YOUTHS ACCESS TO RURAL LAND IN SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA REGIONAL STATE: THE CASE OF WOLAITA ZONE

Abstract

In agriculturalist society, like Ethiopia, where lion share of the population relies on rural lands, the rights for livelihoods and welfare as well as access to rural land is fundamental to be capable of existence as a free and dignified human being. It is also clear that fain access to rural land threatens enjoyment of fundamental rights and freedoms. The access to rural land is one of the main concerns of the land tenure system. The right to access rural land is constitutionally guaranteed for the needy peasants, pastoralists and semi-pastoralists in Ethiopia. Thus, the main objective of the study is to assess the situation of access to rural land for youths in Ethiopian legal and policy framework as well as its practice in Wolaita Zone in respect to subjects, conditions and modalities in Southern Ethiopia regional state Diguna Fango and Abala Abaya. In order to conduct this thesis the researcher employed qualitative methodology of which both primary and secondary sources were used. Primary data were gathered principally from carefully cross reading of pertinent laws which also substantiated by data collected through interview with the youths, officials from the former SNNPR state, rural land officers from the Southern Ethiopia, Wolaita Zone rural land administration officers, from Diguna Fango and Abala Abaya Woreda rural land officers and also primary data were collected via focus group discussion conducted in both Woredas. The study revealed issues in light of conditions, subjects and modalities of access to rural land in the various land tenure system of Ethiopian; it highlighted the national rural land legal and policy frameworks and evaluated the practice in selected research areas. The basic argument made in this research is that even if the Constitution and other federal and regional laws recognized rural land grant as of right for Ethiopian needy peasants and pastoralists, the access to rural land in reality is surrounded with huge mismatch, inconformity and limitation with the laws stated and in which the access to rural land of the youth is not fully realized at all. The reason mentioned here were the nation has no flexible, sound and responsible land policy framework in order to accommodate the access right of the youth to realize the rural lands and other reasons discussed in this paper.