Assessment of the land inventory approach for securing tenure of lawful and bona fide occupants on private Mailo land in Uganda

• Musinguzi, Moses ^[1] ; Huber, Thorsten ^[2] ; Kirumira, Daniel ^[2] ; Drate, Pamella ^[2]
  1. [1] Makerere University

     Makerere University

     Kampala Capital City, Uganda

     
  2. [2] Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Kampala, Uganda
• Localización: Land use policy: The International Journal Covering All Aspects of Land Use, ISSN 0264-8377, ISSN-e 1873-5754, Nº. 110, 2021
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The co-existence of overlapping land rights is an issue of concern as countries strive to secure land tenure rights for improving land productivity. Whereas considerable research has been directed to overlapping rights on customary land, there is limited research on the solutions to overlapping land rights between registered landowners and unregistered occupants. The Mailo tenure in Uganda, which is a case of a century-old impasse between registered owners on one hand and legally recognized unregistered occupants on the other hand, has resisted both political and legislative-based solutions. Yet Mailo tenure accounts for about 20 % of Uganda’s land, including the capital city, major influential towns and high value land. In this paper, we introduce and evaluate the Land Inventory Approach, which is a step by step approach to documentation and formalization of occupancy rights on registered land, with acceptance of landlords and tenants, while maintaining harmony within the community and the political environment. The approach is specifically designed for the Mailo tenure and other similar tenure systems where overlapping land rights are shared between registered owners and legally protected unregistered occupants. The land inventory approach was initiated by GIZ under the Improvement of Land Governance in Uganda (ILGU) project co-funded by the European Union (EU) and the German Government, as part of the Global Program "Responsible Land Policy" for the Special Initiative "One World, No Hunger" (SEWOH) of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). After more than one year of piloting, an assessment was undertaken to review the suitability of the approach to addressing overlapping rights impasse between landlords and tenants on Mailo tenure. The assessment was based on four guiding questions, namely whether the approach: (i) improves the relationship between landlords and tenants, (ii) addresses all land related disputes on Mailo tenure, (iii) provides adequate information for negotiations between landlords and tenants, and (iv) provides an appropriate Fit-For-Purpose (FFP) technological as well as operational/procedural solution. Findings indicate that overall, the approach significantly improved the relationship between landlords and tenants in the areas where the project was successfully piloted. The approach provides the necessary information, such as location and size of tenancies, use of tenancy portions, claims to usufruct rights and proportion of the landlords’ occupied and unoccupied land, which helps further negotiations. The collected information will, if included in the National Land Information System, not only improve transparency in land administration but will also increase the menu of negotiation options and hence empower both the landlords and tenants to reach consensus.