# The commons: Drivers of change and opportunities for Africa

Stéphanie Leyronas, Benjamin Coriat, Kako Kossivi Nubukpo

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Stéphanie Leyronas, Benjamin Coriat, Kako Kossivi Nubukpo (Dir.). The commons: Drivers of change and opportunities for Africa. AFD; World Bank, 257 p., 2023, Africa Development Forum, 978-1-4648-1960-5. hal-05183328

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The Commons

Drivers of Change and Opportunities for Africa

Edited by Stéphanie Leyronas,
Benjamin Coriat, and Kako Nubukpo

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

AFD
AGENCE FRANCAISE
DE DEVELOPPEMENT

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WORLD BANK GROUP
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The Commons

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The Commons

Drivers of Change and
Opportunities for Africa

Edited by Stéphanie Leyronas, Benjamin Coriat, and Kako Nubukpo
© 2023 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank
1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433

Telephone: 202-473-1000; Internet: www.worldbank.org

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**Attribution**—Please cite the work as follows: Leyronas, Stéphanie, Benjamin Coriat, and Kako Nubukpo, eds. 2023. *The Commons: Drivers of Change and Opportunities for Africa*. Africa Development Forum series. Washington, DC: World Bank. doi: 10.1596/978-1-4648-1960-5. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO

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ISBN (paper): 978-1-4648-1960-5

ISBN (electronic): 978-1-4648-1992-6

DOI: 10.1596/978-1-4648-1960-5

**Translation of the report from French:** Cadenza Academic Translations.

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## Africa Development Forum Series

The **Africa Development Forum Series** was created in 2009 to focus on issues of significant relevance to Sub-Saharan Africa's social and economic development. Its aim is both to record the state of the art on a specific topic and to contribute to ongoing local, regional, and global policy debates. It is designed specifically to provide practitioners, scholars, and students with the most up-to-date research results while highlighting the promise, challenges, and opportunities that exist on the continent.

The series is sponsored by Agence française de développement and the World Bank. The manuscripts chosen for publication represent the highest quality in each institution and have been selected for their relevance to the development agenda. Working together with a shared sense of mission and interdisciplinary purpose, the two institutions are committed to a common search for new insights and new ways of analyzing the development realities of the Sub-Saharan Africa region.

### Advisory Committee Members

*Agence française de développement*

**Thomas Mélonio**, Executive Director, Research and Knowledge Directorate

**Hélène Djoufelkit**, Director, Head of Economic Assessment and Public Policy Department

**Sophie Chauvin**, Head, Publications Division

*World Bank*

**Albert G. Zeufack**, Chief Economist, Africa Region

**Cesar Calderon**, Lead Economist, Africa Region

**Chorching Goh**, Lead Economist, Africa Region
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>Sub-Saharan Africa</figcaption></figure>

Source: World Bank.
Titles in the Africa Development Forum Series

2023

*Africa's Resource Future: Harnessing Natural Resources for Economic Transformation during the Low Carbon Transition* (2023), James Cust, Albert Zeufack (eds.)

*L'Afrique en communs. Tensions, mutations, perspectives* (2023), *The Commons: Drivers of Change and Opportunities for Africa* (2023), Stéphanie Leyronas, Benjamin Coriat, Kako Nubukpo (eds.)

2021

*Social Contracts for Development: Bargaining, Contention, and Social Inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa* (2021), Mathieu Cloutier, Bernard Harborne, Deborah Isser, Indhira Santos, Michael Watts

*Industrialization in Sub-Saharan Africa: Seizing Opportunities in Global Value Chains* (2021), *L'industrialisation en Afrique subsaharienne : saisir les opportunités offertes par les chaînes de valeur mondiales* (2022), Kaleb G. Abreha, Woubet Kassa, Emmanuel K. K. Lartey, Taye A. Mengistae, Solomon Owusu, Albert G. Zeufack

2020

*Les systèmes agroalimentaires en Afrique. Repenser le rôle des marches* (2020), *Food Systems in Africa: Rethinking the Role of Markets* (2021), Gaelle Balineau, Arthur Bauer, Martin Kessler, Nicole Madariaga

*The Future of Work in Africa: Harnessing the Potential of Digital Technologies for All* (2020), *L'avenir du travail en Afrique : exploiter le potentiel des technologies numériques pour un monde du travail plus inclusif* (2021), Jieun Choi, Mark A. Dutz, Zainab Usman (eds.)

2019

*All Hands on Deck: Reducing Stunting through Multisectoral Efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa* (2019), Emmanuel Skoufias, Katja Vinha, Ryoko Sato

*The Skills Balancing Act in Sub-Saharan Africa: Investing in Skills for Productivity, Inclusivity, and Adaptability* (2019), *Le développement des compétences en Afrique subsaharienne, un exercice d'équilibre: Investir dans les compétences pour la productivité, l'inclusion et l'adaptabilité* (2020), Omar Arias, David K. Evans, Indhira Santos
*Electricity Access in Sub-Saharan Africa: Uptake, Reliability, and Complementary Factors for Economic Impact* (2019), *Accès à l'électricité en Afrique subsaharienne : adoption, fiabilité et facteurs complémentaires d'impact économique* (2020), Moussa P. Blimpo, Malcolm Cosgrove-Davies

## 2018

*Facing Forward: Schooling for Learning in Africa* (2018), *Perspectives : l'école au service de l'apprentissage en Afrique* (2019), Sajitha Bashir, Marlaine Lockheed, Elizabeth Ninan, Jee-Peng Tan

*Realizing the Full Potential of Social Safety Nets in Africa* (2018), Kathleen Beegle, Aline Coudouel, Emma Monsalve (eds.)

## 2017

*Mining in Africa: Are Local Communities Better Off?* (2017), *L'exploitation minière en Afrique : les communautés locales en tirent-elles parti?* (2020), Punam Chuhan-Pole, Andrew L. Dabalen, Bryan Christopher Land

*Reaping Richer Returns: Public Spending Priorities for African Agriculture Productivity Growth* (2017), *Obtenir de meilleurs résultats : priorités en matière de dépenses publiques pour les gains de productivité de l'agriculture africaine* (2020), Aparajita Goyal, John Nash

## 2016

*Confronting Drought in Africa's Drylands: Opportunities for Enhancing Resilience* (2016), Raffaello Cervigni, Michael Morris (eds.)

## 2015

*Africa's Demographic Transition: Dividend or Disaster?* (2015), *La transition démographique de l'Afrique : dividende ou catastrophe?* (2016), David Canning, Sangeeta Raja, Abdo Yazbech

*Highways to Success or Byways to Waste: Estimating the Economic Benefits of Roads in Africa* (2015), Ali A. Rubaba, Federico Barra, Claudia Berg, Richard Damania, John Nash, Jason Russ

*Enhancing the Climate Resilience of Africa's Infrastructure: The Power and Water Sectors* (2015), Raffaello Cervigni, Rikard Liden, James E. Neumann, Kenneth M. Strzepek (eds.)

*The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa* (2015), Alexandre Marc, Neelam Verjee, Stephen Mogaka

*Land Delivery Systems in West African Cities: The Example of Bamako, Mali* (2015), *Le système d'approvisionnement en terres dans les villes d'Afrique de l'Ouest : L'exemple de Bamako* (2015), Alain Durand-Lasserve, Maïlis Durand-Lasserve, Harris Selod
*Safety Nets in Africa: Effective Mechanisms to Reach the Poor and Most Vulnerable* (2015), *Les filets sociaux en Afrique : méthodes efficaces pour cibler les populations pauvres et vulnérables en Afrique subsaharienne* (2015), Carlo del Ninno, Bradford Mills (eds.)

## 2014

*Tourism in Africa: Harnessing Tourism for Growth and Improved Livelihoods* (2014), Iain Christie, Eneida Fernandes, Hannah Messerli, Louise Twining-Ward

*Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa* (2014), *L'emploi des jeunes en Afrique subsaharienne* (2014), Deon Filmer, Louise Fox

## 2013

Les marchés urbains du travail en Afrique subsaharienne (2013), *Urban Labor Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa* (2013), Philippe De Vreyer, François Roubaud (eds.).

*Enterprising Women: Expanding Economic Opportunities in Africa* (2013), Mary Hallward-Driemeier

*Securing Africa's Land for Shared Prosperity: A Program to Scale Up Reforms and Investments* (2013), Frank F. K. Byamugisha

*The Political Economy of Decentralization in Sub-Saharan Africa: A New Implementation Model* (2013), Bernard Dafflon, Thierry Madiès (eds.)

## 2012

*Empowering Women: Legal Rights and Economic Opportunities in Africa* (2012), Mary Hallward-Driemeier, Tazeen Hasan

*Financing Africa's Cities: The Imperative of Local Investment* (2012), Financer les villes d'Afrique : l'enjeu de l'investissement local (2012), Thierry Paulais

*Structural Transformation and Rural Change Revisited: Challenges for Late Developing Countries in a Globalizing World* (2012), *Transformations rurales et développement : les défis du changement structurel dans un monde globalisé* (2013), Bruno Losch, Sandrine Fréguin-Gresh, Eric Thomas White

*Light Manufacturing in Africa: Targeted Policies to Enhance Private Investment and Create Jobs* (2012), *L'Industrie légère en Afrique : politiques ciblées pour susciter l'investissement privé et créer des emplois* (2012), Hinh T. Dinh, Vincent Palmade, Vandana Chandra, Frances Cossar

*Informal Sector in Francophone Africa: Firm Size, Productivity, and Institutions* (2012), *Les entreprises informelles de l'Afrique de l'ouest francophone : taille, productivité et institutions* (2012), Nancy Benjamin, Ahmadou Aly Mbaye

## 2011

*Contemporary Migration to South Africa: A Regional Development Issue* (2011), Aurelia Segatti, Loren Landau (eds.)
*Challenges for African Agriculture* (2011), Jean-Claude Deveze (ed.)

L'Économie politique de la décentralisation dans quatre pays d'Afrique subsaharienne: Burkina Faso, Sénégal, Ghana et Kenya (2011), Bernard Dafflon, Thierry Madiès (eds.)

**2010**

*Gender Disparities in Africa's Labor Market* (2010), Jorge Saba Arbache, Alexandre Kolev, Ewa Filipiak (eds.)

*Africa's Infrastructure: A Time for Transformation* (2010), *Infrastructures africaines, une transformation impérative* (2010), Vivien Foster, Cecilia Briceño-Garmendia (eds.)

*Challenges for African Agriculture* (2011), Jean-Claude Deveze (ed.)

*Available in French
# Contents

Foreword xvii

Acknowledgments xix

About the Editors and Contributors xxi

Overview xxix

Abbreviations xxxvii

## 1 Theoretical Framework, Methodology, and Structure of the Book 1

Benjamin Coriat and Stéphanie Leyronas

Introduction 1

The Concept of Commons: Origins and Scope 2

Commons as New Forms of Entrepreneurship 11

Objectives, Methodology, and Organization of the Book 18

Notes 26

References 27

## 2 Land-Based Commons: The Basis for a Peaceful Form of Economic Development? 33

Mathieu Boche, Patrick d'Aquino, Nicolas Hubert, Stéphanie Leyronas, and Sidy Mohamed Seck

Introduction 33

Construction and Representation of Land-Based

Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa 34

Drivers of Change in African Land-Based Commons 41

Developing Commons-Based Entrepreneurship for Land and Natural Resources 49

Conclusion 57
<table><tr><td>Notes</td><td>58</td></tr><tr><td>References</td><td>59</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>3</td><td><strong>Housing and the Future of Rural Land-Based Commons</strong><br/>Claire Simonneau, Bérénice Bon, Éric Denis, Stéphanie Leyronas, and Issa Sory</td><td>71</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Introduction</td><td>71</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Rural Lands versus the City: The Effects of Urbanization Dynamics on Rural Commons</td><td>72</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Collective Arrangements for Access to Land and Housing in the City</td><td>78</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Possibilities for Public Action</td><td>87</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Conclusion</td><td>91</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Notes</td><td>93</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>References</td><td>93</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>4</td><td><strong>Urban Commons: Reestablishing Social Ties in African Cities</strong><br/>Stéphanie Leyronas, Alix Françoise, Isabelle Liotard, Lola Mercier, and Guiako Obin</td><td>99</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Introduction</td><td>99</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Urban Commons in the Context of Sub-Saharan Africa</td><td>100</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>African Commons Embodied by Social, Cultural, and Technological Spaces</td><td>103</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Shaping African Cities through the Prism of Urban Commons</td><td>114</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Conclusion</td><td>123</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Notes</td><td>124</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>References</td><td>124</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>5</td><td><strong>Digital Commons and Entrepreneurship: Alternative or Complementary Approaches?</strong><br/>Jan Krewer, Stéphanie Leyronas, and Thomas Mboa</td><td>131</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Introduction</td><td>131</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>What Role Should Digital Technology Play in Commons-Based Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa?</td><td>132</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>A Catalogue of Digital Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Range of Resources and Communities Contributing to the Continent's Development</td><td>139</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Digital Commons: Opportunities and Challenges for African Development</td><td>150</td></tr></table>
<table><tr><td>Conclusion</td><td>156</td></tr><tr><td>Notes</td><td>158</td></tr><tr><td>References</td><td>160</td></tr></table>

## 6 Commons, General Interest, and Public Policy: Issues for the State in Sub-Saharan Africa 165

Benjamin Coriat, Mamoudou Gazibo, and Stéphanie Leyronas

<table><tr><td>Introduction</td><td>165</td></tr><tr><td>Historical Trajectories of States and Public Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa</td><td>166</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Securing and Promoting the Development of Commons: What Is the Role of the State?</td><td>171</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Three Types of Risks to Overcome</td><td>175</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Beyond This, Any Opportunities for Debate?</td><td>177</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Conclusion</td><td>182</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Notes</td><td>183</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>References</td><td>184</td></tr></table>

## 7 Funders' Attitudes, Perceptions, and Actions: Taking Inspiration from the Commons-Based Approach 191

Stéphanie Leyronas and Sophie Salomon

<table><tr><td>Introduction</td><td>191</td></tr><tr><td>Source of Inspiration 1—Moving Away from an Assumption of Institutional Uniformity to the Recognition of the Diversity of Practices</td><td>193</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Source of Inspiration 2—Shifting from Top-Down Observation to an Embedded Approach</td><td>196</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Source of Inspiration 3—Changing a Results-Based Culture into One Supporting the Process</td><td>198</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Source of Inspiration 4—Switching from Expert Knowledge to Pluralist Knowledge</td><td>200</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Conclusion</td><td>201</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Notes</td><td>202</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>References</td><td>203</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Afterword by Tanella Boni</td><td>207</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Afterword by Thomas Mélonio and Kako Nubukpo</td><td>212</td></tr></table>
## Boxes

<table><tr><td>1.1</td><td>The Emergence of the Concept of “Commons”—A Historical Perspective</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>1.2</td><td>Alienation Rights—A Right Like Any Other?</td><td>5</td></tr><tr><td>1.3</td><td>The Eight Design Principles</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>1.4</td><td>Examples of Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa Operating on the Full-Market Model</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td>1.5</td><td>Examples of Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa Operating on the Nonmarket Model</td><td>13</td></tr><tr><td>1.6</td><td>Examples of Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa Operating on the Hybrid Model</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>1.7</td><td>Commons-Based Entrepreneurship and the Social Solidarity Economy—Conceptual Distinctions</td><td>17</td></tr><tr><td>1.8</td><td>Forms of Commons-Based Entrepreneurship for the Right to Food</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>1.9</td><td>Commons in African Literature</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>2.1</td><td>Collective Organizations to Adapt to Natural Resource Variability—The Example of Water and Grazing Resources in Kenya</td><td>36</td></tr><tr><td>2.2</td><td>Interdependent Socioenvironmental Relationships— The Example of Primo-Commons in Burkina Faso</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><td>2.3</td><td>Primo- and Neo-Commons—The Case of Mohéli Park in Comoros</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><td>2.4</td><td>The Protected Natural Areas Model in Sub-Saharan Africa</td><td>44</td></tr><tr><td>2.5</td><td>The Emergence of Private Ownership and the Commodification of Family Land in Southern Benin</td><td>46</td></tr><tr><td>2.6</td><td>Commons Undermined over Mineral Resources</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>2.7</td><td>Supporting the Development of Commons-Based Economic Entrepreneurship in the Senegal River Valley— An Integrated Approach</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>2.8</td><td>Conditions for the Effectiveness of Local Agreements Establishing Collective Action</td><td>54</td></tr><tr><td>2.9</td><td>Success Factors for Conservancies in Sub-Saharan Africa</td><td>55</td></tr><tr><td>2.10</td><td>The Principles of a Tripartite Agreement— The Example of the Senegal River Valley</td><td>56</td></tr><tr><td>3.1</td><td>Commercial Land Transactions at the Edges of Urbanization in Kenya</td><td>75</td></tr></table>
<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>3.2</td>
      <td>Dismantling the Collective Management of Peri-Urban Land in Burkina Faso</td>
      <td>77</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>3.3</td>
      <td>Madagascar—Farmers' Land Strategies to Maintain Agricultural Areas in Antananarivo</td>
      <td>78</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>3.4</td>
      <td>Housing Cooperatives in Burkina Faso</td>
      <td>81</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>3.5</td>
      <td>Housing Cooperatives in Senegal</td>
      <td>82</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>3.6</td>
      <td>The Voi Community Land Trust in Kenya</td>
      <td>84</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>3.7</td>
      <td>The Cité FSH Project—A Cooperative, Nonspeculative, Low-Income Housing Project on the Outskirts of Dakar</td>
      <td>86</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>4.1</td>
      <td>Examples of Public Urban Commons Accessible to Local People</td>
      <td>106</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>4.2</td>
      <td>Examples of Spaces Focusing on Art and Artists</td>
      <td>107</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>4.3</td>
      <td>BabyLab in Côte d'Ivoire</td>
      <td>112</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>4.4</td>
      <td>The Digital Creativity of African Fab Labs</td>
      <td>113</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>4.5</td>
      <td>Educational Skills and Practices Developed within African Urban Commons</td>
      <td>116</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>4.6</td>
      <td>The Environmental Functions of African Urban Commons</td>
      <td>117</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>4.7</td>
      <td>The Social Functions of African Urban Commons</td>
      <td>118</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>4.8</td>
      <td>Urban Fabric Initiatives: From Temporary Urbanism to Transitional Urbanism</td>
      <td>122</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.1</td>
      <td>Digital Cameroon 2016–2020 Strategy</td>
      <td>133</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.2</td>
      <td>Some Definitions Related to Digital Commons</td>
      <td>138</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.3</td>
      <td>AfricArXiv</td>
      <td>141</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.4</td>
      <td>Ushahidi</td>
      <td>142</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.5</td>
      <td>OpenMRS</td>
      <td>143</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.6</td>
      <td>Pamoja Net</td>
      <td>144</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.7</td>
      <td>Challenges of Pinning Down Digital Commons Geographically</td>
      <td>146</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.8</td>
      <td>Lacuna Fund</td>
      <td>147</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.9</td>
      <td>WAZIHUB</td>
      <td>151</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.10</td>
      <td>Grassroots Economics</td>
      <td>154</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.11</td>
      <td>Energypedia</td>
      <td>155</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.12</td>
      <td>e-Boda Co-op in Tanzania</td>
      <td>157</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.1</td>
      <td>Community and Cooperation in Certain Precolonial African Societies</td>
      <td>167</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.2</td>
      <td>Open Commons</td>
      <td>172</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.3</td>
      <td>Commons in the Service of Fulfilling the Right to Food</td>
      <td>179</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
6.4 A Digital Commons for the General Interest—
The Example of Open COVID19 in Senegal 181

