TITLE:
Land Rights in Ghana
AUTHORS:
Osmanu Karimu Azumah, Sendawula Noah
KEYWORDS:
Land Rights, Ghana
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.11 No.6,
June
8,
2023
ABSTRACT: This article is related to a study on the rights to land in Ghana; with
emphasis to the aspects of land acquisition structures and processes on the
livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the Bawku East District (BED) of Ghana.
Almost everyone’s history or family root is always a saga of attachment to or
alienation from land. There is no land without a titleholder. Naturally land belongs to three
groups of people, namely, the dead, the living, and the unborn. At any point in
time, the living is just a custodian of the land. The owner of a land is thus
any person or group of people that have the reserved right; legally or
customary to use, convey, lease, or assign a parcel of land. Land is a gift of
nature, and it encompasses components like soil, rocks, and natural vegetation.
It is observed as a public property that defined a community’s geographical
range, its economic asset and socio-cultural heritage. Land covers all minerals
and holds all immovable properties and buildings. Land is
not just considered imperative to the agricultural villages but then in
contemporary times it is viewed as the key pillar for evaluating economic
growth with respect to capital and wealth. The study findings generally
revealed very unsuitable aspects of land acquisition structures and processes
that act as an obstacle to achieving the required livelihoods that accrue from
the utilization of land among the farmers in the Bawku East District (BED) of
Ghana. Findings further revealed that, escalating and ongoing land disputes
continue to inhibit the productivity of smallholder farmers mainly due to
reduced cultivation, decreased investment, and loss of economic assets. This
study recommended that, the Government of Ghana should modify the current land
acquisition structures and processes by empowering and funding the
Administrator of Stool lands to survey and register all skin, clan and family
lands within all the Kusaug Traditional Area; encourage smallholder farmers to
adopt and implement any of the 165 marketable technologies developed and
successfully profiled in June 2015 by the CSIR Institutes. Furthermore, the
Land Act, 2020 (Act 1036) be revised,
harmonised and consolidated to ensure sustainable land administration
and management.