It is another beautiful Saturday morning. Our Muslim friends are on
the holy month of Ramadan, some of our Christian friends are off to
church, some families are on their way to the beach and weekend
gateways.
Others are reading this and yet there are those watching
a television programme, while enjoying a cup of tea and our beloved
president is bringing a renewed hope to our country, indeed life is
beautiful.
However, today is different, in terms of what I want to
share with you coming from a week of exhibition at the Dar Property
Expo at Diamond Jubilee giving, free legal advice on real estate matters
upon which we were blessed to be visited by the Minister for Lands,
Housing and Human Settlements Development with whom we had interesting
conversations about the land law and government impressive plans to do
away with the “zombie” that torments land tenure. So, today I came
across an article of which I think it’s an interesting read over how
land tenure can be used to revolutionise agriculture and eradicate
poverty. The full article can be found at www.worldbank.org.
It is
indeed true that sub-Saharan Africa is home to nearly half of the
world’s usable, uncultivated land, but so far the continent has not been
able to develop these unused tracts, estimated at more than 202 million
hectares, to dramatically reduce poverty and boost growth, jobs and
shared prosperity.
According to a new World Bank report, “Securing
Africa’s Land for Shared Prosperity,” released sometime this month,
African countries and their communities could effectively end ‘land
grabs,’ grow significantly more food across the region, and transform
their development prospects if they can modernise the complex governance
procedures that govern land ownership and management over the next
decade. Africa has the highest poverty rate in the world with 47.5 per
cent of the population living below $1.25 a day.
“Despite abundant
land and mineral wealth, Africa remains poor,” says Makhtar Diop, World
Bank vice president for Africa. “Improving land governance is vital for
achieving rapid economic growth and translating it into significantly
less poverty and more opportunity for Africans, including women, who
make up 70 per cent of Africa’s farmers yet are locked out of land
ownership due to customary laws. The status quo is unacceptable and must
change so that all Africans can benefit from their land.”
The
report notes that more than 90 per cent of Africa’s rural land is
undocumented, making it highly vulnerable to land grabbing and
expropriation with poor compensation. However, based on encouraging
evidence from country pilots in African countries such as Ghana, Malawi,
Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda, Securing Africa’s Land for Shared
Prosperity suggests an action plan that could help revolutionise
agricultural production, end land grabbing, and eradicate extreme
poverty in Africa.
Now on the most interesting part is on what the report suggest. The report is of the opinion that the following has to be done:
1.
Regularising tenure rights of squatters on public land in urban slums
that are home to 60 per cent of urban dwellers in Africa.
2. Championing reforms and investments to document all communal lands and prime lands that are individually owned.
3.
Tackling the weak governance and corruption endemic to the land
governance system in many African countries, which often favour the
status quo and harm the interests of poor people.
4. Generating
the political will of African governments to mobilise behind these land
reforms and attract the political and financial buy-in of the
international development community.
The new report says it would
cost African countries and their development partners, including the
private sector, $4.5 billion spread over 10 years to scale up these
policy reforms and investments.
Surging food commodity prices and
foreign direct investment have increased the potential return on
investing in effective land administration through higher agricultural
yields and better market access and prices. Most African countries
already have the basic land laws in place that recognise customary land
rights and gender equality, which are essential to reinforce needed
reforms.
In addition, new satellite and information technologies can greatly reduce the cost of land administration.
With
only 10 per cent of Africa’s rural land registered, inefficient land
administration means that it takes twice as long and costs twice as much
to transfer land compared to industrialised countries, and weak
governance is the leading cause for corruption in the land sector.
The
report notes successful examples of how African governments have
undertaken tough reforms, enacted laws and implemented progressive land
policies that have benefited poor communities. Highlighting the need for
greater capacity, the report finds that Ghana, Kenya and Uganda each
have fewer than 10 professional land surveyors per one million people,
compared to 197 in Malaysia and 150 in Sri Lanka. This is so for
Tanzania as well. Of Kenya’s 206 registered land surveyors, only 85 were
found to be practicing. The report points to the futility of building
capacity without making complementary investments in land
administration.
Africa has a huge vast land and potential to be
the feeder of this world’s population. Our governments have done, but
have to do more perhaps for countries, like Tanzania, think of
re-writing all the land laws to better enhance land tenure, land
transfer and land use. As the report suggest, this and the other three
mentioned above can indeed help eradicate poverty and revolutionise the
agricultural sector.