7.1 Access to Medicines—A Bundle of Rights Approach to
Intellectual Property 195

7.2 A Commons-Based Approach to Energy Access Issues in
Sub-Saharan Africa 197

7.3 Support for “Commoning”—Approaches and Tools
That Are Already in Use 199

7.4 Mobilizing Multiple Forms of Knowledge—
The “Learning Territories” Approach 201

Figure

1.1 General Methodology of the Work 23

Maps

4.1 Social and Cultural Spaces Studied 104

4.2 Fab Labs Studied 105

5.1 Presence in Africa of Associations Affiliated with the
Wikimedia Foundation 149

5.2 Density of Contributions to OpenStreetMap in Africa 150

Tables

1.1 Ostrom's Typology of Goods 6

1.2 General Organization of the Book 25
# Foreword

In a context of rampant inequalities, a massive deterioration of natural resources, a generalized loss of trust in public institutions, as well as frequent market failures, *The Commons* is one of those books that help you think outside of the box and that, frankly speaking, give you hope. Given the complexity of all the challenges we face, a new path must be taken. What insights could the commons provide as we redefine our course of action?

First and foremost, *The Commons* sheds light on the astounding range of our collective practices, both the ones that we have inherited and the ones that are being invented and reinvented every day across the African continent. The book bears witness to a diverse, dynamic, adaptable, resourceful, and innovative Africa. It tells the stories of citizens who take an active part in collective endeavors as a way to experiment with and experience the type of society they want to live in. Taking a firm stand in support of local actors, the book takes us on a journey through the diverse landscape of African commons and reveals the breadth of local knowledge that fuels them.

Although it is hard to intuitively gauge their precise extent, African commons testify to the ability of collectives to initiate ecological, economic, and social transitions at their level of action, beyond the state and the market. Actually, an important part of Sub-Saharan African natural resources and rural areas are commons-based managed. Some commons deliver services (water or energy supply, waste management) when public infrastructure is lacking. At the same time, social and democratic practices are experimented within shared spaces (fab labs, cultural spaces) in urban areas. In parallel, digital commons are sprouting, with a view to generalizing public access to peer-produced knowledge. While being careful not to idealize them, this book supports the idea that these innovations deserve better recognition as one of the contemporary forms of collective action. The many examples throughout the book are a source of inspiration, not only for Africa but also for the Global North.
In parallel, the present book invites us to leave behind outdated and narrow notions of the commons, which have been too often described as static practices bound by tradition. On the contrary, the goal of the book is to emphasize the relevance and constant evolution of the commons. In contexts characterized by webs of interdependence and systemic challenges, it is critical that we overcome our tendency to work in silos and rather look at the Sustainable Development Goals in cross-cutting ways. In that regard, as emphasized in the final chapter of the present work, the question of commons strongly resonates with professional practices and current concerns that take place within and between public development banks, organized within the *Finance in Common* movement since 2020. When development projects succeed in bringing together all stakeholders around modes of governance attuned to the specificities of local contexts, do they not, in a sense, implement new commons-based dynamics? Can we go so far as to say that those development projects may be seen as commons in and of themselves?

*The Commons* advocates strong messages on which it might not be possible to reach a consensus. From a philosophical standpoint, this work enacts a potent decentering. Rather than being synonymous with a “universal approach that implies a movement of inclusion into some pre-existing entity,” the commons are to be understood as a form of “being-in-common,” which “presupposes a relationship of co-belonging across multiple singularities,” in the words of my friend, historian Achille Mbembe.

By operating the switch from commons to “commons-based approaches,” this book takes a firm stand in favor of an operational perspective and aims to enlist all actors in the search for solutions that are collectively built and accepted by all. In our effort to carve out a new path through the commons, we must be ready to question our biases, our ways of thinking, and our most deeply rooted certainties as well as our tools and methods. In that regard, this book asks us to reflect on the ways in which commons can contribute, alongside public and private actors, to the preservation of general interest. It offers a renewed and updated framework to guide future actions.

This book does not present commons as the ultimate solution. Yet it unambiguously shows that commons must be reckoned with when we think about alternative ways to live together as a society. My warmest thanks go to all involved in creating this beautiful and inspiring work.

Rémy Rioux

Chief Executive Officer

Agence française de développement
Acknowledgments

Many people contributed to the creation of *The Commons*, be it through their research and operational experiences or by way of formal and informal discussions.

First, we would like to express our gratitude to Lola Mercier, without whom this book would certainly not have been possible. We thank Mathieu Boche for his many insights during the framing of the general purpose of the book. We are also grateful for Etienne Charrière's valuable support and Nicolas Hubert's suggestions throughout the editorial process.

In addition to the contributors whose names figure in this publication, we would also like to thank all those involved in the study of commons and social innovations whose work or experiences made this book possible: Jean-François Alesandrini, Nicole Alix, Martine Antona, Sigrid Aubert, Stéphane Baudé, Émeline Baudet, Michel Bauwens, Florent Bédécarrats, David Bollier, Sarah Botton, François Bousquet, Sébastien Broca, Aurore Chaigneau, Olivier De Schutter, Etienne Delay, Louisa Desbleds, François Enten, Etienne Espagne, Geneviève Fontaine, Maxime Forest, Marilou Gilbert, Gaël Giraud, Philippe Karpe, Jean-François Kibler, Philippe Lavigne Delville, Martin Lemenager, Lionel Maurel, Fabienne Orsi, Vatche Papazian, Hélène Périvier, Audrey Perraud, Olivier Petit, Judith Rochfeld, Irène Salenson, Pierre Salignon, Frédéric Sultan, Magali Toro, Sarah Vanuxem, and Corinne Vercher-Chaptal.

We would particularly like to thank those who kindly read the first drafts of the various chapters. In this respect, we would also like to thank Pierre-Arnaud Barthel, Carl Bernadac, Raphaël Besson, Julien Calas, Jérémie Daussin-Charpentier, Hélène Djoufelkit, Nadège Legroux, Jean-David Naudet, Serge Rabier, and Françoise Rivière for their comments and suggestions.

Numerous meetings, discussions, and debates with researchers, commons stakeholders, and political actors also influenced the contents of this book. In this respect, we would particularly like to thank Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan for his important and constructive contribution to this project.
We also thank the International Association for the Study of the Commons, La Coop des Communs (Commons Cooperative), the Comité technique “Foncier et développement” (Technical Committee on “Land Tenure and Development”), GRET, Remix the commons, and the P2P Foundation.

It has been possible to include this book in this collection only because com-
mitted individuals working within operations funded by the Agence française
de développement (AFD) (French Development Agency) have demonstrated
that, despite the constraints, it is possible for commons in Sub-Saharan Africa
to receive institutional support and recognition. The following list is by no
means exhaustive, but we would like to express our gratitude to Jean-François
Almanza, Quentin Ballin, Alexandre Berthon-Dumurgier, Marie Bjornson-
Langen, Perrine Bonvalet-Döring, Cassilde Brenière, Antoine Chèvre, Sarah
Crochon, Jérémy Gasc, Gilles Kleitz, Marie Le Gac, Grégoire Léna, Frédéric
Maurel, Jean Millerat, Gwenaël Prié, and Stéphanie Wattrelos Rutily.

We would also like to pay tribute to those that we have lost but whose
work continues to inspire us in so many ways: Silke Helfrich, Etienne Le Roy,
Dominique Rojat, and Olivier Weinstein.

Finally, we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable
comments and suggestions. In addition, the editors wish to thank the World
Bank for its pioneering work conducted with Elinor Ostrom and for the present
opportunity to shed new light on African commons.
# About the Editors and Contributors

## Editors

**Benjamin Coriat** is an economist and professor emeritus of economics at Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, France. He has worked extensively on issues surrounding the industrial economy, innovation, and intellectual property. For 20 years, he has concentrated on the study of commons and common goods. In this area, he has written and co-coordinated numerous publications, including *Le retour des communs* (2015); *Vers une République des biens communs* (2019); *La Pandémie, l'Anthropocène et le bien commun* (2020); and *Le bien commun, le climat et le marché* (2021). He also cofounded the French group Économistes atterrés (the Dismayed Economists). Between 2016 and 2020, he led a multidisciplinary research program on “commons-based entrepreneurship.” Its work is available at encommuns.com.

**Stéphanie Leyronas** is a research fellow specializing in the commons at the Agence française de développement (AFD) (French Development Agency). Previously, she held operational roles within the agency, first as the drinking water and sanitation challenges project team leader and subsequently as deputy manager of the AFD unit working in the same area. Currently, her work focuses on observing the commons in the various fields where the AFD operates: land, natural resources management, health, access to water and energy, urban commons, digital commons, and the collaborative economy. In this respect, she has been conducting an internal expert network within the AFD since 2020. Her work has been published in a variety of formats (scientific publications, book chapters, policy briefs, policy papers, and international conference proceedings).

**Kako Nubukpo** is an economist and has been commissioner in charge of agriculture, water resources, and the environment of the Commission de l'Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine (UEMOA) (Commission of the West
African Economic and Monetary Union) since 2021. He is a former dean of the Faculty of Economics and Management at the University of Lomé, Togo. He is director of the Observatoire de l'Afrique subsaharienne (Sub-Saharan Africa Observatory) at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès (Jean-Jaurès Foundation) in Paris and a researcher at the Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD) (French Agricultural Research Center for International Development). He is a member of the AFD's scientific committee and on the board of the Fondation pour l'agriculture et la ruralité dans le monde (Global Foundation for Agriculture and Rural Development). He is a former fellow of the Global Economic Governance Programme run by Oxford University (United Kingdom) and Princeton University (United States). He recently published *Une solution pour l'Afrique: Du néoprotectionnisme aux biens communs* (2022).

## Contributors

**Patrick d'Aquino** is an expert in social geography and participatory mechanisms at the Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD) (French Agricultural Research Center for International Development) based in Montpellier, France. At the beginning of the 1990s, his work focused on drawing out local knowledge in Burkina Faso. He was one of the first to design a participatory geographic information system in 1998. At the end of the 1990s, he codesigned a new approach to participatory modeling (www.commod.org) combining scientific and local knowledge. At the start of the 2000s, he extrapolated the approach for participatory development of public policy mechanisms using participatory modeling tools or simulation games (www.territories.com). A collection of training mechanisms and methodological tools was produced to enable this approach to be reproduced on a large scale. It is currently being implemented in several regions across the world, particularly in the Sahel and Southeast Asia.

**Mathieu Boche** is an agricultural and development economist. His doctoral dissertation focused on large-scale land acquisitions in Mozambique. He subsequently joined the AFD in 2017 as an expert on land and development issues in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa and countries in the Amazonian basin. He chaired the Comité technique “Foncier et développement” (CTFD) (Technical Committee on “Land Tenure and Development”) supported by the AFD and the Ministère français de l’Europe et des affaires étrangères (French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs) for eight years. He is currently working at the AFD’s Dakar office. Notably, he contributed to the CTFD-coordinated report *Approche par les communs de la terre et des ressources qu’elle porte—Guide opérationnel* (2020).
**Bérénice Bon** is a geographer and research fellow at the Institut français de recherche pour le développement (IRD) (the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development) within the Centre d'études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques (CESSMA) (Centre for Social Sciences Studies on the African, American and Asian worlds) located in Paris, France. Her research focuses on urbanization trends in Sub-Saharan Africa, principally sites located in Kenya. She is coordinating the METROLAND project (Commodifying land: Capital, inequalities, and conflicts in Sub-Saharan African metropolitan peripheries in Mali, Senegal, and Kenya), which is funded by the Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR) (French National Research Agency) from 2022 to 2025. She is also participating in the GlobalSmog project that is researching atmospheric air pollution regulation in large cities in Africa and South Asia.

**Tanella Boni** is an Ivorian philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A professor of philosophy at Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny in Abidjan, she is also a member of the Academy of Sciences, Arts and Cultures of Africa and African Diasporas. Over the past 40 years, she has been working across disciplines on important issues of our times, including migrations, border crossings, nature conservation, social and family connections, the position of African women, and the place of Africa in the world. Her most recent books are *Habiter* (essay, Muséo editions Muséo, 2018); *Matins de couvre-feu*, Ahmadou Kourouma Price 2005 (reprint 2022, Nimba editions); *Sans parole ni poignée de main* (novel, Nimba editions, 2022); *Le poème n'est pas un objet perdu* (collection of poems, Vallesse editions, 2022); and *Insoutenable frontière* (collection of poems, Bruno Doucey editions, 2022).

**Éric Denis** is a geographer at the *Centre national de la recherche scientifique* (CNRS) (French National Centre for Scientific Research) and director of Géographie-cités (Geography-Cities), an interdisciplinary research laboratory attached to the CNRS, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Université Paris Cité, and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) (School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) in France. He conducts multidisciplinary work with anthropologists and legal experts on informality and negotiations and setup methods in cities in the Global South, particularly in the Arab Republic of Egypt and in India. He coordinated research on access to housing in cities in the Arab world and on subaltern urbanization in India. He also coordinated the program on urban commons for housing in the Global South with Claire Simonneau (AFD 2018-20 funding) and is currently finishing multisite research into urban land conversions in the Global South with Bérénice Bon and Claire Simonneau (CTFD funding).

**Alix Françoise** is a research fellow at the AFD. Her work focuses on territorial transitions and the challenges surrounding urbanization and the environment.
She previously held operational roles at the AFD as the urban development project team leader in Paris and at the Tunisia office. With a background in political science and geography, she contributes to work on issues surrounding cities and climate, as well as food supplies in cities.

**Nicolas Hubert** is a postdoctoral researcher at the “Chaire Raoul Dandurand” (Raoul Dandurand Chair) at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Canada. He is also deputy editor-in-chief of *VertigO–La revue électronique en sciences de l’environnement*. He uses the perspective of political science to examine the challenges surrounding the environment, natural resources management, social and political movements, and state-building and peacebuilding in fragile states or societies that have experienced conflict. His current research focuses more particularly on conflicts connected to environmental damage and the development of the extractive industry, as well as the management of national parks in West Africa.

**Mamoudou Gazibo** is a professor of political science at the University of Montreal, Canada. He specializes in comparative politics and international cooperation. His research focuses particularly on state formation, democratisation, and development in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as China-Africa relations. In 2010, he chaired the drafting committee of Niger's Constitution. His many publications include *Repenser la légitimité de l'État africain à l'ère de la gouvernance partagée* (2017).

**Jan Krewer** is a French-German digital public policies consultant. He was deputy secretary general of the Conseil national du numérique (France's National Digital Council) and has taught at Sciences Po Paris, France. He has also worked in Sub-Saharan Africa (Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Rwanda, and Senegal), where he was a strategic adviser for the Smart Africa Alliance. He participated in designing pilot projects to integrate digital commons to support development cooperation, including, for example, with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Mozilla Foundation. He has also written several articles on this subject.

