(Ecofin Agency) - Last Friday, the president of the Supreme Court of Mauritania, Yahfoudhou Ould Youssouf, revealed at a round table on land tenure that “conflicts related to land represent more than 38% of the cases brought to the institution last year,” Le 360 Afrique reports.

Gathering high officials from the administration, magistrates, actors of Justice, and experts of land issues, the meeting’s purpose was to provide a “diagnostic of land issues’ structuring in Mauritania, determine the new requirements necessary to achieve development and draw the key points of a reform to establish a new land system”.

The reform is necessary since the land legislation adopted in 1938 by the military regime then in power was poorly implemented, according to many observers. “The law, in its implementation, led to true anarchy, as lands are given out randomly with no respect of the actual acts stated in the legislation. Rightful owners are dispossessed from their properties, land grabbing for the benefit of foreign and national agribusiness actors is thriving, in total opacity, often with investment projects used as a front,” said President of Human Rights National Organizations Forum (FONADH in French), Sarr Mamadou.

Souha Touré