Research has shown that inequality in access to land is increasing across the African continent. Experts are calling for more rules and controls on the sale of land to counteract poverty.
A lucrative building boom for some people on Kenya’s coastal regions is causing great suffering for many fisherfolk.
In Tudor, the northern coastal strip in the Kenyan city of Mombasa, apartment buildings and hotels are going up at a dizzying rate.
“Big companies are building there and roads are being extended. All the landing sites for fisher boats have disappeared,” said Phelix Lore, director of the human rights organization Haki Center.
“It affects livelihoods because, when fishermen are not able to land, they have no have a place to put their fish and even sell them.”
Widening gap in land ownership
The Haki Center helps fishing communities that have lost their public landing sites to private construction projects. The activists want community members to have more rights to own land.
“Land grabbing has been a big problem in Kenya for years,” Lore told DW.
Fewer and fewer people around the world own land. The growing gap in land ownership and access is hitting smallholder farmers, women and indigenous and rural communities hardest, according to the Global Land Inequality Report by the International Land Coalition (ILC), which includes organizations like Oxfam and German Agro Action. Read more…