**Isabelle Liotard** is a lecturer and researcher in economics at Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, France. Her research focuses principally on innovation and digital technology. She has studied fab labs in Sub-Saharan Africa within the framework of the “commons-based entrepreneurship” research program. Her work on innovation and digital technology has been published on numerous occasions, including in particular an article that appeared in the magazine *Innovations* in 2020, “The Fablabs in the Heart of the City: The Specificities of Places in French-Speaking Africa.”
**Thomas Mboa** is a researcher in residence at the Centre d'expertise international de Montréal en intelligence artificielle (International Centre of Expertise in Montreal on Artificial Intelligence), Canada. He is also a lecturer at the École supérieure des sciences et techniques de l'information et de la communication (Information and Communication Sciences and Technology Graduate School), Cameroon. He has a PhD in public communication. His research interests focus on the digitalization of knowledge, artificial intelligence, and open science. He is a member of internationally respected laboratories (MICA in Bordeaux and LabCMO in Montreal). He also founded Mboalab (www.mboalab.africa), a fab lab specializing in health. His many contributions to scientific publications and conferences can be found on the following website: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9678-7765.

**Thomas Mélonio** is an economist whose work focuses on funding for education, higher education, student loans, and international migration. Between 2012 and 2017, he was the deputy adviser and subsequently adviser to the president of France on African affairs and then joined the AFD's partnerships department. Since 2018, he has been the Executive Director for Innovation, Strategy, and Research at the AFD.

**Lola Mercier** is studying social sciences and political sciences at the École normale supérieure de Lyon (ENS de Lyon) and the École des hautes études commerciales de Paris (HEC Paris), France. Her work at the AFD focuses on governance and commons in Sub-Saharan Africa.

**Guiako Obin** is originally from Côte d'Ivoire. After his degree in computer science, he began his professional career in the field of Geolocation. Wanting to commit to a more inclusive digital world and to be a major player in Africa, he created in 2014 with friends, mostly computer scientists, the BabyLab in the popular commune of Abobo in the city of Abidjan. He has also worked closely with international organizations such as the Next Einstein Forum of the African Institute of Science and Mathematics to foster technological innovation in Africa. In recognition of his outstanding contributions, he has been awarded a dozen prizes and distinctions, including the National Award of Excellence for the best youth digital initiative in Côte d'Ivoire.

**David Obura** (coauthor of background research paper 2) is a founding director of Coastal Oceans Research and Development-Indian Ocean (CORDIO) East Africa, an organization that supports the sustainability of coral reefs and marine systems in the western Indian Ocean. His initial research focused on the resilience of coral reefs, particularly to climate change, and now extends to policy processes related to biodiversity, reefs, climate, and sustainability.
He has been part of the Earth Commission since 2019 and is active in the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) technical processes.

Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan (author of background research paper 1) is a researcher at the Laboratoire d'études et de recherche sur les dynamiques sociales et le développement local (Laboratory for Research into Social Dynamics and Local Development) and an associate professor at the Université Abdou Moumouni (Abdou Moumouni University), Niger. He is also director emeritus for research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) (French National Centre for Scientific Research) and director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) (School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences), France. For 30 years, the main focus of his work has been the social anthropology of the state and public services in Africa. He has also examined issues surrounding health, governance, and development. His latest book, published in 2021 by Karthala, is *La revanche des contextes. Des mésaventures de l'ingénierie sociale en Afrique et au-delà*.

Sophie Salomon is deputy director of the AFD's economic assessment and public policy department. As such, she has contributed to the internal expert network of commons conducted by Stéphanie Leyronas. Previously, she held operational roles. In Paris, she acted as an adviser for initiatives looking to improve working methods and internal processes. In Southeast Asia, she was in charge of managing infrastructure and public policy development projects required for the ecological and climate transition. Before joining the AFD, she managed projects seeking to modernize economic and financial governance in Vietnam for the public interest group Assistance au développement des échanges en technologies économiques et financières (ADETEF) (Agency for Technical Economic and Financial Cooperation) and in Algeria for the European Commission.

Sidy Mohamed Seck is a geographer and social economist. He is a lecturer and researcher at Université Gaston Berger (Gaston Berger University) (Senegal) and West Africa regional coordinator of the Comité scientifique et technique eau agricole (COSTEA) (Scientific and Technical Committee on Agricultural Water). He is a member of the Groupe interdisciplinaire de recherche pour l'appui à la planification régionale et au développement local (Interdisciplinary Research Group Supporting Regional Planning and Local Development), the Leïdi laboratory (land and development trends), the Comité technique "Foncier et développement" (CTFD) (Technical Committee on "Land Tenure and Development"), and the French organization Améliorer la gouvernance
de la terre, de l'eau et des ressources naturelles (AGTER) (Association to
Contribute to Improve the Governance of Land, Water and Natural Resources).
His research and expertise in the development of rural areas and institutional
support for producer organizations and local communities date back 40 years.
He has worked in Senegal and West Africa on a number of occasions to perform
research and provide expertise and scientific advice on behalf of international
organizations.

Claire Simonneau is a lecturer and researcher at Université Gustave Eiffel (Gustave Eiffel University) (France) within the Laboratoire techniques, terri-toires et sociétés (Techniques, Lands, and Societies Laboratory). Her research focuses on the production and management of cities in the Global South, particularly Benin and Senegal. She examines land trends, how they are regulated, and how they are contested. In partnership with the AFD and the CTFD, she recently coordinated two comparative research programs: land-based commons for housing in the Global South (with Éric Denis) and land use conversions in the Global South (with Éric Denis and Bérénice Bon).

Issa Sory is a lecturer and researcher in the geography department of Université Norbert Zongo (Norbert Zongo University), Burkina Faso. Within the Groupe de recherche sur les initiatives locales (Local Initiatives Research Group) at Université Joseph Ki-Zerbo (Joseph Ki-Zerbo University) (Burkina Faso), his research focuses on urban policies, development, the environment, and urban services in Burkina Faso. He recently published “Les effets des mesures barrières contre la Covid-19 sur les perceptions des acteurs de la filière des ordures ménagères à Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)” (2021) and “Public Land Policies at an Impasse in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)” (2019).

Sébastien Treyer (coauthor of background research paper 2) has been execu-
tive director of the Institut du développement durable et des relations inter-
nationales (IDDRI) (Institute for Sustainable Development and International
Relations), France, since January 2019. He also chairs the scientific and technical
committee of the Fonds français pour l'environnement mondial (French Facility
for Global Environment) and is a member of the Lead Faculty of the Earth
System Governance network. He is a graduate of France's École Polytechnique
and served as chief engineer for bridges, waters, and forests. He has a PhD in
environment management and was head of forecasting at France's environment
ministry. He has played an active role in improving communication between
scientists and policy makers and in scientific programming with the European
Commission, the ANR, and regional stakeholders.
<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>
# Overview

Stéphanie Leyronas and Benjamin Coriat

*Emptiness did not exist in Africa. Even the deserts were inhabited. There was always someone, or something, alive.*

—Léonora Miano, novelist, 2005

*What do I mean by “Africa”? In fact, there are several Africas, each with its own trajectory, diverse history and memories, and very different experiences of the political. Any discussion of Africa can only truly be valid if the concept of the continent as a homogeneous reality is deconstructed. Africa is not a geographical space, but rather a collection of diverse perspectives, cultures, and approaches to life.*

—Aminata Diaw, philosopher, 2004

*The Commons* explores the many forms of development being championed by Africa's residents, users, and citizens. In addition to managing property and shared tangible and intangible resources collectively, they are experimenting with a concept of “commoning” founded on values such as community, engagement, reciprocity, and trust. In practice, their approach takes the form of land-based commons, housing cooperatives, hybrid cultural spaces or places for innovation, and collaborative digital platforms. The purpose of this book, where observation of historical and recent practices converges with new theories within commons scholarship, is not to promote commons themselves. Rather, it examines the tensions, drivers of change, and opportunities that surround commons dynamics in Africa.

*The Commons* also considers to what extent these forms of development might contribute to constructing and initiating a continentwide innovative political project that nonetheless respects Africa's diversity. At a time when Africa's stakeholders are facing increasingly complex social and environmental dilemmas, its purpose is not to say *what* should be done or *how* it should be done but rather to open up avenues for discussion.
*The Commons* provides decision-makers, financial backers, researchers, and civil society actors with an opportunity to reflect upon their own positions and their relationship with the processes of individualization and ownership, standardization and formalism, and utilitarianism and commodification. It is essential to examine these issues in order to consider the diversity of institutional arrangements proposed by commons. This recognition is necessary for “commoning” to thrive on complex social challenges for which responsibility currently lies within public authorities and market powers.

The aim of *The Commons* is to encourage discussions around this concept rather than to provide a definitive assessment of it. Although it does set out the various fields in which commons take place in Sub-Saharan Africa, many themes (e.g., challenges surrounding public services provision, gender, climate change adaptation, and biodiversity) remain unexamined or require further consideration and should be the subject of future work.

## Narrative Thread

In her influential book *Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action* (1990), Ostrom shows that many generally renewable resources can be managed locally by small but diverse communities that develop collective rules to avoid their destruction. She also maintains that, in many cases, managing in such a way these “common-pool resources” can prove to be more effective than regulation by a superior authority (usually the state) or individualization and privatization. She advances this argument at a time when the prevailing wisdom concurred with the notion of the “tragedy of the commons” proposed more than 20 years earlier by the American biologist Garrett Hardin. According to this theory, only the nationalization or privatization of natural resources can prevent overexploitation. The reasoning and analysis framework developed by Ostrom, and more widely by the Bloomington School, has fueled much research over several decades. Commons scholarship has developed significantly in a variety of fields, and in particular very recently around the notion of “commons-based entrepreneurship” (chapter 1).

Commons have been observed empirically in Sub-Saharan Africa in numerous areas, and their presence is far from marginal. On the subject of land and natural resource management, African commons constitute an extension of the traditional practices that communities deploy and adapt to modern conditions. Economic activities and market rationale are subordinated to social relationships and environmental interdependencies. Against a backdrop of legal pluralism and frequent competition between land regulation stakeholders, these commons can only be secured if usage rights are guaranteed, the rules are suitable and effective, and their institutional framework is clear (chapter 2). Land-based commons are
currently undergoing significant change. In a period of rapid and diffuse urbanization, a number of factors drive the transformation of relationships with land (commodification, individualization, land and housing needs, land's role as a financial asset). They also contribute to the dismantling of commons on the outskirts of urban conglomerations, including on the rural-urban fringe that some stakeholders anticipate as the new urban frontline. At the same time, new commons are emerging to enable not only vulnerable populations but also the middle classes to access housing in the absence of any social housing policies (chapter 3).

African cities are also witnessing the emergence of hybrid places located within urban sites and managed collectively by groups with a social, economic, and political goal. They might focus on welfare and the improvement of living standards (shared gardens, playing fields, community centers) or access to art and culture, science, innovation, and digital technology. These commons serve different purposes. Activities with an environmental and social purpose sit alongside educational activities. They challenge the way in which cities are shaped at a time when local communities struggle to find solutions to the issues facing cities and urban areas more widely (chapter 4).

Digital technology plays a special role in many of these hybrid places. It is more widely part of most development strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this context, digital commons represent a credible alternative to a form of digital entrepreneurship based on ownership where the goal is exponential growth. However, digital commons do not necessarily place themselves as part of a countermovement. Rather, they propose pragmatic individual and collective approaches, combining commons-based and more traditional entrepreneurial perspectives (chapter 5).

In terms of regulation, the extent of the relationship that African public stakeholders (states and their agencies or local communities) choose to forge with commons varies. Four main categories emerge: opposition or even preda-tion, indifference, facilitation and establishment, and contribution and part-nership. The nature of the position taken by a state and the resources that it intends to deploy vis-à-vis commons is eminently political. Ultimately, com-mons can encourage a reexamination of the very notion of the state in terms of its relationship with individuals and society. Commons offer a vision of a new approach where the state is closer to its people (chapter 6).

To achieve this, public stakeholders must commit to looking again at their own practices. Funders must also confront their universalist configurations and their “managerialist” processes. If commons are to be supported, positions must be changed to enable a “commons-based approach” to act as an operational framework. This strategy can be broken down into four main objectives: mov-ing away from an assumption of institutional uniformity to the recognition of the diversity of practices, shifting from top-down observation to an embedded approach, changing a results-based culture into one supporting the process, and switching from expert knowledge to pluralist knowledge (chapter 7).
These considerations around African commons, both on the practices and on the values that they promote, open the door to further analysis of a number of issues, such as the provision of services of general interest. Sub-Saharan Africa's failing public services are in crisis. As a result, various forms of local governance (chiefdoms, religious institutions, sponsors, private stakeholders, local or international organizations) provide public goods to supplement the services delivered by municipal authorities or states and toward which the population still has high expectations. Some of the aforementioned bodies are highly dependent on external aid, therefore raising questions about the ability of commons to provide sustainable responses to absent or failing public services. The role of public stakeholders and their capacity for reform from within also deserve to be examined (background research paper 1).

Another area for consideration is biodiversity governance. Land-based commons can fulfill environmental functions in areas where loss of biodiversity is well established. Commons seem able to foster a unique position for Africa in terms of tackling the challenges surrounding biodiversity conservation and the methods required to achieve it using the “shared earth” polycentric approach. This strategy diverges from the dominant 30 × 30 discourse whereby 30 percent of the planet should be covered by a protected area by 2030 (background research paper 2).

# Eight Key Messages

## Why Do Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa Matter?

*Message 1: In Sub-Saharan Africa, collective organizations take place to protect the common good.*

Collective organizations produce, manage, and protect a variety of tangible and intangible resources. They sometimes spread out as “palliative solutions” when public intervention measures (central, provincial, decentralized, or local) have proved inadequate or are even absent. Consider, for example, urban commons used as hybrid cultural places or as places for innovation. These organizations may also focus on particular issues before they become part of the political agenda. For example, land-based commons seek to conserve biodiversity. Collective organizations sometimes also play a role in resisting individualization and commodification, something demonstrated by housing cooperatives.

These organizations are rooted in practices and experiences. Protection of the common good, understood as living in the world in a way that protects human and nonhuman communities and ecosystems, is part of their raison d'être. They are founded on people's right to exist. This right includes fundamental social rights (e.g., food, health, and education) but also the right to a social existence (i.e., to have a recognized and legitimate position and role in society).
This right to a social existence is expressed through a process of “commoning.” Based on consultation, trust, and reciprocity, commons participants, particularly young people, develop diverse skills (problem solving and solution finding, creativity, cooperation, leadership, and entrepreneurship).

These collective organizations are not the only local responses deployed by African populations, but they are significant and deserve to be explored.

*Message 2: The notion of “commons” can help explain and describe exactly what these organizations are and how they operate.*

The concept of “commons” can help explain what these organizations are and give them visibility. Ostrom, the 2009 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, played a key role in the development of this notion. Today, the concept continues to evolve within academic circles in a variety of fields (e.g., knowledge commons, urban commons, digital commons, and cultural commons).

In this instance, the concept is not seen as a turnkey solution. Nor is it a question of idealizing these organizations in terms of their social inclusion capacities or, on the contrary, discrediting them in the name of modernity and economic efficiency. Rather, the notion is used as a frame of reference and an instrument of analysis for understanding the practices and organizations deployed in Sub-Saharan Africa via consideration of the various forms that commons can take in their different fields, as well as discussing and debating how societies should be made.

*Message 3: Commons exist in their own space, beyond the market and the state, or public and private spheres.*

Using peer learning and trial and error, these collective organizations generate their own operating rules to define positions for each participant, as well as the rights and duties associated with those positions. Their self-governing nature means that they can be deployed independently from the dominant state apparatus and can develop systems that stem from “consultative,” experimental, and constructive democracy, including in environments where representative democracy is disputed.

These organizations can mobilize novel forms of entrepreneurship that we call “commons-based entrepreneurship.” Its particularity is that it seeks satisfaction from the right to exist rather than profit and enrichment. Monetary and market exchanges may prove necessary, but they are not the aim in and of themselves. This form of entrepreneurship is also founded on consultative decision-making processes, rather than on the principles of authority and hierarchy. Finally, the right of ownership over shared resources is not private and exclusive. Instead, it is based on distributed rights, a concept tagged by Ostrom as “the bundle of rights.”

In Europe, commons are sometimes presented as countermodels and alternatives to modern capitalism. However, those deployed in Sub-Saharan Africa do not really see themselves as part of a formal movement. Nonetheless, they do exist on the fringes of established systems. As such, African commons
experiment with and defend principles and values that foster examination of
how the economy, social institutions, and the state itself might be transformed.

What Are African Commons?

*Message 4: African commons are constantly evolving and respond to hybrid dynamics.*

Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa are social constructs that continue to adapt to the dynamic nature of environmental systems and to the evolution of human societies. In some areas, such as land or natural resources, they can be an extension of so-called traditional or customary commons. However, they can also stem from recent creations.

Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa bring together different types of
communities and stakeholders. Some are partly structured around communities
that have some form of membership criteria such as the tribe, family lineage,
or the clan. They often involve a variety of socioeconomic stakeholders (young
workers, women, those working in cooperatives, or micro-entrepreneurs)
and work with administrative communities and stakeholders (e.g., villages
or local communities). In this instance, the “community” is therefore defined
on the basis of very specific social relationships, and it can therefore be very
heterogeneous. Communities can also become intertwined with one another
(e.g., through digital commons), as can the resources (e.g., land-based
commons). Similarly, hybridization is evidenced through the creation of
different standards where traditional rules for organizing local societies are
combined with some of the rules and operating standards defined within the
legal framework in which they work.

