II ~I ~ ~II~ ~~ ~II ~ ~II - IFES

IFES Pre-electionAssessmentBurundiThe government has taken a top-down approach to rural development, centralizing control ofproduction and commercialization, enforcing low export crop producer prices and effectivelyturning farmers into laborers rather than independent entrepreneurs. The enforcement vehiclesused by the government include weak and biased extension and marketing institutions, a"commune" system of local governance staffed by appointees from the central government, acooperative movement which has forced farmers into villages, and arbitrary and unclear landtenure policies.Burundi's rural sector also faces a more intractable problem: a shortage of attractive, arableland available for a population of 5.6 million people that is growing at a rate of 2.6 per centa year. The country's popUlation density of 192 people per square kilometre is the secondhighest in Africa (population density per square kilometre of cultivated land is a whopping 536people). Ten percent of rural households own no land and, owing to the low legal status ofwomen and inconsistently enforced laws, at least one-third of the population has little or nocontrol of this primary resource.Urban areas have thus far not been able to relieve pressure on the land. Industry and servicesare small and are constrained by a lack of consumer demand. Thus they provide only a smallrevenue base from which the government might absorb people leaving the countryside. Unlikemost other African countries, the informal sector is also small. It is active in roadside standsand in the marketplaces of major towns. While a lively informal sector exists in the country'sprincipal city, Bujumbura, its growth has been hampered by strict government control of thepopulation.•While trade liberalization and reform of the financial sector have proceeded with some success,there is widespread fear that privatization will increase unemployment and serve to concentratewealth even more narrowly in the hands of the ruling Tutsi minority. The majority Hutu havealmost no access to capital.Newly-formed political parties express particular resentment that the govern merit is being forcedto divest its resources in the wake of a transition of power. If the government moves quicklyto recognize political parties, and if parties are allowed to campaign actively in the countryside,20