Globally, the UN estimates that 1.6 billion people struggle to find adequate housing. Kenya’s Constitution Article 43(1) (b), provides that ‘every person has the right to accessible and adequate housing and reasonable standards of sanitation’. Kenyans suffer insecurity of tenure and are victims of frequent forceful evictions. This is a country that never follows up on building standards, leave alone rent controls. The current leadership is money-minded and has no interest in public housing.

"Information is power but information sharing is even more powerful." With this statement, during his opening of the side event on blockchain at the LANDac encounter 2020, John Dean Markunas, Power of Chain Consultancy (PoC) cited me. I am now citing him back to explain what I meant.

I recently published a study on urban policy implementation context in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. It was published in January 2020 by African Journal of Land Policy and Geospatial Science.

Covid-19 pandemic has further worsened India’s hunger and malnutrition woes, more so for the millions of informal workers, now  struggling to meet two ends in their rural homes, post the mass migration from their place of works, during lockdowns. Their embedded informality over labour, land, housing tenure, has uprooted and shaken them with loss of income, occupation and habitat, multiplying their already entrenched nutrition vulnerability. 

Under the British colonial rule, Sierra Leone’s land mass was divided into two areas, the colony area and protectorate area. The British government, under the Crown Queen, had direct rule over the land within the capital of Freetown, which was the colony, leaving the provincial lands under the customary rule of chiefs and tribal heads, naming that area as the protectorate region.

Interview with Christiana Ellie, M&E officer in Land for Life Initiative

1) Can you tell us a bit more about the Land for Life Consortium- Sierra Leone?

Land for Life initiative Sierra Leone, is an endeavour of five legally established  civil society organizations that are working together as a consortium to roll out the initiative in  five districts of the country. These organizations have their own specific objectives around land governance.

The increasing number of salmon in the Skjern River in Denmark is a positive sign, as the Danish salmon is the only strain of wild salmon left in Danish rivers. Before the Skjern River Nature Restoration Project, the salmon had almost gone extinct owing to the state of the environment. The project area now offers ideal conditions for flora and fauna and has already acquired great natural value. In fact, it has already grown into a bird site of national importance.

I was assigned to lead the preparation of the assessments and amendments to the land consolidation legislation in 2016. That appeared to be a burdensome task. The first two land consolidation projects in North Macedonia were initiated according to the existing Land Consolidation Law and the implementation was blocked. The Law simply had no legal solutions for the identified field situations. The problems were many and each was ascending the other in its magnitude and sensitivity.