Commons are able to continue to evolve and tackle uncertain conditions
and increasingly complex social and environmental dilemmas thanks to the
institutional plasticity created by such hybridization.

*Message 5: *African commons are subject to internal tensions and face external threats, making them vulnerable.*

Commons are subject to internal tensions. The interests of individuals, or
the groups that they form, do not necessarily converge. The commons-based
perspective therefore presupposes consultation and a search for compromise.
Tensions can arise from different power relationships within the community,
inequalities, mechanisms for allocating authority, forms of exclusion and
discrimination (be they gender-based, social, political, or ethnic), and the
individual strategies of commons stakeholders.

Commons are also facing a number of changes to their environment. These
are transforming the social and political systems within which they evolve and
therefore modifying the conditions under which they operate. Such changes
might prove to be opportunities for commons or, on the contrary, might
endanger their very existence. The roots of these changes are many and varied:
individualization and commodification, uniformization of standards by public authorities, demographic dynamics (fertility and migration), and market or court-authorized appropriation by private owners or states, for example, of resources and spaces previously intended for collective use.

## How to Take Action?

*Message 6: Commons face dilemmas in terms of their sustainability, their scope, their economic model, and their political impact.*

Our observation of commons in Sub-Saharan Africa has revealed some dilemmas, but the potential solutions are not black or white. On the contrary, our purpose is to suggest avenues for discussion and debates around these challenges and the way in which public authorities could or should provide support.

The first dilemma concerns the sustainability of commons. Are African commons ephemeral and temporary “creations” by residents, users, and citizens who have been abandoned by the authorities but who await the arrival of a more protective state? Or are they structuring, enduring solutions? Are the individuals involved in African commons investing in the long-term possibility of promoting innovative forms of citizen engagement? Or are their actions provisional with a view to reintegrating the dominant system characterized by exclusive ownership and entrepreneurship in its traditional capitalist forms?

The second dilemma concerns the scope of commons action. Should African commons remain niche innovative spaces whose strength lies in the specificity and contextualization of their work? Or are they destined to occupy wider social fields through the promotion of the values on which their work is based such as community, commitment, reciprocity, and trust? Should commons seek to influence and occupy positions in society more widely, or should they concentrate on providing local strategies?

The third dilemma is the economic model on which the work of commons is based. Should African commons be left alone to devise the institutional arrangements that enable them to develop autonomous economic models (e.g., combining market transactions and participant membership fees)? Or should it be considered that they provide products and services with a particular and recognized social or environmental function that must be developed and protected by public stakeholders immediately?

The fourth dilemma concerns the ambitions envisioned from the relationship between commons and the public authorities. Should African commons remain on the fringes of the state for fear of being altered, corrupted, instrumentalized, or captured, subjected to attempts to harmonize, fix, and standardize them? Or should they formulate their expectations vis-à-vis the public authorities, both to secure their existence and to contribute to promoting their expansion and development? Might public institutions limit their consideration of commons to policy intermediaries? Or should they
commit to a partnership-based relationship with a view to strengthening their
own legitimacy and ensuring that the population truly has the right to exist?

The fifth dilemma concerns the political impact of commons. Are African commons destined to remain “safety valves” within the dominant economic model, “places of refuge” for those excluded from the heart of that model? Or can they become part of a new polycentric system? Should commons be incorporated into market principles, or should an alternative political project be constructed on the basis of new purposes and shared values?

*Message 7: The commons-based approach represents an operational framework for public stakeholders seeking to establish a close, supportive relationship with commons.*

Public stakeholders (states and their agencies, as well as local governments depending on the extent of decentralization) already have a wide variety of instruments at their disposal for recognizing the diverse institutional arrangements proposed by commons and providing polycentric support for collective action. A relationship based on a partnership between commons and the public authorities requires the latter to adopt positions, perspectives, methods, and tools that do not enter in conflict with the expectations and needs of commons. The focus of these positions, perspectives, methods, and tools must be to involve collectives in addressing any specific problems that they may raise and in formulating political projects to resolve them. The public authorities must adopt a nonprescriptive, pragmatic, and contextualized approach, something that we call the “commons-based approach.”

*Message 8: Commons can inspire an innovative political project for Sub-Saharan Africa.*

Our hope is that this book will open up avenues for additional opportunities. Sub-Saharan Africa has embarked on a period of significant economic, demographic, democratic, and environmental transition. This is a pivotal moment in which the climate and environmental crises heighten the continent's vulnerability. We believe that commons, as both a critical and constructive approach, can contribute to forging new perspectives for the African continent. In his latest essay, *Une solution pour l'Afrique* ("A Solution for Africa"), Kako Nubukpo, a Togolese economist, calls for the launch of a major singular political project. It should begin with the exploration of commons diversity, reflecting the variety of the "several Africas."

## References

*Diaw, A.* 2004. “Nouveaux Contours de l’Espace Public en Afrique.” *Diogène* 26 (2): 37–46. https://doi.org/10.3917/dio.206.0037.

*Miano, L.* 2005. *Dark Heart of the Night*. Lincoln, NE: Bison Books.
Abbreviations

<table><tr><td>AFD</td><td>Agence française de développement</td></tr><tr><td>BHS</td><td>Banque de l'Habitat du Sénégal</td></tr><tr><td>CAHF</td><td>Centre for Affordable Housing Finance</td></tr><tr><td>CLT</td><td>Community Land Trust</td></tr><tr><td>CPRs</td><td>common-pool resources</td></tr><tr><td>DNDi</td><td>Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative</td></tr><tr><td>FAO</td><td>Food and Agriculture Organization</td></tr><tr><td>FSH</td><td>Fédération sénégalaise des habitants</td></tr><tr><td>GDP</td><td>gross domestic product</td></tr><tr><td>GIZ</td><td>German Agency for International Cooperation</td></tr><tr><td>HIV</td><td>human immunodeficiency virus</td></tr><tr><td>IASC</td><td>International Association for the Study of the Commons</td></tr><tr><td>ICTs</td><td>information and communication technologies</td></tr><tr><td>IOM</td><td>International Organization for Migration</td></tr><tr><td>IoT</td><td>Internet of Things</td></tr><tr><td>NGOs</td><td>nongovernmental organizations</td></tr><tr><td>OECD</td><td>Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development</td></tr><tr><td>OIF</td><td>Organisation internationale de la francophonie</td></tr><tr><td>PNCL</td><td>Programme national de construction de logements</td></tr><tr><td>POAS</td><td>Plan d'occupation et d'affectation des sols</td></tr><tr><td>SAED</td><td>Société d'aménagement et d'exploitation des terres du Delta du Fleuve Sénégal</td></tr><tr><td>SEZs</td><td>special economic zones</td></tr><tr><td>SMCs</td><td>school management committees</td></tr><tr><td>SSE</td><td>social solidarity economy</td></tr><tr><td>UNESCO</td><td>United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization</td></tr><tr><td>VHZs</td><td>village hunting zones</td></tr></table>
<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>
# Chapter 1

## Theoretical Framework, Methodology, and Structure of the Book

Benjamin Coriat and Stéphanie Leyronas

### Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to set out the theoretical framework for this book and to introduce its methodology and organization. We do so in three stages.

In the first section, we reexamine the concept of commons itself. In particular, we look at Ostrom's foundational work (Ostrom 1990) on the empirical observation of situations involving the management of renewable resources and their modes of appropriation, which led to the conceptualization of common-pool resources (CPRs). We then briefly mention two other major areas of her work (Antona and Bousquet 2017): the introduction of the theme of “polycentricity” with her husband Vincent Ostrom, which provides a decentralized and diversified vision of decision-making centers and modes of coordination, and the proposal of frameworks as tools for training and the coordinated analysis of field studies.

We then show that for at least two decades now, the principle of commons has been expanding. It is now being applied to increasingly varied domains (e.g., natural resources, habitat, culture, innovation, digital, services). Examples of this expansion include an autonomous organization based on an irrigated field to ensure the self-sufficiency of a group of relatives in a village; an association for urban concessions on shared habitats; the implementation of fab labs, which seek to provide digital education services; and tool sharing among a community of residents. We discuss how, unexpectedly, the internet and the Web 2.0 revolution have brought new life to this notion. In fact, entering into a social system that is abundant in nonrival goods (i.e., the information provided by the internet) has made it possible for communities to feed themselves with resources that cost very little and without damaging the ecosystems from which the resources are taken.
This section is not intended as an exhaustive review of the available litera-
ture on commons. The aim is to highlight those points that are most useful
for understanding the objectives of the book. The subsequent chapters provide
additional theoretical insights related to the specific themes addressed.

The second section proposes an extension of the notion of commons to that of “commons-based entrepreneurship.” This designates a new and original form of entrepreneurship that is distinct not only from classic capitalist entrepreneurship but also from its various derivative forms such as cooperatives, social enterprises, and mutual health insurance. This section pays particular attention to the economic models that underpin commons. Commons take many different forms and are based on a variety of economic approaches, which can be divided into three major groups: full-market models, nonmarket models, and hybrid models. These underlying models of commons-based entrepreneurship are characterized by three main features: shared and inclusive (rather than exclusive) ownership, cooperative decision-making (rather than recourse to the principles of hierarchy and authority), and an objective of satisfying people’s needs while respecting ecological balance (instead of merely making profit).

The third and final section outlines the methodology of the book. Emphasizing empirical analyses in different fields and locations in Sub-Saharan Africa, the range of disciplines employed has been extended to include socioanthropology, anthropology of law, political science, history, geography, urban planning, philosophy, and literature. Indeed, it is through this multidisciplinary approach that the book seeks to understand the dynamics of commons in African territories and how they are inserted into complex social and political ecosystems. This book seeks to be empirical as well as theoretical and political, and the methodology that has been adopted is based on the interplay between field analyses and theoretical conceptualizations at the frontiers of knowledge on commons. Finally, this section presents the general organization of the book.

The Concept of Commons: Origins and Scope

In order to grasp the concept of commons, it is prudent to look back to the
origin of the term commons, which means turning to England in the Middle
Ages. At that time, rural areas were marked by the existence of “lands of
commons.” Inhabitants of villages who were located on this unenclosed land
or its immediate surroundings had the rights to use or take resources from it
(e.g., fish in rivers and lakes, game in forests, fruit from fruit trees, pastures,
the right to glean). These rights, which were customary and regulated by
usage, disappeared between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries because
of the enclosure movement,¹ both private and parliamentary, which established the primacy of private property in its exclusive form (Neeson 1996; Thompson 1993).

The evolution of land tenure in the United Kingdom took place against the backdrop of the consolidation of the parliamentary monarchy in England, colonial expansion, and rapid industrialization—key features of modernity as it emerged in the nineteenth century. This led to a reconfiguration of commons in Europe, which was accompanied by changes in sociopolitical structures and power relations. It also saw the gradual construction of the liberal market-economy democracies, which are referred to as “the modern Western world” in the remainder of the book (Barkawi and Laffey 2006; Larner and Walters 2004; Teschke 2003; Walters 2012).

## The Pioneering Work of Ostrom

Commons initially reappeared as a concept in the 1960s (box 1.1), but it gained momentum starting with the Annapolis conference (1983) organized by the National Research Council of the United States. This conference launched the revival of the theory of the commons (Coriat 2013). Based on field surveys in the tropics and subtropics, it hypothesized that these regions were being subject to enclosure movements at that time. These were similar to those experienced in Europe in the previous century, encouraged by structural adjustment policies. Subsequent empirical investigations showed that the destruction of commons results in rural exodus, overpopulation in cities, and various disruptions to people's lifestyles.

Ostrom, charged with drawing conclusions from the lessons of Annapolis, proposed a characterization of the concept of “commons” on these bases, to which she later added a series of refinements. She characterizes commons using three shared attributes (Ostrom 1990):²

* The existence of a shared resource, whether it already exists (e.g., a lake, a forest, or a pasture) or is created (e.g., irrigation systems or drinking water supply). This precondition presupposes a form of sharing and therefore of ownership that is different from the exclusive form that has become dominant today.

* Rights and obligations over this resource, distributed to individuals or groups, which Ostrom would later codify under the concept of a “bundle of rights” (Ostrom and Schlager 1992). These rights and obligations are essentially usage and extraction rights associated with the shared resource.

* A form of governance³ that allows these rights and obligations to be respected and provides for the long-term preservation of the resource and the ecosystem to which it belongs.
exclusion (access, loss, or transferability of individual rights). The constitutional level concerns the rules that define how the resource is governed, such as who is entitled to it: it includes the right to alienate (authorizing the sale or lease of either of the two previous rights). Ostrom and Schlager define four types of actors according to the rights they hold: the owner (who holds all five rights), the proprietor (to whom the lease has been granted and who therefore holds all rights except the right to alienation), the claimant (who holds the right to manage the resource as well as the right to harvest and access it), and, finally, authorized users (who only hold the right to access and withdrawal).

Without going into detail here, we contend that the three attributes with which Ostrom characterizes commons render Hardin's (1968) proposal of the "tragedy of the commons" invalid. Ostrom's (1990) own critique of Hardin draws attention to the confusion between, on the one hand, ungoverned resources subject to the tragedy of open access and, on the other hand, commons whose governance arrangements protect resources from predation (box 1.2).

Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker (1994, 7) specify that the concept of “commons” is encountered in all situations where resources are characterized by both “high subtractability” (elements of the overall resource can be taken away unit by unit, such as fish from a lake) and “difficult exclusion” (it is difficult for individuals or groups to oppose the taking of these resources). Based on Samuelson’s (1954) categories, which she modifies and redefines, she then proposes the typology of goods shown in table 1.1.

## BOX 1.2

### Alienation Rights—A Right Like Any Other?

The right to alienate property (i.e., the right to transfer it to a third party, usually in return for payment) is at the heart of the long-standing confrontation between the theorists of the legal realist school and the advocates of exclusive ownership. For the latter, even in situations of shared use rights, the right to alienate must be seen as the central attribute of ownership: as soon as this right is established and persists, the other attributes (various shared use rights) play only a secondary role (Orsi 2013). In contexts where different rights coexist, the question is whether the right to alienate always implies the loss of usage rights previously associated with the property that is involved in the transaction to a third party. If this is the case, the resource in question can be considered subject to “strong” ownership, where the “exclusive” character has not been undermined by the existence of shared use rights. If the transfer to a third party does not cancel the “easements” constituted by the shared use rights, the right to alienate does not then take precedence over the other rights and constitutes an attribute like any other of the general bundle of rights. We shall see that this distinction is central to the characterization of land-based commons (chapter 2) as well as commons of housing in urban areas (chapter 3).
<table><caption>**Table 1.1** Ostrom's Typology of Goods</caption><thead><tr><td></td><td>Easy exclusion</td><td>Difficult exclusion</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>High subtractability</td><td>Private goods</td><td>Common-pool resources</td></tr><tr><td>Low subtractability</td><td>Club goods</td><td>Public goods</td></tr></tbody></table>

Source: Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker 1994, 7.

Goods defined as CPRs⁴ are, according to Ostrom, those for which the constitution of institutions allowing their management and administration in the form of commons is most appropriate. Ostrom and Basurto (2011) analyze the institutional dynamics that a CPR may undergo during the gradual shift from a norm-regulated system (practical norms, informal norms)⁵ to a more complex arrangement structured by a hierarchical set of rules (Weinstein 2013) in response to a collective action problem (Moritz 2016).

Ostrom's research program on commons has therefore made it possible to identify “action situations” (often called “arenas”)⁶ where the dilemmas linked to CPRs can be resolved through forms of cooperation and self-organization. Ostrom therefore spent many years developing a tool, the so-called Institutional Analysis and Development framework, for organizing the work of researchers, making it possible to compare the different analyses of socioecological systems (Ostrom 2009) and to direct activity toward more sustainable modes of governance according to the situation being studied (Ostrom 2007b).

In this way, through her work on commons and beyond, Ostrom is a theorist of institutions. She has constructed an institutionalist theory based on taking diversity and complexity into account as major dimensions of institutions (Weinstein 2013). She is a defender of the vision that the market and the state are not the only possible means by which economic relationships and organization can take place and that, in the face of collective action problems, the concerned parties can develop arrangements leading to the best results by themselves, instead of seeking recourse to a public intervention (Antona and Bousquet 2017; Chanteau and Labrousse 2013). From her earliest works and throughout the whole of her career, she has defended the idea of the efficiency of systems based on principles of polycentricity (i.e., on the interplay between different decision-making “arenas” in which the three levels of rules can be deliberated). She reaffirmed this vision in the speech she gave upon receiving the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in 2009.

## Conditions for the Robustness of Commons

Commons, as Ostrom has identified and studied them from the outset of her work, have three attributes:

* For the most part, they refer to land-based commons: pastures, forests, lakes, rivers, and herds of free-ranging animals.
* They are generally small and possess well-defined boundaries.

* They are managed by communities of inhabitants or residents who, to varying degrees, depend on commons and maintain it, in the sense that they ensure that the ecosystem, despite the withdrawals that are made, is not altered or damaged. In some cases (e.g., shared irrigation systems), the community that manages commons may also decide to improve and enrich them.

