Sander van Hooft

In my previous post I discussed Ethiopia’s land registration during the Solomonic Dynasty (until 1975).

Emperor’s Selassie’s imperial rule was overthrown by the Derg regime in 1975. This socialist regime nationalized all rural land and redistributed the land to its farmers. In order to abolish the exploitative landlord-tenant relations, the farmers were organized in Peasant Associations (Abebe, 2006; Crewett, Bogale, & Korf, 2008).

These Peasant Associations were given the power of registration. The association’s register listed the names of all members entitled to user rights. The registry was used for taxation and during land redistribution. The land users received tax receipts only (Abebe, 2006).

So, in this period Ethiopia has already moved from land registration in Addis Ababa only to registering the entire country including tax administration. That’s a big leap!

Tagged Derg, Emperor, Ethiopia, farmers, Haile Selassie, land distribution, land registration, LinkedIn

§ 2 Responses to Ethiopia’s history of land registration part 2: 1975 – 1991: The Derg regime"

• Ethiopia’s history of land registration part 1: until 1975: the Solomonic Dynasty | Sander van Hooft says:

  May 5, 2009 at 7:39 pm

  [...] Ethiopia’s history of land registration part 2: 1975 – 1991: The Derg regime I discuss the next phase of Ethiopia’s land registration developments. Link SummaryCrewett, [...]
• Ethiopia’s history of land registration part 3: 1991 - now: Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia | Sander van Hooft says:

  May 18, 2009 at 4:33 pm

  [...] the defeat of the socialist Derg regime in 1991, the Peasant Associations were dissolving rapidly. However, the government announced the [...]