example, like

Buenos Aires, Gaborone city in Botswana can be noted to be filled with cell phone carrying locals,

dressed in the latest United States and European fashions and driving shiny fashionable cars (Guano,

2002). Yet, what does being modern mean to individuals and families? To many inadequately informed

individuals, modernity can be noted to refer to. Modernity has its negative consequences, for social

scientists, these have been noted to include individualization, universlisation, rationalization,

desacralisation or massification. In ordinary language this means excessive accounting to the self,

adoption of the more negative characters of an international individual, loss of empathy due to excessive

rationalization, adoption of a secular lifestyle which tends to reduce personal morality and yet to end up

an unimportant hardly recognized individual amongst the world’s internationals.

2.0 METHODOLOGY

The aim of this research was to document land transactions in the peri urban area of Gaborone and find

out their implications on the livelihoods of people whose lands have been converted to urban land uses.

This was done by: a) documenting the conversion of arable and residential land to urban land uses in the

greater Gaborone area, b) determining the subsequent status of land ownership of people whose lands

have been taken and c) assessing the subsequent livelihoods of people whose lands have been taken.

Data was collected through the personal administration of questionnaires, an attitude scale, and mapping

the landuse over time so that the change in the landuse can be discerned.

2.1 Administering Questionnaires and Attitude Scale, Key Informant Interviews

A questionnaire was designed which was aimed at finding out the following: a) occupations, b)

c) residence profiles, d) plot ownership, e) mode of plot acquisition, f) land transactions, g) role of

respondents in land transactins, h) reasons for land transactions, i) subsequent plot ownership, j) reason

for selling the plots, k) education and income level profiles, l) post land transaction living standard and

5

m)assessment of a number of ownerships that are considered to be luxury rather than basic needs. In

order to interview prior owners of the lands who are the main focus of this study, a snowballing

technique was used. This technique made it relatively easier to locate prior occupants of the plots. In

addition, an assessment of subsequent livelihoods was made. Questionnaires were augmented by key

informant interviews and secondary data. Data was also collected from relevant files from the Registry

of deeds. In addition to the questionnaires and key informant interviews, an attitude scale was also

administered. The attitude scale had thirteen statements and was intended to collect information about

the beliefs and assumptions that informed the respondents in their daily decision making.

2.2 Mapping Land-Use Change

Maps and aerial photographs were obtained from the Department of Surveys and Mapping (government

department) and the Department of Environmental Science of the University of Botswana. The

Department of Surveys and Mapping provided the topographic maps that were used to provide base

data. The aerial photographs were available at the Department of Environmental Science and the land

use over the 1990 and the 2010 period were digitized from them. ArcGIS’s ArcMap was used to carry

out on screen digitizing on the aerial photographs.

3.0 PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS

At the analysis stage there is need to look at the results and to reflect back at the objectives and to

determine whether the findings relate well to the original argument, that is whether an increase in the

land values of the poor results in their movement out of poverty. Specifically, there is need to to: a)

confirm the availability of land at the peri-urban fringe, b) verify whether the land transactions are

taking place, c) determine whether the land values are higher than those which are used for land

compensation by the Land Board, d) determine whether there are indications of procurements of

modernity rather than wealth producing assets, e) determine whether the land sales have a positive

impact on the livelihoods and living standard of those who sell their lands, and f) determine whether

those who sell their lands are able to secure other land rights after the land sales.

6

3.1 Evidence of Existence of Securable Peri-Urban Land

A Google Earth image was used to show the superimposition of old arable lands and the newer land uses

in them in the Gabane area. In this case there was no need to use temporal images, one image depicted a

background of old arable lands and the mansions and estates that have been built in them. The results

show that 66.10% of this land is held under customary land tenure while the remaining 33.90% is under

common law.

3.2 Evidences of Land Transactions

With regard to evidence that the land transactions are taking place, a free weekly booklet called “The

Botswana ADVERTISER” was used to show the land sales that were advertised every week. A sample

of the information that is availed for the plots is indicated in Table 1. The plot area and the price has

been used to calculate the land value per square meter. The value of land is dependent on the level of

development in the plot, the plot size, whether the plot has a title or not (with those with titles attracting

7

Gabane

Figure 3 Evidence of Existence of Securable Peri-Urban Land

higher values), knowledge and aspirations of the seller and locational advantages of the plot, especially

proximity to town/city and access to utilities connections. From Table 1, the land values range from

P41.11/m2 to P171.43/m2. The compensation rates used by the Land Board are as follows: When the

Land Board land values are compared with those used by the local community, it is clear, that the rates

used by the local community are much higher than those used by the Land Board.