Ostrom has extensively examined the conditions for the robustness of commons in the face of internal crises linked to the exacerbation of conflicts of interest between participants and external events that lead to imbalances in the functioning of commons. This reflection led to the definition of eight principles (“design principles,” box 1.3) (Ostrom 1990, 90–102).

These eight principles, to which Ostrom would later add eight threats (Ostrom 1999), demonstrate conditions that are favorable or unfavorable to the long-term sustainability of the dynamics involved in common property. Based on observations of many different situations, they highlight the institutional regularities in commons systems that have been upheld over time. They indicate the factors that explain the greater or lesser robustness² of commons. They are not prescriptive, as Ostrom often reminds us. Nor do they necessarily define commons, which is made up of processes that are continually being reinvented.

The reflections on commons have given rise to a rich literature that goes beyond the usual economics frameworks, taking legal, social, and political issues into account. Agrawal (2003), for example, has listed some 30 criteria that have been identified as essential in the literature on commons (notably in Baland and Platteau 2007; Ostrom 1990; Wade 1988).

## The Close Links between Commons, the Preservation of Ecosystems, Social Issues, and the Welfare of Future Generations

From the start, the concept of commons has had a close relationship with ecology, the preservation of ecosystems, and therefore the issue of public welfare. Even when commons only concern a restricted community around a limited and well-defined resource, their constitution intends to guarantee the management of the resource so that its reproduction is protected in the long term.

Ostrom's work goes beyond the question of sustainable resource management from an ecological point of view. Her questions are concerned more broadly with the search for effective solutions to situations that she refers to as “social dilemmas,”⁸ which mix and match environmental, economic, social, and democratic issues at multiple levels.
BOX 1.3

**The Eight Design Principles**

Here we will provide a brief summary of the *eight design principles* Ostrom defined,
organizing them according to the role that these rules play.ª

Principles concerning the scope of validity of rules and their suitability for the local conditions:

1. Clear definition of the purpose of the community and its members. This is a prerequisite, without which no one knows what is being managed and by whom.

2. Consistency between the rules for the common resource and the nature of that resource. The rules for management and provision must be clear and appropriate to the nature of the shared resource.

**Principles for the governance of commons:**

3. Collective ways of organizing decision-making that allow most of the appropriatorsb to participate in the decision-making process.

4. Effective management (of the resource) by managers who themselves are appropriators or held accountable to them.

5. A graduated scale of sanctions for those (among the appropriators) who violate community rules.

6. Inexpensive and easily implemented conflict resolution mechanisms.

**Principles for prioritizing and combining rules:**

7. Self-organization of the community according to rules that have been accepted and recognized by higher authorities.

8. In the case of larger common-pool resources, multilevel organization of ownership, procurement, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities.

Three strong ideas emerge from these principles: First, commons include a dimension of self-organization that must involve the largest possible number of participants. Second, commons must be thought of as places where conflicts of interest exist, whether real or virtual, and must be organized as such. According to Ostrom, the purpose of sanctions is primarily to remind people of their obligation to conform to the rules, hence their initial low severity, adapted to the perceived intention of the transgressor to abide by the rules again. Finally, commons maintain relations with other established forms, including public authorities. The robustness of commons depends on the adherence of members to the rules that govern them and that cannot be imposed by an external authority. However, these rules must not ignore the rule of law—the laws and regulations that lie above them in the hierarchy.

a. See the “Design Principles” entry in Cornu, Orsi, and Rochfeld (2021).

b. For the distinction between “users” and “appropriators,” see Colin, Lavigne Delville, and Léonard (2022).
This intrinsic connection between commons, the preservation of ecosystems, social concerns, and protecting the interests of future generations is a crucial point. It is taking this into account that makes it possible to distinguish commons from other forms of associationalism (or “communitarianism”) organized with a view to the immediate appropriation of a good and its predation for the benefit of a few. Subsequent theorists of the concept of commons have therefore worked to characterize commons as goods that are managed and administered in such a way as to protect the interests of not only current users but also future generations. This is the definition given by, among others, the Italian jurist Rodotà, who had been entrusted with the mission of convening a senatorial commission to redefine and clarify the notion of “property” in the Italian civil code (Lucarelli 2013; Rodotà 2016).

## Decision-Making Methods Based on Processes of Deliberation

The constitution of a commons is synonymous with the institution of a decision-making process based on deliberative principles. Such decision-making processes are necessary in order to change the rules as required or to decide on sanctions against those who violate all or some of their rights and obligations. It is not a relationship of authority as in most organizations (Simon 1951). Ostrom thus argues that these principles of deliberation must include the “voice” of those with the least guaranteed rights, such as the appropriators. It is a demonstration of the “wisdom of crowds” principle (Suowiecki 2004), according to which the resolution of a problem can be achieved more effectively through collective deliberation than by an individual who may or may not be involved (Dupont and Jourdain 2022).

The use of the voice principle, which necessarily must be plural, appears to be both integral to commons and a precondition for their cohesion and durability. Here, Ostrom is introducing a distinctive feature, among others (Weinstein 2013), from the new institutional economics (Williamson 2000) with which some of her work has been compared. Hirschman’s (1972) work on voice can be usefully mobilized to help understand the issues at stake in the governance of commons. In his 1972 book, Hirschman defends the idea that democratic and political mechanisms are more effective regulators than the market and competition, including in organizations and companies in charge of producing goods. He introduces the notion of voice, which, according to him, has two advantages: first, it gives the organization time to undertake the necessary reforms, and second, it can help to determine the nature of the actions that should be undertaken to enable the company to regain the trust of its employees and customers. In the wake of Hirschman’s intuitions, organizing opportunities to speak up is the preferred means of coordination in the governance structures of the majority of commons,⁹ which, by their very nature, accommodate interests that are not always immediately aligned.
Beyond deliberation, some commons introduce a new form of contribu-
tory democracy that recognizes contribution as a criterion for participating
in decision-making. The traditional boundaries between those who provide
(a resource, service, or knowledge) and those who receive are modified. This is
particularly the case with new types of commons, which we will see later, and
with the resources offered by peer-to-peer sharing as a type of knowledge pro-
duction that breaks with traditional forms of organization based on specialized
individuals (Bauwens 2015).

Deliberation is at the heart of the social practices of what the Anglo-
American literature refers to as “commoning.” Commons manage systems of
resources, material and immaterial, but also the social relations, internal and
external, of the community (Aubert and Botta 2022). “Commoning” refers to
acts of mutual support, conflict, negotiation, communication, and experimenta-
tion (Bollier and Helfrich 2015). It is a precondition for the emergence of com-
mons (Fontaine 2019). It is an iterative process based on trial and error as well
as individual and collective learning (Antona and Bousquet 2017).

Work on Commons across Different Fields

Since the seminal work of Ostrom and the researchers of the Bloomington
School¹⁰ at Indiana University, the academic literature on commons has under-
gone numerous developments in various fields. Many different approaches
(empirical, theoretical, and normative) have been adopted, mobilizing various
disciplines (economics, sociology, history, law, philosophy). The recently pub-
lished *Dictionnaire des biens communs* (*Dictionary of Communal Goods*) consid-
ers the multiple registers that commons are a part of today through mapping
out the concepts used in each discipline (Cornu, Orsi, and Rochfeld 2021). The
work brings together a corpus of definitions and analyses relating to concepts
and their multiple interpretations according to the disciplines, as well as to con-
crete commons-based practices.

For Ostrom, no typology can adequately describe the diversity of possible
situations in which commons emerge. Several attempts at characterization and
categorization have nevertheless been proposed. One example is Bollier, who
distinguishes between six categories of commons: subsistence commons, indig-
enous commons, social and civic commons, economic enterprises embedded in
commons, commons under legal guarantee, and digital commons (Bollier 2014).
Another distinction, proposed by Coriat, is based on the nature of the resource.
The “tangible commons” is organized around rival and exhaustible resources, the
concern for preservation of which is at the root of collective action. The “informa-
tional commons,” made up of nonrival resources (information and knowledge),
is constructed more to ensure the extension and enrichment of commons: such
is the case, for example, of Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap, which are universally
accessible and designed to be continually improved (Coriat 2015). In his cartog-
raphy of the new commons, Hess also suggests using the nature of the resource as
a basis and distinguishes seven “sectors”: the “cultural commons,” the “neighborhood commons,” the “knowledge commons,” the “social commons,” the “infrastructure commons,” the “market commons,” and the “global commons” (Hess 2008). A large body of work continues to conceptualize emerging forms of commons as possible prototypes by bringing together theoretical analyses and disperse empirical instances.¹¹

The proposed classifications, presented here in a nonexhaustive manner, bear witness to the diversity and multiplicity of forms of commons in contemporary contexts. These categories are not intended to be rigid and are always open to improvement. For example, the dichotomy between material and immaterial commons begins to lose relevance when many material commons have an immaterial dimension and vice versa (Buchs et al. 2019). More generally, Bollier reminds us that “classification schemes tend to impose an overly tidy, regularized and intellectual understanding of commoning, which . . . is ultimately experiential and historically situated” (Bollier 2014, 128).

In this book, therefore, we do not propose a single, fixed categorization of commons. However, we do intend to deal with issues proper to specific fields in different chapters, on the premise that each type of commons generally mixes and combines several of these issues. Thus, fab labs share machines (material commons) but also experiences (knowledge commons) while contributing to multiple online resources and communities based around free software (digital commons).

# Commons as New Forms of Entrepreneurship

## Hybrid Economic Models

Three major economic models underlie these new entrepreneurial forms.¹²
They can be applied in different ways and intersect in numerous hybrid forms.

### A full-market model

The full-market model applies to situations involving shared resources (e.g., irrigated fields, pastures, or fisheries) where participants in the common pool value the units of resource taken from the common pool on the market as they see fit, as a result of the rights they have been allocated (box 1.4).

### A nonmarket model

In its general form, this model is based on the gift and the countergift (Mauss 2007). It is most appropriate in cases where access to the resource can be universal, allowing for fundraising from large numbers of people and potential donors: Wikipedia, Framasoft, and OpenStreetMap provide examples of this. These organizations conduct public fundraising “campaigns,” in return for which they make their products—usually software and specialized information processing tools—available to the public.
BOX 1.4

# Examples of Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa Operating on the Full-Market Model

## The Solidarity Lending Mechanism in Sub-Saharan Africa

Some financial services, such as solidarity lending, have proven successful in several Sub-Saharan African countries (Traoré, Bocoum, and Tamini 2020). Solidarity-based lending involves a group of individuals who organize themselves to act as guarantors for each other to obtain financing in national currency from a financial institution. The amount requested (between 80,000 and 150,000 euros in Burkina Faso, for example) depends on the needs of the members of the group (agricultural inputs, equipment, income-generating activities). The guarantee can be up to 25 percent of this amount, and interest rates vary between 10 percent and 18 percent (FAO 2012). The organization takes care of credit distribution and repayment to the financial institution. Repayment rates in West Africa are estimated to be between 95 percent and 100 percent (FAO 2012). This system helps to maintain trust between members of the organization and with financial institutions.

## Commons-Based Entrepreneurship in the Senegal River Valley

In the precolonial period, land and resource management in Senegal was carried out according to collective, family, and kinship criteria, which were grounded in practices specific to each community. After independence and the colonial government's unsuccessful attempts to impose registration and individual property systems, the political authorities opted for a concept based on the common appropriation of land at the national level, on the one hand, and the recognition of the right to use it for all members of the community, on the other. While some communities continue to apply local land tenure practices, others facilitate individual land acquisitions to the detriment of certain rural activities and communities. To promote a better application of these principles and sustainable land governance, several tools and approaches have been tested since the end of the 1990s in certain areas of the country (see chapter 2). They made it possible to develop economic entrepreneurship based on jointly managed resources by acting at three levels of security: the transfer of social and land security tools; the establishment of a local financing line, as well as the transfer of capacities to manage it, for the realization of infrastructure that is essential for the development of economic activity; and the organization and development of local actors' capacities for better insertion in the most profitable sectors locally. This system initially provided the basis for a major part of Senegal's rice production before being extended to agrosilvopastoral resources in nonirrigated areas over the past decade.
This form of appeal for a donation or subsidy by a third-party contributor can also be envisaged for commons targeting specialized communities, such as tontines (box 1.5). In this case, the financing allows free access, or access at very low cost, to the products and services provided. This model refers to solidarity practices that act as a social springboard to enable a group to pool the assets it has and to share the constraints. More generally, these models allow entities (associations, nongovernmental organizations, foundations) to fundraise through the public or through intentional donors (e.g., international foundations, states, and local authorities) and to offer access—often free of charge—to open and shared resources such as health care, for example.

BOX 1.5

## Examples of Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa Operating on the Nonmarket Model

### Tontines in Sub-Saharan Africa

African tontines are a form of mutual protection and solidarity that are established through a relationship of debt (Lelart 1990). They are based on the voluntary decision of individuals to regularly pool a certain amount of their disposable income. There is then a reciprocal debt and an advance from certain members to others. The sum collected is allocated to the participants in turn, who spend it as they wish (for consumption, on particular events, as working capital for an activity, or for a new income-generating activity). Their modalities are variable and evolving (Servet 1996). This rotating savings system, which is widely practiced on the continent, is now available in the form of digital applications in some countries.

### DNDi—A Foundation for Access to Medicines in Sub-Saharan Africa

In November 2018, the European Medicines Agency issued its approval for the registration of fexinidazole, a new drug to combat sleeping sickness (or human African trypanosomiasis). Fexinidazole, which is available only as a tablet, is the result of a partnership between the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), Sanofi, and experts from endemic countries. Since its inception, the DNDi's funding policy has been based on the following principles: at least 50 percent of the budget must come from the public funding system, and no single donor can contribute more than 25 percent of all donations. To ensure independence from donors, the DNDi seeks a variety of funding sources—cash contributions, in-kind contributions, grants, sponsorships, and bequests or any other ethical funding source. The DNDi refuses direct grants from the pharmaceutical industry, not only to preserve its independence but also to prioritize in-kind contributions from pharmaceutical companies such as access to chemical libraries or product registration (Abecassis et al. 2019).
We can also mention certain forms of association, on a smaller scale, that are based on the direct and unpaid labor of families or communities that maintain a shared resource (e.g., a field, a well, a water table) in common. The management of this resource then mainly takes place “outside the market” for the personal use of participants in commons. Free labor and shared products follow jointly established rules and are forms of production and exchange based on gifts and countergifts. It should be noted, however, that in many situations, these forms of cooperation can include relations of domination, which is not without similarities to the problems of the domestic and “free” labor of women in the household (Federici 2020). The exercise of voice to end these distortions is then a condition for the sustainability of the common.

### A hybrid model

The hybrid model brings together different approaches that combine market transactions (subscriptions and prices designed as monetary compensation for certain services) and services that are voluntary, free, shared, or exchanged (box 1.6).

This model differs from the full-market model. Market transactions are not the only source of income for commons or even necessarily the primary source. It is also different from the classic capitalist market model: market activity is not aimed at profit making and the accumulation of gains but at feeding the needs of the communities involved in the production of the common resource.

In certain cases, forms of contribution in kind or in monetary form confer rights of access to the shared resource: the sum of these contributions may constitute the main income of the common resource. These contributions may even make it possible to produce a resource that does not yet exist in the common pool, such as by drilling a well or building a community school.

In other cases, in addition to membership fees or general shareholding when the social capital of the enterprise allows for it, a certain amount of free labor allows costs to be lowered and members to have easier access to jointly managed resources. Market transactions are essential for the entity under consideration to function, but this also includes free labor for the organization to operate, as in the case of the hybrid (social, cultural, or innovation) sites described in chapter 4.

### Characterizing Commons-Based Entrepreneurship

These archetypal models are deployed through distinctive forms of entrepreneurship, which we call “commons-based entrepreneurship,” and have the characteristic feature of responding to a collective action problem by
BOX 1.6

# Examples of Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa Operating on the Hybrid Model

## School Management Committees

The literature review carried out by Dupain in 2021 for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has shown that the literature ascribes a major role to parents in financing education and in decision-making in schools (Dupain 2021). It highlights the paradigm shift enabled by the development of school management committees (SMCs) in Sub-Saharan Africa and the partnership between professionals, who may be in the minority, and parents in three main areas: the mobilization of additional resources and voluntary work to support school projects; the strategic governance and oversight of the school, particularly monitoring the school's projects; and the management and administrative and financial control of the school. The difficulties with these structures are the subject of an extensive literature, particularly on the actual levels of stakeholder participation, on the democratic processes at work, on the degrees of control and support from institutional actors (decentralized services of the central state and local authorities), and finally on the linkages with parent-teacher associations, through which parents' contributions have historically been channeled. Nevertheless, a significant part of the SMCs' activities is devoted to mobilizing additional resources, mainly from families, in the form of money or volunteer labor through the development of school projects and action plans and budgets. Parents also often take financial responsibility for the school's needs in terms of maintenance, upkeep, and the construction of classrooms and sanitation facilities.

