Land-at-Scale Phase 1 in Burundi: Progress, Pitfalls and the Politics of Tenure Security

As the Land-at-Scale programme draws to a close in Burundi, its flagship initiative, Amahoro@Scale, offers a rare, data-rich window into what large-scale land reform can – and cannot – deliver in fragile, post-conflict settings.

Refugee returnees take part in a focus group discussion in Nyanza-Lac, Makamba Province, sharing how access to land and formal documentation has strengthened their sense of tenure security, giving them the confidence to invest in building new homes and establishing farms as they rebuild their lives in Burundi. (Photo: Jamal Browne)

Few development challenges in Burundi are as politically charged, socially embedded or economically consequential as land. One of Africa’s most densely populated countries, Burundi has long grappled with land fragmentation, overlapping claims and the unresolved legacies of displacement.

Since the early 2000s, the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees has added further pressure, often pitting returnees against longstanding residents in disputes rooted as much in history as in law.

It was against this backdrop that Burundi became a focus country under Phase 1 of the Land-at-Scale programme, a global initiative financed by the Government of the Netherlands to improve tenure security, reduce land-related conflict and strengthen land governance systems. In Burundi, Land-at-Scale was operationalised primarily through Amahoro@Scale, implemented by a consortium led by ZOA, with VNG International and government counterparts.

The goal was to transform the land tenure narrative from one of informality and contestation, to one denoted by clarity, documentation and local institutional capacity – all while navigating one of the most complex land environments in the region.

What Amahoro@Scale set out to do

Amahoro@Scale pursued a multi-layered approach. At community level, it focused on awareness-raising, participatory land demarcation and the issuance of land certificates. At the institutional level, it supported communal land services and dispute-resolution mechanisms.

A longitudinal study was commissioned for the duration of the project, tracking the same households across all four phases to better understand how perceptions of tenure security, conflict and governance evolved over time.

Measured against its formal objectives, the project achieved several concrete outputs. Thousands of parcels were demarcated and documented. Land certificates were issued to households that had never previously possessed formal proof of land rights. Women were included on certificates in cases where customary practice had historically excluded them. Local land institutions gained experience in managing cases, records and mediation processes.

These are not trivial achievements in a country where land governance has often been characterised by ambiguity and politicisation.

Where the programme delivered real value

One of Amahoro@Scale’s most notable contributions was procedural clarity. Demarcation and documentation brought boundaries into the open, forcing long-standing ambiguities to be addressed rather than ignored. This transparency initially led to a rise in reported disputes, but evidence from the longitudinal study suggests this reflected surfacing of latent conflicts rather than new tensions being created.

A community member in Nyanza Lac, Makamba explains how local officials supported land demarcation and documentation, thereby helping to reinforce confidence in documentation of tenure as a basis for tenure security and local dispute resolution. (Photo: Jamal Browne)

For many households, particularly those with relatively uncontested claims, certification translated into a measurable increase in perceived tenure security. Certificates were seen as credible evidence in local dispute resolution and, in some cases, enabled access to microfinance or formal services that had previously been out of reach.

The project also demonstrated the value of phased, adaptive programming. Findings from early stages of the longitudinal study informed adjustments to community engagement, messaging and dispute-handling. This feedback loop is still rare in land programmes, which often rely on end-line evaluations that arrive too late to shape outcomes.

At the institutional level, communal land services supported under Land-at-Scale became visible points of contact for citizens. While limited in authority, they offered a structured alternative to informal or politicised channels, particularly for routine boundary and inheritance issues.

The limits of formalisation in a contested landscape

Quite notably, the same evidence base also points to clear limitations. The most fundamental is that formalisation alone did not resolve Burundi’s deeper land conflicts. Disputes between returnees and longstanding residents – often involving competing historical narratives and decisions taken by national restitution bodies – frequently lay beyond the remit of local mechanisms supported by Amahoro@Scale.

For some households, certification generated new anxieties rather than reassurance. Concerns over state land inventories and fears of future expropriation persisted, underscoring the fragile relationship between citizens and the state in land matters. Where trust in higher-level institutions was weak, local gains remained precarious.

The project’s emphasis on ownership also left important categories of land users with weaker assurances of protection. Rental arrangements, sharecropping and secondary rights – central to rural livelihoods in Burundi – were only partially addressed. As a result, tenure security gains were uneven, favouring those with clear ownership claims over those whose rights were more fluid or informal.

Economic impacts were similarly modest. While certificates created the conditions for investment, the longitudinal data shows little short-term change in agricultural productivity or household income. This is not unexpected; tenure security is a necessary but insufficient condition for economic transformation, particularly in contexts constrained by market access, credit terms and climate risk.

Land-at-Scale’s broader footprint in Burundi

While Amahoro@Scale was the centrepiece of Land-at-Scale in Burundi, it also interacted with wider national land governance dynamics, including ongoing reforms and donor-supported initiatives. Its comparative strength lay in its granularity – working parcel by parcel, household by household – rather than in driving national policy change.

This created both opportunity and risk. On the one hand, the programme generated detailed operational insights into how land formalisation plays out in fragile settings. On the other, its sustainability depends heavily on whether national institutions absorb, finance and legitimise the systems piloted at local level.

As Land-at-Scale Phase 1 comes to an end, that question remains unresolved.

What happens next

The evidence from Burundi points to several options for follow-up, should donors and government choose to build on Phase 1 rather than treat it as a closed chapter.

Recognising the importance of government ownership and institutional integration of systems established via Amahoro@Scale, UNHCR invited the Government of Burundi and ZAO to share their experiences and vision on the way forward at a high-level side event during the 2023 Global Refugee Forum. (Photo: Jamal Browne)

First, institutional integration matters. Communal land services will struggle to survive without predictable funding, legal authority and links to national land registries. A phased handover, rather than an abrupt exit, would reduce the risk of institutional collapse.

Second, future interventions need to broaden the concept of tenure security. Protecting ownership without addressing rental, shared and secondary rights risks entrenching inequality and leaving large segments of the rural population exposed.

Third, unresolved returnee-resident disputes require political solutions, not just technical ones. Local mediation mechanisms are valuable, but they cannot substitute for coherent national frameworks that balance restitution, reconciliation and social stability.

Finally, the longitudinal approach itself deserves continuation. Few land programmes invest so heavily in understanding change over time. Maintaining this evidence base would allow policymakers to distinguish between short-term perceptions and durable outcomes.

Judged objectively, Land-at-Scale Phase 1 in Burundi neither transformed land governance nor failed outright. Through Amahoro@Scale, it delivered tangible, localised gains in documentation, awareness and procedural fairness, while exposing the structural limits of land reform in a politically complex environment.

For households, including returnees and longstanding residents, the benefits were real but partial. Some gained security and recognition; others remained caught between formal systems and unresolved historical claims.

As Burundi closes this chapter, the lesson is not that land formalisation does not work, but that it works only when matched with institutional depth, political commitment and long-term engagement. Whether those lessons shape what comes next will determine whether Amahoro@Scale becomes a foundation – or a footnote – in the country’s land governance story.