The results of this study show that 37.78% had been involved in land transactions and that there is an

equal percentage of those who buy and those who sell (38.24%). The reason for selling the plot show

that this is done under pressure with limited lee way to argue for better prices. The reasons included the

following: a) 14.29% needed the money to develop other plots which most likely were in danger of

being repossessed by the Land Board, b) 21.43% simply needed the money, c) 14.28% feared the risk of

repossession by the Land Board which would then provide very low compensations, 35.71% had been

repossessed by the Land Board. Only 14.29% of the land sales were instigated by the need to invest in

other ventures. In the Gabane area, only 30.36% of the plots were allocated by the Land Board, the

remaining 60.64% represented land that was allocated by the chiefs (28.57%), that which was inherited

(23.21%) and that which was purchased (17.86%). Thus there was still much land that could be

transacted.

3.3 Evidences of the Procurement of Modernity

Within a rural environment where many households struggle to meet their daily basic needs,

procurements of certain items may be deemed to be procurements of modernity and luxury. These items

include: cars, plasma television sets and subscriptions to international television programming,

8

Table 1 Evidence of land transactions and the land values used by the local community

Plot Plot Distance (km) LandSettlement status Length Breadth Area Tenure from Gaborone Price Cell-NumberBelabela empty 40 40 1600 customary 10 70000 43.75 71308537Bokaa 2.5 room house 1000 leasehold 130000 130.00 74761000Gabane 1 room 73418229Gabane empty 180000 72906928Gabane arable ### title deed 3700000 41.11 72564856Gakutlo 1.5 room 875 leasehold 150000 171.43 72307505

Kumakwane empty 120000 73222150Kumakwane 800 110000 137.50 73924819

Plot dmensions (m2)value/m2

expensive cellular phones, preference for designer clothing labels, a life of entertaining, enrolling

children in English medium schools from kindergarten to senior secondary school, even more of such

irrationally procured wants. In this study, ownership of cellular phones was 94.4%, 81.11% had

connected electrical power, 34.44% owned microwave ovens, 65.56% owned fridges, 82.22% owned

television sets and 38.89% owned cars. A socio-economic profile should reveal whether such

procurements are justified. With regard to gender, land transactions are carried out by both men

(46.67%) and women (35.33%). The majority of the repondents have either no education or their

education range is primary to senior secondary school. It can be argued that the 13.48% of those who

possess junior degrees represent those who actually bought the land parcels, this would include the

3.37% who possess second degrees. With regard to incomes levels, 78.88% earn less than P6000.00 and

of these 66.67% are either unemployed, employed part of the time or self employed. In order to show

that a monthly income of less than P6000.00 cannot adequately support such lifestyles, Tables 2 (source)

and 3(author estimations from conversations) show monthly expenditures for poor households in South

Africa and Botswana respectively.

9

Table 2 Avrage monthly expenditure of the low class in South Africa

% of HHs % of HHs Average MonthlyExpenditure item Spending Cash Spending Remittances ExpenditureFood & groceries 93 82 288Housing 9 10 9Utilities 38 30 36Clothes 42 52 267Medical expenses 30 20 24Transportation 44 34 48Education 31 52 91Entertainment 3 3 18Savings 17 12 200Fuel 44 6 58Farming 15 10 434Building 8 10 576Special events 8 8 239Gifts 4 3 55Other expenses 2 1 81

all these plus TVs, microwave ovens, internet access, cars, cell phones, PCsits all spent, with little to save (61%), then there is also english medium schools, medical aid and funeral schemes

Table 3 Monthly expenditure of the low class in Gaborone

Payment AmountRent 1600Food at home 800Daily bus fare 392Furniture 400Gas 60

The monthly expenditures in tables 2 and 3 should not be compared directly but the ratios of monthly

salaries against expenditures should compare very well. The clear observation that can be drawn from

these expenditures is that the people do not have enough living resources to live decent lives in the

cities. It should also be noted that the modernity procurements such as television sets and subscriptions

to international television programming are not included in the monthly expenditures.