## Business Models for Third Places: The Example of GreenLab in Nigeria

The GreenLab was created in 2017 to provide Nigerians with the opportunity to learn by themselves how to solve their everyday problems (such as poor access to electricity, access to water, or access to digital education). The fab lab is an open and collaborative physical space that gives a community of nonspecialists access to digital machines of varying degrees of sophistication (assisted design and drawing software, laser cutting machines, digital milling machines, three-dimensional printers, vinyl cutting machines). The place thus allows the design and prototyping of objects and projects. To date, 20,000 students have been trained by the GreenLab community in eight Nigerian states. Like many third places (see chapter 4), the GreenLab's economic model is hybrid. It relies on the founder's personal finances, financial support from relatives and his parish, but also on income from the sale of technological parts via an e-commerce site.
mobilizing CPRs. These involve implementing organizational and institu-
tional mechanisms for the design, production, and exchange of products and
services that are necessary and useful for satisfying needs while respecting
the general interest and the common good. Here it is understood that the
organization of behaviors is geared toward ways of producing, inhabiting,
and living in the world that guarantee the collective development of human
communities and the ecosystems of which they are stakeholders and in which
they act and are embedded.

*Main distinguishing features*

Commons-based entrepreneurship differs from entrepreneurship and enterprise in their classic capitalist forms in three key respects (box 1.7):

*   **Exclusive ownership vs. bundle of rights.** Commons-based entrepreneurship is based on a bundle of rights that ensures access to and shared control over the tools, instruments, and resources that underpin the enterprise. This distinguishes it from classic entrepreneurship, including individual entrepreneurship. This bundle of rights undermines the exclusive nature of ownership, which is marginal and subordinate when it exists. This form of entrepreneurship presupposes actors engaged in collective actions with shared objectives. Often, regardless of who holds the title(s), the aim is to secure the usage rights of the individuals or communities concerned over productive resources (e.g., grazing land, rivers, ponds, digital data, resources, and technical equipment).¹³

*   **Profit-seeking vs. satisfaction of basic needs.** The initiators and participants seek the satisfaction of their needs, or the needs of the people for whom the projects are intended, more than lucrativeness and acquiring wealth. It may be necessary to engage in monetary and market exchanges. In these instances, it is as an instrument put at the service of the achievement of the objectives that the community of participants in commons has set itself and does not constitute an end in itself. This distinction is fundamental in differentiating, for example, open-source software models and the productive models of the digital commons (Broca 2018; see chapter 5).

*   **Principle of authority and hierarchy vs. organization of voice.** The internal relationships and coordination modes of commons are not based on hierarchy and the principle of authority but are instead organized around voice and the search for “horizontal” modes of coordination.

*Multiple and hybrid institutional forms*

These include a wide range of institutional and organizational forms that
can be assembled into a variety of hybrids. They can be perfectly informal
BOX 1.7

Commons-Based Entrepreneurship and the Social Solidarity Economy—Conceptual Distinctions

The notion of "commons-based entrepreneurship" is closely related to the entrepre-
neurial activities of the social solidarity economy (SSE). A central feature shared by
commons and SSE enterprises is the desire to marginalize the power of capital in the
governance of the enterprise. Cooperatives within the SSE (which also includes
mutual health insurance and associations) are pioneering and advanced in this
respect. Innovations such as the one-person/one-vote principle or nonshareable
funds are congruent with the philosophy and constitution of commons as we have
defined them. In fact, many commons in France choose to adopt the status of
Société coopérative d'intérêt collectif (collective interest cooperative), a status intro-
duced in the 2014 Hamon Law on the SSE, when they seek to become formally
established.

However, two differences should be noted (Coriat and Filippi 2022). First, coop-
eratives, like mutual health insurance, are based on salaried employment, that is,
on a relationship of authority that is central to the employment contract (Simon
1951). In commons, on the other hand, the search for "horizontal" modes of coor-
dination and the expression of the voice of each of the partners prevail as standard
practices. Second, cooperatives, since their initial appearance in nineteenth-cen-
tury France, have aimed to improve the working conditions and well-being of
employees and, more generally, the standard of living and access to consumer
goods. This is why many consumer cooperatives offer rebates (price reductions) to
members of the cooperative. Commons, on the other hand, are created primarily
out of a concern for the preservation of socioecological systems and, by extension,
common goods.

Although the origins and initial objectives of SSE enterprises and commons are dis-
tinct, over time there have been some genuine connections between the two types of
entities, as their practices and innovations feed off each other. There is frequent over-
lap between commons and SSE cooperatives, mutual health insurance, and associa-
tions, but it is not consistent because of the diversity of practices and models (values,
aims) that each of them carries.

forms of cooperation, dictated by practical norms. More codified institu-
tional forms such as associations, cooperatives, or social enterprises can
be harnessed in these hybrid formations, which are frequently complex
.box 1.8). In many cases, however, this type of entrepreneurship is based on
simple associations of families or residents for the administration or production
of a shared resource.
BOX 1.8

Forms of Commons-Based Entrepreneurship for the
Right to Food

The right to food is one of the best established and most codified rights. Yet nearly
1 billion people, or one in nine, suffer from malnutrition. There are three main reasons
for this. First, the highly concentrated and capital-intensive food markets are not
geared toward meeting basic needs. Second, property rights in their exclusive form,
like those deriving from the "free trade" enshrined in the free trade treaties, have a de
facto primacy and a domineering effect on social rights. Finally, the subject of interna-
tional law is not the individual (to whom the right to food is theoretically attributed)
but the national state.

In this context, various nongovernmental organizations and associations, which often operate as joint ventures, have set themselves objectives in the fight against malnutrition, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Misola, for example, is a French association that has registered a trademark for a food supplement deployed in West Africa to prevent malnutrition in young children under the age of five. The flour is made entirely from locally grown ingredients and is produced in the villages themselves. In this way, Misola helps to set up women's cooperatives in the villages that produce and sell food produced with local resources at very low prices. The Misola brand, registered by the association, is provided free of charge to any user who undertakes to respect strict specifications in the production process. Nutri'zaza is a social enterprise under Malagasy law committed to the fight against chronic malnutrition in Madagascar. Its social utility objectives are stated in its statutes (Coriat et al. 2019).

Objectives, Methodology, and Organization of the Book

Objectives and Position of the Study

*Three complementary objectives*

The study has three complementary objectives: an empirical objective, a con-
ceptual objective, and a policy objective.

* The first objective is empirical and consists of observing practices and experiences of forms of commons and commons-based entrepreneurship in different contexts in Sub-Saharan Africa. The chapters examine three dimensions of commons at different levels of granularity: a technical dimension (objectives, conditions of emergence, resources mobilized, technical conditions of implementation), a socio-institutional dimension (definition of communities, decision-making systems, sharing and redistribution), and a territorial dimension (position and timeframe of the initiative, proximity links, and more extensive links with other types of organizations).
* The second objective is conceptual and consists in contributing to the theoretical reflections relating to the recent expansion of the concept of “commons” in various fields (urban commons, digital commons, service commons) and to “commons-based entrepreneurship” by anchoring it in the specific context in Africa.

* The third objective is normative and consists of examining the way in which commons are integrated into public intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa and the creation and implementation of public policies.

Our approach remains careful in several respects:

* The book compares an approach based on the interpretive model of commons with an understanding of the facts. It thus highlights, wherever legitimate and appropriate, situations where the concept provides a satisfactory and novel account of empirical phenomena in Sub-Saharan Africa. It analyzes the opportunities that these forms of institutions represent in the face of the continent's sustainable development challenges but also their limits, the difficulties they encounter, and their weaknesses.

* The more conceptual approach aims at defining a clear boundary for the notions of “commons” and “commons-based entrepreneurship” to avoid turning them into a vague concept that is devoid of substance. The risk is all the greater when we engage in a more normative approach. We adopt a realistic and pragmatic stance here (Alix et al. 2018) and favor an approach based on a “triaarchy” comprising the state, the market, and commons to achieve objectives deemed desirable, specifying the position and role to be played by each of these types of actors as clearly as possible. This approach differs from more ideological perspectives in which commons are considered a norm of political action and a way—in its own right and exclusive of any other—of shaping society (Dardot and Laval 2014). In contrast, we argue that “commons” and “commons-based entrepreneurship” are, under these conditions, functional concepts to help conceive and think about public action in Sub-Saharan African contexts. Because the potential of these concepts remains largely unnoticed or underestimated, we felt it was important and urgent to take an informed look at these initiatives.

## A deliberately multidisciplinary approach

The multifaceted nature of the theme that is the subject of this book has naturally led us to adopt a multidisciplinary approach and to compare different perspectives. This approach allows us to draw on the most recent work related to the issues addressed in each of the chapters, such as environmental sciences for chapter 2, urban studies for chapter 4, and the sociology of the digital for chapter 5. The choice of an Ivorian poet and philosopher for one of the afterwords to this book aims to link the reflections proposed here in the economic and social field to the wider space of imaginaries and representations that can be created thanks to commons on the continent (box 1.9).
BOX 1.9

Commons in African Literature

African fiction allows us to see and experience commons. Since the 1950s, African
novels have represented different modes of social, economic, political, and, in recent
years, environmental breakdown, highlighting the inequalities and conflicts that frac-
ture the continent. By inventing new ways of existing in society, or by reappropriating
former modes of social, cultural, and political organization, African novels allow us to
experience, through commons, connections within and between communities. All fic-
tion is based on a "what if?" By formulating hypotheses about social and environmen-
tal bonds at the scale of novels, the latter offer us specific literary imaginaries and
configurations (which rely on precise vocabularies and discursive strategies) that invite
us to reflect on how we might embody these fictions in reality.

It would be a tall order to attempt to list the appearances of commons in African
novels. Indeed, they are rarely present under that name but are more often encoun-
tered in the form of images and metaphors. A particularly significant example can be
found in the work of the South African writer Zakes Mda. In *The Heart of Redness*, the
population of a remote village is divided on whether to agree to the construction of a
casino, which would create many jobs and bring in a financial windfall, at the expense
of the environmental heritage of the hitherto unspoiled natural area in which the
casino would be located. The solution to this debate is to create a cooperative run by
women, based on the production and sale of handicrafts to local tourists. The eco-
nomic structure of the cooperative allows the villagers to rally together and reach a
consensus with the prospect of controlled wealth production, which would preserve
the village's natural heritage.

In *L'Empire du mensonge* ("The Empire of Lies") by Senegalese author Aminata Sow Fall, commons is embodied in the yard, that essential space in the African rural landscape, located in the center of housing compounds, that represents a zone of strong social interaction for families as well as for their relatives. From the textual space provided by the plot to the yard as a concrete place of conviviality, it is thus literature itself that becomes a shared space, a privileged place for the construction of social bonds (Baudet 2020).

This multidisciplinary approach allows us to make use of the academic litera-
ture on fundamental issues for which the work of Ostrom and the Bloomington
School has been criticized (Baron, Petit, and Romagny 2011):

*   **Power relations between singular individuals acting within the framework of collective action.** Drawing on work in sociology and anthropology allows us to consider the interplay of actors in local arenas and policies, the dynamics of local authorities, and the relations between users and that between users and administrations (Olivier de Sardan 2021). In particular,
work in the anthropology of law helps us to study and interpret existing legal
systems, situations of legal pluralism, and bundles of rights (Le Roy 1978).

*   **The nature and trajectory of states.** We engage with work in sociology, comparative politics, and history to look at the relationship between states and society (Gazibo and Thiriot 2009) and the different networks of actors who formulate a “public” problem, translate it into public policy, and implement these policies (Darbon et al. 2019). The use of development anthropology and sociological studies also allows us to take into account the fact that institutional trajectories in Sub-Saharan Africa are strongly marked by their colonial past, their diversity, and the dependence of their institutions on international aid (Colin, Lavigne-Delville, and Léonard 2022; Olivier de Sardan 2021; Valette et al. 2015). Finally, this perspective allows us to critically examine the development policies carried out in Sub-Saharan Africa by donors (Leyronas and Legroux 2019).

*   **Interlocking scales and hybridity of rules.** Far from presenting a dogmatic vision of self-governance, we are interested in the hybrid nature of the modes of governance of commons. The literature in geography, political economy, governance studies, and the sociology of organizations allows us to refer to the hybridity of the levels of rules of the bundle of rights proposed in Ostrom's analysis (constitutional rules, rules of collective choice, operational rules).

*Limitations of the work*

This work is intended to be broad in scope. However, it is limited in several
respects:

* Although the book assembles various disciplinary contributions, only a few chapters offer an interdisciplinary perspective and construct shared analytical frameworks both to describe the observed situations and to develop the concept from a theoretical point of view.

* Because the book favors entries by type of field (rural land, housing, urban, digital), a number of major cross-cutting themes such as inequality, gender, and poverty are not dealt with as such. However, these themes are present, in their cross-cutting nature, in certain chapters. Moreover, certain themes deserve additional research, particularly the ones related to the stakes of public service delivery, climate change adaptation, or biodiversity. Socioanthropological approaches would be particularly well suited to "document implementation gaps, unexpected effects, as well as discrepancies between official discourses data and actual practices" (Olivier de Sardan 2022).

* Because the book was conceived of as a tool for understanding the diversity of commons in Sub-Saharan Africa, the empirical chapters deal with a
variety of issues and analytical fields, each of which is the subject of exten-
sive literature. Choices have been made by the authors to best serve the
topic at hand, but these choices may be frustrating for experts in the fields
covered.

* Similarly, the book does not go into much detail about the functioning of the “communities” involved in the observed forms of commons. Nevertheless, the authors do not have an idealized vision of the “communities” that are cited, and the reader will be able to find further details about them (their emergence, homogeneity, trajectories, the politicization of their resources) in the rich bibliography that served as a basis for the preparation of this book.

Our approach focuses on commons we have identified in Sub-Saharan Africa and on the way in which these field experiments can constitute innovative forms of support for the development of commons-based entrepreneurship. The book offers an introduction to the ontologies and specific features of Sub-Saharan African societies (see chapter 2 in particular). The conception of commons adopted in this book differs from other approaches, which are based on a relational ontology that rejects the opposition between humans and nonhumans and the very concept of a “resource” as we have employed it. Thus, approaches such as those that prevail through the qualifications of Tsing’s (2017) “latent commons,” Papadopoulos’s (2012) “eco-commons,” Bresnihan’s (2015) “more-than-human commons,” or “undercommons” (Harney and Moten 2013) have not been adopted here. Similarly, the work conducted in legal sciences that focuses on modalities of the legal recognition of nonhumans and nature as the subject of the law (Taylan 2018; Vanuxem 2018) is little addressed (see chapter 2).

Methodology of the Book

The methodology adopted is based on a reflexive approach with the aim of
integrating theory and observed practices (figure 1.1): our theoretical frame-
work is informed by the observation of case studies, which continually enhances
this framework in turn. The wide range of case studies we have examined has
made it possible to build an argument establishing continuity between the dif-
ferent approaches and allowing us to consider the phenomenon in its entirety.
Without neglecting the contribution of theory, our approach therefore grants
priority to practices over concepts. It starts from real-life situations and ana-
lyzes the different forms of commons-based entrepreneurship that the social
organizations observed take part in and the ideas they generate in terms of new
resources and tools to ensure the social and ecological well-being of the com-
munities concerned.
<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.1** General Methodology of the Work</figcaption></figure>

Source: Original figure for this publication.

Finally, these analyses lead to the hypothesis that new roles that the state can play (as a facilitator and partner), along with public institutions in general, could make it possible to profoundly revitalize the social contract between the public authorities and commons and thus better respond to the challenges of social justice and ecological transition in Sub-Saharan Africa.

By its broad thematic ambition and the strategic and political debate on the place of commons in the African societies of tomorrow, the proposed work differs from many existing studies on commons in the Global South, which mainly focus on case studies and often stop there.

**General Organization of the Book**

This book is the product of a collective endeavor and has resulted from several exchanges and collaborations, some of which are long-standing. It offers an overview of the forms of commons and commons-based entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa that is certainly not exhaustive. Nonetheless, it provides new and valuable material in many respects. Above all, it is a working tool for those (researchers, students, practitioners, specialists, public actors, politicians) who are looking for alternatives to the approaches promoted by the international community in Sub-Saharan Africa and often by African states themselves.
The book is structured into three main parts (table 1.2) that mark three different stages of the work:

* *An introductory and theoretical part* to situate and clarify the main issues within the book

* *A part presenting empirical analyses in different fields:* rural land tenure and natural resource management, urban land tenure and access to housing, urban spaces and access to education, and digital entrepreneurship and the internet commons

* *A more normative part*, dealing with the place of commons in African public policy, the arrangements between public actors and commons, and finally an action plan for international cooperation in support of new commons

In addition, background research papers (available on the World Bank's Open Knowledge Repository) open debates with authors not working in the field of commons. Their critical approaches and insights into the possible links between the commons research field and their respective work and academic fields introduce new perspectives for research. *Background research paper 1* (Olivier de Sardan 2022) focuses on the delivery of public services, and *background research paper 2* (Obura and Treyer 2022) examines international negotiation processes concerning biodiversity.

Each chapter of the book is based on original analyses by the authors and on a large body of academic and gray literature. Emphasis has been placed on the literature available in French, but numerous English-language references have also been used. The chapters include critical examinations of the issues, specific forms of analysis, case studies, and overviews of the various themes addressed.

Wherever possible, the chapters bring together researchers and practitioners of development or commons. This interdisciplinary spirit is a defining feature of the book and a major source of its relevance. This is reinforced by the substantial contribution African authors have made to the analyses presented here.

