Resource information
Due to the rapidly growing population in Ethiopia, land is becoming scarce resource. This often results in an increased land use conflicts. Rapid urban expansion, large infrastructure projects in urban as well as in rural areas and an increasing demand for farmland often leads to displacement of the local population. Small holders are expropriated, forced to leave their farms and lose their livelihoods.
While in some cases expropriations are made for public purposes in other cases, such as for example when fostering private investment projects, expropriations are lacking a legal basis. However, even when expropriations are legal, compensation measures are often lacking, inadequate or poorly calculated. Thus, current legal regulations governing the means for calculation are often criticized.
Therefore, the current regulations to determine compensations for farmland expropriation should be scrutinized in order to identify a more acceptable valuation approach for farmland. Once identified, such method could also serve as basis for negotiations with farmers in cases were farmland is needed for certain projects that do not serve a public purpose. However, it must be stressed that such negotiations have to be done on a voluntary basis and at eye level.
The report summarizes the legal basis for compensation payments in the circumstance of expropriation.