3.4 Land Sales and Impact on Livelihoods and Living Standards

The study reveals the disheartening observation that 44.44% were really concerned about securing basic

needs and that 53.33% were little concerned or not concerned at all. Yet again, with regard to being

satisfied after the land sales, only 35% were fully satisfied. Overall, the livelihoods did not improve after

the land sales, in fact in some cases they deteriorated. On top of this, 85% of those who sold their lands

were not able to secure other land rights. These results clearly do not show rational thinking and perhaps

the results of the attitude scale survey should shed light on this.

3.5 Attitude scale and underlying decision making basis

The results of the attitude scale responses are shown in figure 4. It is surprising to note that the people

did not think that the increased land values can improve livelihoods, perhaps this came from their own

observations that in their cases the proceeds from land sales did not improve the lives of their friends

and relatives. This is explained by the response to the second attitude scale where people agree almost

10

unanimously that the people do not benefit from the land sales because they are uninformed about the

use of money. Yet for the sellers, the driving force is obtaining money, this clearly evident from a

number of responses: a) they are willing to sell their plots to improve their financial situations, b) they

consider that government compensation is not enough to secure another plot elsewhere, c) they are

aware that they will not be able to secure another plot from the Land Board but they still sell anyway, d)

they have enough information to participate in the land transactions (from the free weekly Advertiser

magazine), and e) they are ready to sell their plots for money. The buyers on the other hand are not

prepared to wait for the long land allocation queues at the Land Board and are willing to buy land, they

too have enough information to participate in the land transactions. This sets the stage for a vibrant non

official land market.

11

Figue 4 The results of the attitude survey

Land v

aue>

impro

ving L

iving

stds

Land s

ales>

mon

ey us

e unin

formed

Land s

ales>

impro

ve liv

eliho

od

Gabs>

land m

arket

trans

action

Unequ

al acc

ess>lan

d mark

et bo

om

Market

land a

ccess>

uneq

ual in

come

Sell pl

ot>im

prove

finan

ce

Have i

nfo ac

cess>

land t

ransac

tion

All lan

d loc

ation

s>sam

e plot

value

Compe

ns en

ough

>get a

nothe

r plot

Transf

land r

ights>

get o

ther r

ights

Satisfi

ed to

wait

>not b

uy la

nd

Not giv

e up a

llocat

ed lan

d0.00

20.00

40.00

60.00

80.00

100.00

120.00

Agreement versus disagreement to attitude statements

AgreeDisagree

4.0 Conclusions

This study has shown that the increase in the land values of the poor does not necessarily initiate the

process to move out of poverty and that the conceptualization of the movement out of poverty should

not be based on improved land values only. In the Gabane area, which is one of the urban fringes of the

primate capital city of Botswana, many people, especially the youth, do not aim to improve living

standards when they sell land, their basic aim is to enjoy the offerings of modernity, cars, electronics and

social media, designer clothing and a life of social parties. For these people, it is the procurement of

money that is paramount. On the other hand, it is those who buy the lands that aim to improve living

standards. Their salaried employment enables them not only to buy land but to begin the process that

ensures that the land enters the formal capital market . This is done through titling, and titling in turn

enables the buyers to secure it from opportunistic and less profitable repossession by government .

What maintains the informal land market is that people have multiple land properties, from Land Board

allocations, from inheritances, from gifts by other family members and from buying at very low prices

from other less or uninformed rural community members. Linked to the abundant land is that, at the

urban fringe, there are always land buyers from the city and, due to its primacy, Gaborone has buyers

from the whole country, that has created many land buyers. So unless the financial situations of the poor

are improved, they will always give priority to procurement of money over all else.

The pursuit of modernity and the lure of Gaborone appears to be the root evil for the mass irrationality.

The results on incomes indicate that 43% were either unemployed or earned less than P2000.00, yet

Table 3 shows a monthly expenditure of P5316.00. The obvious question here is, how do people live

then? A common answer from casual conversations with the people involved is that they are always

borrowing money and that it is a difficult and stressful life. The other obvious question would then be,

why should people persist in staying in Gaborone? Again there is a common answer, Gaborone is the

place to be, one must be seen to be staying in Gaborone, despite the hardship that this entails. Table 3

then reveals the actual cost of living in Gaborone for the poor and working class.