We have strived for editorial coherence while leaving the authors considerable room for maneuver. Each chapter has its own identity, in keeping with the authors' respective disciplinary approaches, and strikes a careful balance between empirical, theoretical, and normative objectives. Particular attention has been paid to the overall consistency of the epistemological positions of all the contributors to this book.
<table><caption>**Table 1.2 General Organization of the Book**</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Chapters</th><th>Authors</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2">Part 1—Why this study</td><td>Executive summary</td><td>Overview</td><td>Stéphanie Leyronas<br>Benjamin Coriat</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 1</td><td>Theoretical Framework, Methodology, and Structure of the Book</td><td>Benjamin Coriat<br>Stéphanie Leyronas</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="5">Part 2—What we are talking about</td><td>Chapter 2</td><td>Land-Based Commons, the Basis for a Peaceful Form of Economic Development?</td><td>Mathieu Boche<br>Patrick d'Aquino<br>Nicolas Hubert<br>Stéphanie Leyronas<br>Sidy Mohamed Seck</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 3</td><td>Housing and the Future of Rural Land-Based Commons</td><td>Claire Simonneau<br>Bérénice Bon<br>Éric Denis<br>Stéphanie Leyronas<br>Issa Sory</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 4</td><td>Urban Commons: Reestablishing Social Ties in African Cities</td><td>Stéphanie Leyronas<br>Alix Françoise<br>Isabelle Liotard<br>Lola Mercier<br>Guiako Obin</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 5</td><td>Digital Commons and Entrepreneurship: Alternative or Complementary Approaches?</td><td>Jan Krewer<br>Stéphanie Leyronas<br>Thomas Mboa</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 6</td><td>Commons, General Interest, and Public Policy: Issues for the State in Sub-Saharan Africa</td><td>Benjamin Coriat<br>Mamoudou Gazibo<br>Stéphanie Leyronas</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Afterwords</td><td>Chapter 7</td><td>Funders' Attitudes, Perceptions, and Actions: Taking Inspiration from the Commons-Based Approach</td><td>Stéphanie Leyronas<br>Sophie Salomon</td></tr><tr><td>Afterword 1</td><td>The Commons: Choosing Solidarity and Looking Ahead</td><td>Tanella Boni</td></tr><tr><td>Afterword 2</td><td>The African Commons at Global Crossroads</td><td>Thomas Mélonio<br>Kako Nubukpo</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Background</td><td>Background research paper 1</td><td>Delivering Public Interest Goods in Africa: Stopgap Measures, State Reforms and Commons</td><td>Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan</td></tr><tr><td>Background research paper 2</td><td>A "Shared Earth" Approach to Put Biodiversity at the Heart of the Sustainable Development in Africa</td><td>David Obura<br>Sébastien Treyer</td></tr></tbody></table>
## Notes

1. Enclosures refer to the appropriation of resources or spaces intended for collective use by private owners or states. They can be commercial (e.g., land is confiscated for commercial purposes) or legal (e.g., the patenting of seeds).

2. For more details, see the “Commons” entry in Cornu, Orsi, and Rochfeld (2021).

3. We take the notion of governance in a descriptive sense—that is, as the result of a set of actions and decisions by heterogeneous actors and not as a normative ideal associated with transparency, ethics, and efficiency of public action (Pitseys 2010).

4. CPRs are to be distinguished from “common property regimes.” In 2006, Hess and Ostrom wrote an article to clarify the frequent confusion between different terms, especially between *common property* and *open-access regimes*, *common-pool resources* and *common property regimes*, and *resource system* and *flow of resource units* (Hess and Ostrom 2006). They explain that the withdrawal, management, and ownership of common resources can take the form of a common property regime but that this is not mandatory. Conversely, not all common property regimes involve common resources.

5. Social norms (practical norms, informal norms) are, for Ostrom, attributes of communities and make it possible to overcome social dilemma situations that are specific to the management of common resources through their impact on behavior.

6. Ostrom (2007a) defines an “action arena” as a social space where participants interact, solve problems, and compete. Within this arena, an “action situation” is played out (i.e., a situation of interdependence between individuals whose potential actions jointly produce results).

7. The notion of “robustness,” whose framework Ostrom would develop with John Anderies and Marco Janssen (Janssen, Anderies, and Ostrom 2007), refers to the maintenance of certain characteristics of the system when it is subjected to internal or external disturbances.

8. A social dilemma situation is defined as one in which the immediate self-interest of a particular individual and the interests of a larger social group come into direct conflict. In this situation, if all individuals attempt to maximize their own advantage at the expense of the group, at the end of the interaction, each member of the group has a much less favorable outcome than if the members of the group had adopted a cooperative strategy. For Ostrom, it is these situations that create the conditions for excellence for the emergence of commons.

9. In the case of the digital commons, a distinction must be made between the community of users, the community of contributors, and the community of administrators and funders (see chapter 5). While voice is the latter's mode of coordination, the former may use exit to mark their positions.

10. The Bloomington School, or “school of commons,” is an interdisciplinary field of scholarly inquiry built around the Bloomington Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, the International Association for the Study of the Commons, and Ostrom (see the “Bloomington School” entry in Cornu, Orsi, and Rochfeld 2021). The *International Journal of Commons* is an outgrowth of this.

11. Examples include work on the “urban commons” (see, e.g., Borch and Kornberger 2015; Festa 2016; Foster 2011), the “cultural commons” (see, e.g., Hyde 2010;
Maurel and Lex 2018), the “knowledge commons” (see, e.g., Hess and Ostrom 2006; Madison, Frischmann, and Strandburg 2014), the “digital commons” (see, e.g., Aufrère et al. 2022; Benkler and Nissenbaum 2006; Broca 2013; Peugeot 2014), and the “social commons” (see in particular Defalvard 2017).

12. The groups of economic models presented here were identified and conceptualized through a research study entitled “Entreprendre en Communs” conducted from 2017 to 2021 by Benjamin Coriat. It was financed by Agence française de développement, Université Sorbonne Paris-Nord (Sorbonne University-Paris North), and the Crédit Coopératif bank. See http://encommuns.com/.

13. For example, “usi civici,” as defined by the Italian Commercial Code, protect the rights of certain rural communities (regarding access to grasslands or watercourses, for example), regardless of who formally holds title to the area concerned (Marinelli 2018).

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Chapter 2

# Land-Based Commons: The Basis for a Peaceful Form of Economic Development?

Mathieu Boche, Patrick d'Aquino, Nicolas Hubert, Stéphanie Leyronas, and Sidy Mohamed Seck

## Introduction

Many natural resources and rural spaces in Sub-Saharan Africa are shared and commons-based managed by one or more social groups. These land-based commons are established forms that adopt a practical perspective on land relations in accordance with use. In many situations, they define the local regulations for accessing land and natural resources.

Land-based commons respond to multiple challenges that go beyond the already complex issue of resource management. In certain situations, they curb threats to social stability by safeguarding access to resources and land for various categories of people in local populations, as well as mitigating threats to ecological balance by relying on flexible and extensive ways of making use of resources. Finally, they support formal and informal forms of entrepreneurship that prioritize cooperation and the maintenance of a certain redistribution of resources on the basis of principles and rules that have been inherited or developed by the community (Lange, Wodon, and Carey 2018; World Bank 2018, 2019).

However, African commons are facing numerous challenges, which are linked to demographic, social, and economic transformations, as well as to climate change. This trend is multiplying the number of actors involved, with mounting pressure to come up with practices that are better suited to specific situations. On the one hand, commons are being undermined by land policies that, since independence and despite some legislative advances, have massively favored a standardized approach to the question of land, one seeking to promote the exclusive ownership of land along with its commodification. On the other
hand, they are being threatened by public policies that seek to extract natural resources as a driver of macroeconomic development.

In this chapter, we will examine how these forms of land-based commons can provide the basis for a type of economic development that preserves social stability and enables the sustainable use of natural resources. We will analyze this dynamic in three stages. In the first section, we will go through the issues related to preserving natural resources in Sub-Saharan Africa and provide an overview of the evolution of the normative regimes that define and regulate land-based commons. This section will make it possible to characterize these commons in terms of the resources they offer, the rights and arrangements on which they depend, and the social organizations that are responsible for their governance. In the second section, we will highlight and demonstrate how land-based commons are facing a series of transformations that are changing the social and political regimes that regulate their management and access. The aim of the third and final section is to provide a survey of the guarantees of security and support that these modes of managing and using natural resources require to support peaceful and sustainable economic development. In particular, it will analyze the ways to rethink the involvement of states and local authorities.

# Construction and Representation of Land-Based Commons in Sub-Saharan Africa

## Issues Relating to the Preservation of Commons-Based Managed Natural Resources

Despite its increasing urbanization, Africa remains a predominantly rural continent. The land available for agriculture is about 456 million hectares, nearly half of which consists of forests and protected areas (Chamberlin, Jayne, and Headey 2014). The labor market remains dominated by agriculture, which accounted for 53 percent of the workforce in 2019.¹ Land and natural resources are the economic base for millions of people living in rural areas; they impact upon issues of food security, peacekeeping, and economic growth (Lavigne Delville and Durand-Lasserve 2009).

For decades, African territories have been subject to extreme variations in the availability of natural resources, in both time and space (variability from one plot to the next or from one region to another within the same season, variability from one year to the next). This variability has been accentuated by the demographic growth observed on the continent and the reduction in surface area of arable land (Milleville and Serpantié 1994). Since the 1970s, Africa has also been one of the areas of the world that has been most severely affected by the consequences of climate change. Several studies highlight the impact that
sulfur dioxide emissions from Asia, Europe, and the United States have had on the reduction of rainfall in the Sahel, which led to the major droughts of the 1970s and 1980s (Ackerley et al. 2011; Chang et al. 2011; Westervelt et al. 2017). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),² the continent is thus losing almost 3 million hectares of forest each year, while desertification affects 45 percent of the land, and up to 65 percent of productive land is considered degraded.³

To adapt to this variability, African societies have developed collective organizations that rely on local, composite, and evolving rules (Berkes, Colding, and Folke 2000; Ellis and Swift 1988; Scoones 1994). The purpose of these rules is to regulate access to land and natural resources (box 2.1). Their resilience lies in the fact that they can be adapted in such a way that everyone has access to sufficient resources to support themselves, whatever the environmental conditions. This flexibility can be illustrated, for example, in the rules for organizing the occupation of space in the Sahel, where agricultural, pastoral, and fishing practices are closely interconnected in the same areas. In zones where agricultural uses are a priority, pastoralism can be practiced provided that the measures necessary to protect the resource for the former are taken by the latter (e.g., limiting the damage caused by herds in cultivated fields in zones where agriculture takes priority) and vice versa. Fishing practices serve as a complementary means of development depending on changes in the water level.

These organizations, which we refer to as “land-based commons,” use and manage resources in many situations in Sub-Saharan Africa (Abernethy and Sally 2000; Beck and Nesmith 2001; Brockhaus, Djoudi, and Kambire 2012; Williams 1998). They operate through sophisticated practices, in multiscalar groupings from the nuclear family unit up to subregional coordination, such as for the purpose of transhumance (Armitage et al. 2009; Berkes 2002).

## A Diversity of Land-Based Commons Situations

African land-based commons are often described as “customary,” but this adjective, which yokes practices to tradition, ignores their social and political evolution (Mansion and Broutin 2013). In Sub-Saharan Africa, we find a real diversity of situations involving commons, from action situations known as “primo-commons,” in which there is very little commodification, or where this at least occurs in forms that are distinct from market mechanisms, to “neo-commons,” which do, in contrast, feature commodification (Le Roy 2016). This distinction is not stabilized and can lead to discussion, but it allows us to highlight the conflict of legitimacy that exists between repositories of traditional and customary rules and norms and the normative framework of the state.

Primo-commons are the domain of local communities that have developed a common-pool means of organizing access to land and natural resources for centuries (Barrière and Barrière 2018; Brossier, Jourde, and Cissé 2018; Juul 2001;
BOX 2.1

**Collective Organizations to Adapt to Natural Resource Variability—The Example of Water and Grazing Resources in Kenya**

In Aubert et al. (2019), Hess shows how access to water and pasture in the same territory can be organized in a variety of ways that can be continuously reconfigured according to the status of the resource in question. The Waso rangelands cover over 95 percent of the Kenyan county of Isiolo (about 20,000 square kilometers) and are part of a vast commons that stretch into the neighboring counties of Marsabit to the north, Wajir to the north-east, and Garissa to the east. In the county of Isiolo, management of the Waso rangelands is the responsibility of the Borana pastoralist group. In the course of history, other groups of herders have acquired seasonal or even multiyear access rights. Depending on the season and the resource's strategic importance, several systems of regulation and resource management are now being applied at different institutional levels:

* Warra: the household. The movements of the family and livestock are controlled by the head of the household.

* Olla: grouping of 30 to 100 warra. Each olla is headed by a chief who is responsible for community welfare. He decides, in consultation with certain heads of household, on the community's strategic mobility and its livestock.

* Artha: grouping of two to three olla. Each artha coordinates the use of the pastures during the dry and wet seasons.

* Dedha: a grazing area delimited and used by several artha. Each dedha is managed by a council of elders (jarsa dheda).

* Mada: a grazing area surrounding a water source (dam or well). Access to each mada is regulated by a clan (aba ella) that has priority rights of access to the water point. The use of wells and reservoirs is coordinated at the community level by a subgroup of the council of elders (aba erega), which decides on how water rotations are organized.

Strategic water sources are jointly managed by the aba ella and aba erega. The aba ella assign priority access rights to water, based on clan membership. If water and pasture are plentiful, secondary access rights are assigned by the aba erega. These secondary rights define not only who has access but also the order of priority. Access to the main water points during the dry season is strictly controlled by the council of elders (jarsa dheda) to avoid overuse.

Access to pastures is regulated by the jarsa dedha. The council allocates seasonal access rights to the land, taking into account different animals' needs (young animals, lactating females, and the rest of the herd) and the level of abundance of pasture. The council also defines reserve areas to accommodate herds during periods of drought. The council thus has authority over the seasonal movements of the entire community and over the dates of access to grazing reserves. It is also responsible for negotiating occasional access to its territory by neighboring pastoral communities.
Thébaud and Batterbury 2001). These include, for example, the management of Sahelian water sources and adjoining pastures by the lineages or fractions that founded them. Relationships within a predetermined social group (e.g., kinship, alliance, place of residence) set entitlement status and govern access to land and natural resources. Primo-commons refer exclusively to the rules, norms, and institutions of the traditional organization of societies.

These social and political constructions are often inherited from precolonial, long-standing traditions. They are based on ontologies, imaginaries, and representations of nature that are grounded in the sacredness of mother earth and its association with supernatural powers (Chene-Sanogo 2012). Recent interdisciplinary scholarly debates addressing the cultural approach to environmental systems emphasize the mutually constitutive relationships between human societies and the environment (Berkes, Folke, and Colding 2000; Cudworth and Hobden 2011; Fish, Church, and Winter 2016; Folke 2006; Masterson et al. 2017). These co-constitutive relationships are central mechanisms of many primo-commons in Sub-Saharan Africa and contribute to shaping the material and symbolic lifestyles, values, and practices attached to them. From this perspective, the environment and the various elements of nature do not refer solely to shared resources or spaces but to social constructs forming socioecosystems out of which commons are constructed (box 2.2).

First and foremost, primo-commons are shaped by representations of the world and sociopolitical structures that are unique to each society. They are structured according to the traditional rules, norms, and institutions of social groups. To understand them, it is essential to consider the different power relationships, inequalities, mechanisms of authority distribution, and processes of exclusion, whether they are gendered, social, political, or ethnic.

In a changing world, and as a result of the multiple challenges facing rural territories, fewer and fewer instances in Sub-Saharan Africa can be classified exclusively as primo-commons. Rural space brings increasingly heterogeneous actors into play (e.g., farmers, herders, miners, customary authorities, entrepreneurs, and urban elites), along with different modes of exploiting the environment⁴ in relation to market mechanisms.⁵ These actors do not share the same social norms and are engaged in intensifying competition (Hesse et al. 2013), yet it is from their interaction and their perceived interdependence that primo-commons are transformed and neo-commons emerge from them as an extension (box 2.3).

Thus, by their very nature, land-based neo-commons bring together different types of communities and actors: administrative communities and actors (e.g., villages or local governments), social communities (e.g., tribes, lineages, or clans), and socioeconomic actors (e.g., working youth or women). The “community” here is defined based on social relations as much as on membership and can therefore be very socially and economically
BOX 2.2

Interdependent Socioenvironmental Relationships—The
Example of Primo-Commons in Burkina Faso

The numerous anthropological and sociological studies of the groups that make up contemporary Burkina Faso (Dassetto and Laurent 2006; Hagberg, Gomgnimbou, and Somé 1996; Héritier-Izard 1973; Izard 1986a, 1986b, 1990) show that their social and political structures incorporate substantial interpretive dimensions that influence the definition of cultural, social, and political structures while determining the terms of access to land, agricultural crops, and wildlife. Izard (1986a, 1986b, 1990), for example, describes the construction of social and political identities in Mossi kingdoms in Burkina Faso as being based around a trichotomy of power, autochthony, and ances-tralism. Each of these elements proves decisive in the different ways in which the envi-ronment is interpreted and the associated access and management arrangements are made. Cultural power is connected to the immaterial dimension of the environment (or invisible world), with which it is necessary to interact to allow access to environmen-tal services (Izard 1986b, 231). Some resources are designated as religious sites, such as sacred groves or marigots, access to which may be prohibited for agropastoral prac-tices. Specific customs and practices associated with the intangible dimensions of the environment allow these religious sites to be maintained. In some Burkinabe communi-ties, elders sow néré seeds, or seeds from other fruit trees, during their walks in the bush; in endogenous cultural representation, it is the “spirits” (or intermediaries with the invisible world) who sow the seeds (Hubert 2021a).

