Peri-Urban Land Conflicts in Tigray National Regional State: Analysis of the Practice through Explicit Analytical Frameworks in Mekelle City, Tigray Region, Ethiopia
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2026-03-01
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Peri-urban land conflict is influenced by a number of elements which was resulted in urban sprawling. The objective of this study is to investigate the dynamics of peri-urban land conflict in Mekelle City, Ethiopia. While peri-urban land conflict is increasingly acknowledged in both academic literature and policy discourse, much of the existing research tends to highly emphasize isolated themes such as compensation, resettlement, and tenure insecurity rather than peri-urban land conflicts. There is still much to learn about how the connections of public interest demands, governance outlines, and legal uncertainties generate complex land conflict ecologies. In this study, qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to answer research questions. Besides, data from the city's property auction catalogue, focus groups with expropriated farmers, key informant interviews with pertinent specialists and administrators, household surveys of expropriated and non-expropriated target households, field observation, and investigation of lawful documents were the specific methods used to answer the enquiries of the study. The findings show that farmers mainly divide their land illegally for speculative and private land tenancy intentions, which results in unhinged livelihoods, insufficient compensation, declining landholdings, and disengagement from urban development progressions. Furthermore, a larger network of unofficial land transactions has emerged, which was supported by government organizations and public servants in addition to farmers and brokers. This is a reflection of organizational problems with land governance brought on by political exploitation of land-based resources, legal ambiguity, and a lack of institutional accountability. However, the state has not carried out its constitutional obligation to manage land for the benefit of the public. Moreover, the government has undercut the ideals of equitable development and the rule of law, twisted the perception of public interest to benefit elites, and contributed to the marginalization of peri urban villages Lastly, the study comes out to the conclusion that the government has transferred important duties, such as home provision, into already vulnerable peri-urban households while violating both collective and individual land rights over communal land and long-term revenue potentiality, respectively. Future studies should look into how participatory planning methods were implemented?, the strangeness of legal frameworks for co-ownership, the way of decentralized governance might change peri-urban land governance and methods of promoting more inclusive urban development strategies in rapidly urbanizing regions.
Description
Keywords
Logical outline, Land disputes, Semi-urban, Tenancy, Usufruct right, Ethiopia