The apparent deliberate misappropriation of the proceeds of the land sales to procure modernity and

luxury brings to the fore a number of questions; whether the poor people should not be held responsible

12

for misusing life’s opportunities? are the poor always victims? should the personal trajectories into

poverty not be reviewed in order to determine who gets social welfare and who does not? These

questions point to future research on lived poverty. In Botswana specifically, although unemployment is

still high, there are many human development programs that the government has made available to

Batswana. However, these development programs are often difficult to access because of their

formalized business requirements but also because of their rather high personal financial contributions.

In some cases, when the business funds are secured, they are often misappropriated due to inadequate or

lack of monitoring. Still in other cases the funds are released to individuals who do not have sufficient

business knowledge. There is thus need to develop human development programs that empower people

to secure enough money to curb the apparent hunger for cash. Thus there is need to assist people to

embark upon processes that facilitate the use of the present resources to invest in a better future, rather

than to use the present to squander investments for the future.

13

REFERENCES

Addicott, R., McGivern, G., & Ferlie, E. (2006). Networks, organizational learning and knowledge management: NHS cancer networks. Public Money & Management, 26(2), 87-94.

Bates, R. H. (1974). Ethnic competition and modernization in contemporary Africa. THE STATE: Critical Concepts, 167.

Brueckner, J. K. (2000). Urban sprawl: diagnosis and remedies. International regional science review, 23(2), 160-171.

Buxton, M., & Choy, D. L. (2007). Change in Peri-urban Australia: Implications for Land Use Policies. Adelaide, Australia, November.

Conard, N. J. (2010). Cultural modernity: Consensus or conundrum? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(17), 7621-7622.

Cotula, L. (2009). Land grab or development opportunity?: agricultural investment and international land deals in Africa: Iied.

Cotula, L., Dyer, N., & Vermeulen, S. (2008). Fuelling Exclusion?: The Biofuels Boom and Poor People's Access to Land: Iied.

Crush, J. (2013). Linking food security, migration and development. International Migration, 51(5), 61-75. d'Errico, F., Vanhaeren, M., Barton, N., Bouzouggar, A., Mienis, H., Richter, D., . . . Lozouet, P. (2009).

Additional evidence on the use of personal ornaments in the Middle Paleolithic of North Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(38), 16051-16056.

De Soto, H. (1993). The missing ingredient. The Economist, 328(7828), 8-10. De Soto, H. (2001). The Mystery of Capital. Why capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else.

London: Black Swan.Dyer, C. (1989). Standards of Living in the later Middle Ages: Social change in England c. 1200-1520:

Cambridge University Press.Ezigbalike, C., & Nkwae, B. (1999). The Botswana Land Information System (BLIS) as a foundation for a spatial

data infrastructure (SDI). FIG Work Week and Survey, 99. Ferguson, J. (2005). Decomposing modernity: history and hierarchy after development. Postcolonial studies and

beyond, 166-181. Galiani, S., & Schargrodsky, E. (2010). Property rights for the poor: Effects of land titling. Journal of Public

Economics, 94(9), 700-729. Guano, E. (2002). Spectacles of modernity: transnational imagination and local hegemonies in neoliberal Buenos

Aires. Cultural Anthropology, 17(2), 181-209. Hudalah, D., Winarso, H., & Woltjer, J. (2007). Peri-urbanisation in East Asia: a new challenge for planning?

International Development Planning Review, 29(4), 503-519. Leonard, R., & Narintarakul, K. (2006). Thailand’s land titling program: Securing land for the poor. Promised

land: Competing visions of agrarian reform, 129. Quisumbing, A. R., Estudillo, J. P., & Otsuka, K. (2004). Land and schooling: transferring wealth across

generations: Johns Hopkins University Press.Rutten, M. M. E. M. (1992). Selling wealth to buy poverty: the process of the individualization of landownership

among the Maasai pastoralists of Kajiado district, Kenya, 1890-1990: Breitenbach, Saarbrücken [etc.].Toulmin, C. (2009). Securing land and property rights in sub-Saharan Africa: the role of local institutions. Land

Use Policy, 26(1), 10-19. Wily, L. A. (2011). ‘The Law is to Blame’: The Vulnerable Status of Common Property Rights in Sub‐Saharan

Africa. Development and change, 42(3), 733-757. Zhu, J., & Guo, Y. (2013). Fragmented peri-urbanisation led by autonomous village development under informal

institution in high-density regions: The case of Nanhai, China. Urban Studies, 0042098013499083. Zoomers, A. (2010). Globalisation and the foreignisation of space: seven processes driving the current global land

grab. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 37(2), 429-447.

14

15