BOX 2.3

Primo- and Neo-Commons—The Case of Mohéli
Park in Comoros

In the local history of commons, the island of Mohéli is regarded as a relay island between the Comoro Islands and Anjouan. All fishers, regardless of where they reside, are allowed access to the marine area. Conflicts related to accessing resources are dealt with by three Councils of Elders (recognized leaders) and the Ulema Council (the religious authority). In the context of the establishment of the national park, on the other hand, the manage-ment of natural resources is carried out by three institutions: the park leadership, its Management Council, and its Scientific Council. The confrontation between these two models gives rise to a composite system drawing on Muslim law, Comorian law, and custom. This arrangement makes it possible to secure ancestral rights to shared resources and to build on the achievements of the fishing rules already in place, while at the same time being part of a process of subsidiarity set up by the state. This example illustrates the emergence of neo-commons that reconcile the traditional dynamics of primo-commons based on fishing and the new natural resource regulation measures linked to the estab-lishment of the Mohéli National Park in 2001 (Aubert et al. 2017).
heterogeneous (Aubert et al. 2017). Neo-commons involve the hybridization
of different registers of norms: the traditional rules for organizing local
communities and the norms defined by the legal framework of the state.
Integration into the community can occur for several reasons. In the context
of state-supported common property, individual membership in an associa-
tion holding an exclusive right to the resource may be the origin of the group
of right holders. The community can also result from the very processes of
creating the resource (e.g., the construction of collective irrigation canals), in
which case the investment of work time is the determining factor in member-
ship of the collective. Finally, it can result from a territorial claim or an affir-
mation of identity—for example, the Collectif de défense des terres de Fanaye
(Fanaye Land Defense Collective).⁶

Like primo-commons, neo-commons may feature certain anachronisms and
elements of vertical decision-making. However, they usually develop horizontal
mechanisms for deliberating the rules with varying degrees of success. They
should not be perceived as static structures that are frozen in time. On the con-
trary, they are exposed to the dynamic character of environmental systems and
to the ongoing development of human communities.

Finally, land-based commons are increasingly confronted with the interlock
of multiple resources, both tangible and intangible (Aubert et al. 2017). For
example, managing a commons based around a pasture zone requires paying
attention to the production, processing, and marketing of products, as well as
their interactions with other domains and resources (e.g., agricultural, forestry,
and nontimber forest product chains).

Resources, Users, and Authorities: An Analysis of Commons
through Modes of Access

Returning to the characterization of commons as presented in chapter 1, land-
based commons in Sub-Saharan Africa present some unique features: territori-
alized resources, modes of access organized as “bundles of rights,” and flexible
governance mechanisms.

African commons develop practical approaches to land relations. There is not *one* resource but *many* resources, both tangible and intangible, whose access and use are governed by rules developed and implemented by collectives operating at different scales (Delay, Aubert, and Botta 2020). An ecosystem consists of different “ecological facets” in the sense of “spatial units for combining ecological and usage data” (Blanc-Pamard 1986, 19, cited in Colin, Lavigne Delville, and Léonard 2022; Papazian et al. 2016). Each ecological facet comprises a certain number of resources, potentially varying according to the season and used by a variety of people based on a set of access and exploitation rules. Cultivated spaces can therefore also be spaces for grazing (after the harvest), gathering (trees present in the field, for fruit, foliage, bark, wood), and hunting, for actors
who may be different from the owner of the field. This results in an overlap of uses in the same space (Fache, Ancey, and Lavigne Delville 2022). Conversely, the same resource (e.g., forage resources) can be found in different ecological facets (e.g., lowlands, wooded areas, fallow lands, moors, permanent pastures, pastures on harvested fields). In each of these facets, the resource may be subject to specific ecological dynamics and to different rules of access and exploitation (e.g., free access on bushes and fallows, manure contracts with the field holder for crop residues). These different ecological facets are themselves integrated into collectively owned and organized territories.

Through the use of the “bundles of rights” principle, as discussed in chapter 1 (Epstein 2011; Penner 1995; Schlager and Ostrom 1992), African land-based commons recognize one or more functions of land and resources for the benefit of one or more persons (Le Roy, Karsenty, and Bertrand 2016). On the same piece of land, rights for the passage and grazing of animals, agricultural cultivation of the soil, hunting, and wood harvesting or gathering may coexist, each right being held over different spaces and resources and at different times by several individuals or groups (Mansion and Broutin 2013). The different components of a bundle of rights are embedded in given cultural and historical contexts and are often characterized by oral and informal agreements. They may be managed by different individuals and regulated by different authorities (such as the state or local government) and transferred separately. The practice of tutelage illustrates, for example, the possibility for indigenous rights holders to transfer part of their rights (e.g., cultivation rights) to migrant families who arrived after the initial distribution of land. The counterpart can either be a share of the harvest or monetary (Chauveau 2008). It is therefore not the status of the land (communal, private, or state owned) that determines land relations in Sub-Saharan Africa but the rights that govern access to land and resources.

Finally, African land-based commons develop flexible governance arrangements⁷ that draw, depending on the context and purpose of land tenure security, on different tenure regimes derived from custom, religion, law, governmental bodies, or elections (Papazian et al. 2016). The rules arising from the different registers are (or are not) made use of by participants in commons, depending on whether they are (or are not) seen as opening up new opportunities in the management of commons. African land-based commons thus have to deal with the legal pluralism at work in African territories (Goldstein et al. 2015), which we will discuss in the next section, with an understanding of “juridicity” in order to “be emancipated from legal science” (Le Roy 2021).⁸

In the next section, we will discuss in greater detail how these different regimes that mutually constitute commons are adapting to different structural developments. These evolutions can be environmental and initiated by climate change or social, triggered by internal political reconfigurations in Sub-Saharan
African countries or by the multiscale integration generated by globalization, which puts the local in competition with the global. These changes can be self-sustaining and emerge locally from the very communities that make up commons, or they can be perceived as being imposed from above by exogenous actors. In each case, they can represent both threats and opportunities for the perpetuation of land-based commons.

## Drivers of Change in African Land-Based Commons

Land-based commons are facing a series of changes that are transforming the social and political regimes that govern their management and access. These changes can be opportunities for commons, or they can jeopardize their very existence. They are associated with different phenomena, ranging from the process of modernization to the reconstruction of political regimes, as well as demographic and land pressure and urbanization processes. In this section, we emphasize four main drivers of change and risk for commons: the orientations of policies for formalizing land rights, competition between the uses of natural resources and conservation issues, the processes of individualization and com-modification, and, finally, the processes of monopolization.

### Commons-Based Managed Spaces and Resources: The Poor Relation of Land Policies

Colonization was the source of profound changes in land tenure systems in that it imposed a modern legal framework that was far removed from customary norms and oriented toward private property. The latter was then determined by the administration and based on the issuance of land titles and the establishment of a land registry (Chauveau 2018; Payne, Durand-Lasserve, and Rakodi 2009). The legitimacy of land-based primo-commons was contested, to the point that they were considered “vacant and ownerless” spaces (the principle of state ownership) and declared the eminent property of the state, which appropriated the natural resources (e.g., wood, minerals, land).

Following independence, a large part of the population occupied, lived on, and made use of land without having legally recognized rights to it. This situation went on for a long time. The colonial and postcolonial regimes gradually created a dualism in land management. This dualism manifests itself in several forms. The first is spatial dualism, because the legislative texts make a distinction between the way in which land can be managed and used by colonists, on the one hand, and indigenous populations, on the other. Second, it manifests itself in legal pluralism as a result of the superimposition of regimes in areas where the land tenure systems associated with primo-commons, based on use, have persisted alongside the so-called modern land tenure systems,
based on ownership of the land base, after independence. In the same terri-
tory, different sources of legitimacy (customary, neo-customary, colonial, and
neocolonial?) can thus overlap or clash, opening up the possibility for actors
to circumvent local rules by mobilizing other norms and other authorities and
vice versa.

This legal pluralism is coupled with a plurality of authorities (bodies
issuing access rights and arbitration bodies): land chiefs, administrative vil-
lage chiefs, territorial administration, technical services, and communally
elected officials (Lavigne Delville 2012). In contexts of strong legal and
institutional uncertainty, the limits of legitimacy of the different norms and
the hierarchy of mandates between these different authorities are regularly
called into question. As competition for resources increases with grow-
ing demographic pressure, the selective and competitive mobilization of
one tenure regime or another and the appeal to various arbitration bodies
lead to land use conflicts, land grabs, and social and even political tension
(Chauveau 2018).

It was at the time of structural adjustment policies that the formalization of land rights in written form was promoted as a condition for economic development (Lavigne Delville and Mansion 2015). Spurred on by World Bank research on land programs in Thailand (Feder and Nishio 1998; Feder and Onchan 1987)¹⁰ and the theories of De Soto and Diaz (2002), many land formalization programs have emerged in Sub-Saharan Africa with the objective of unifying rights through the promotion of individual private property. Land legislation has then often led to the weakening, or even delegitimization, of local land-based commons (Chauveau 2018).

This systematic registration approach aims to make an inventory of all
plots of land and to formalize the rights that apply to them. These policies
aim to group “informal” rights into one of the legal categories provided for
by the law. This may result in the issuance of a land title resulting from the
registration procedure or from certificates or attestations (Lavigne Delville
2018). However, these documents generally do not specify the content of
the rights held by the various rights holders over a plot. They are therefore
interpreted as evidence of exclusive private ownership. The systematic appli-
cation of these policies most often amounts to a profound transformation of
rural land rights and the exclusion of many rights holders. Those with rights
of access to natural pastoral or forestry resources in areas under shared
governance are generally the ones who are forgotten and lose out the most
in these approaches.

Since the early 2000s, alternative hybrid approaches to land tenure security
based on governance and securing social arrangements have emerged. The evo-
lution of some of these approaches over the past 20 years, aimed at ending the
principle of state ownership and recognizing different land tenure relationships,
has in part allowed for the securing of land-based commons. These reforms, which represent a legal and sociopolitical revolution, remain insufficient and still have many shortcomings (Mansion and Broutin 2013).

## Perceptions of Nature and Conservation Policies

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the colonization process not only profoundly shaped the relationship to land and its management but also attempted to impose a Western perception of the environment and sociocultural representations of nature. From the colonial perspective, Sub-Saharan Africa was seen as a primitive natural sanctuary to be exploited or protected, one devoid of any human presence (Hartmann 2014; Rodary 2011; Selby 2014; Selby and Hoffmann 2014; Verhoeven 2014). Under the aegis of colonial administrations, numerous natural protected areas (parks and reserves) were then created (box 2.4), relying on a conservative perception of the environment based on the control of territory and the exclusion of riparian communities (Duffy 2006; Hagberg, Gomgnimbou, and Somé 1996).

The establishment of nation-states inherited from the colonial period was a continuation of the objective of increasing control over natural resources (wood, minerals, land), which often led to local powers being undermined and the increased protection of parks and reserves. The deployment of water and forestry agents in West and East Africa in the twentieth century resulted in the claim to a “monopoly of nature protection” in the name of “public utility” and “raison d’Etat” (Bergeret 1994). While constituting a security force within those regions where natural protected areas are located, these water and forestry agents have often been met with reluctance by local populations and have even resulted in major local conflicts (Duffy 2006; Hagberg, Gomgnimbou, and Somé 1996; Hubert 2021b; Massé 2020; Poda 2001; Sachedina 2010). In South Africa, nature management and the creation of reserves and protected areas was also one of the centerpieces of the territorial engineering involved in colonial segregation and subsequently in apartheid (Giraut, Guyot, and Houssay-Holzschuch 2005). Later, the rise of climate change and biodiversity preservation issues on the international scene reinforced these dynamics (Obura and Treyer 2022), with environmental conservation spaces being considered crucial in the fight against climate change (Saradoum et al. 2022; Villette 2021).

These conservation areas were established by demarcating large areas originating from colonial hunting reserves. The riparian communities were then deprived of access to environmental services, including flora, traditional medicines, and fauna. Hunting activities, traditionally practiced for dietary subsistence, were criminalized and treated as poaching, unless hunting permits were obtained at prohibitive costs. These large conservation areas, such as the Transfrontier Conservation Area in Kavango-Zambezi, have favored
BOX 2.4

The Protected Natural Areas Model in Sub-Saharan Africa

The model of protected natural areas that are exclusively for conservation is proving to be increasingly controversial. These environmental protection areas, including reserves and national parks, represent a real asset for biodiversity conservation, especially in those regions that are most vulnerable to climate change (Turner et al. 2021). However, the imposition of a restrictive vision of conservation on fenced areas that do not allow any other use of previously shared resources has led to numerous local and national conflicts. The example of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania illustrates this tendency toward conflicts (Gagnon-Champigny 2020).

Faced with this observation, several local initiatives have emerged on the continent and are making it possible to generate a true entrepreneurial model combining the preservation of commons, the management of conflicts over use, and local economic development. This is notably the case of the alternative “Fortress Conservation” model in Tanzania (Blache 2020) or the village hunting zones (VHZs) in Burkina Faso. In southeast Burkina Faso, communities bordering the Pama Reserve, located within the socioeconomic integration zone of the Arli National Park, have formed a VHZ in order to develop their own tourism industry based around wildlife observation and small game hunting. This self-managed nature reserve makes it possible to increase the economic benefits of tourism and to distribute them more equitably among local communities. VHZs also play a role in protecting the environment and preserving land-based commons in areas marked by the expansion of agricultural activities. By integrating the socioeconomic fabric endogenous to environmental conservation and increasing the economic benefits associated with tourism, these self-constituted areas reinforce both riparian populations’ appropriation of natural protected areas and the efficiency of their role in protecting biodiversity (Hubert 2021b, 8–10).

We can observe a similar dynamic with the conservancy model deployed in Namibia (Galvin, Beeton, and Luizza 2018). These conservancies are constructed on a communal basis but remain under the administration of regional conservation associations. They have both a conservation mission, involving managing conflicts of usage and local development through the sustainable use of natural resources, notably via tourism and hunting, but also including social objectives (notably through investments made in communities, e.g., in education and health services). The conservancies in Namibia benefit from many international donors but are seeking greater autonomy by attempting to diversify the funding sources available for their operations. This shift in the business model, however, risks generating a certain dependence on international finance, whose primary objectives may appear distant from the social benefits also offered by the conservancies. Similarly, although these conservancies are designed to be self-managing and to integrate traditional authorities, as well as to work closely with local populations, local decision-making bodies generally have no rights to the land and remain dependent on the decisions that national authorities may make on land management. This is one of the main limitations expressed by conservancy members.

These community-based conservation models thus face a range of challenges (Campbell and Shackleton 2001): clarifying the mandates of regulatory authorities, governance and collaboration with local governments, transparency of management bodies, funding for ongoing social engineering over time, and respect for legitimate land rights within land policies.
centralized governance and an economic model based on revenue from inter-national tourism.

As an alternative to these major conservation programs and the establishment of public protected areas, a wave of programs supporting community-based natural resource management emerged in the 1990s. Faced with the failure of large national programs, community-based forms of natural resource management conservation have emerged, directly rooted in land management approaches and embracing the dynamics of decentralization in many countries across the continent (Bollig 2016; Rodary 2008).

## The Process of Individualizing and Commodifying Commons-Based Managed Land and Resources

Demographic pressure, the rise of market forces, and the desire that younger members of society have for greater autonomy have led to the restructuring of domestic units. Larger family units, where they formerly existed, are tending to fragment in the direction of the household scale, which is asserting itself as an economic unit (Quesnel and Vimard 1996; Raynaut and Lavigne Delville 1997). These changes can coexist with the maintenance of land management at the level of extended family groups. However, they influence the rules of land transfer within the family group.

These processes of individualization can be coupled with the commodification of the land (Lavigne Delville et al. 2017). Depending on the rural society, this commodification may be part of a long-term process or more recent in nature (box 2.5). There are multiple drivers of this: insertion into commodity chains, emergency or distress sales (e.g., medical expenses, family events, weddings, and funerals), reconversion strategies, adjustments related to the fragmentation of inheritances, or offers from external actors. Administration rights and usage rights tend to be bundled together in these processes and become similar to property rights. The holders of land rights then act as de facto owners (Bon et al., forthcoming).

The individualization and commodification of rights do not necessarily go hand in hand (Colin and Bouquet 2022). There can be commodification (e.g., at the level of lineage segments) without complete individualization of rights (Diongue et al. 2021; Magnon 2013). Conversely, when faced with financial opportunities, younger members of society who normally do not have the right to sell, or even actors with no land rights, may engage in land transactions or question arrangements made by their elders.

The conditions under which agriculture is practiced, particularly natural parameters (climate and soil fertility) and the framework provided by public policies, also influence land tenure practices in rural areas (see chapter 3). Thus, the marginalization of agriculture or the lower profitability of production due to agricultural policies (cost of labor and inputs) and climatic unpredictability