News on Land

NAIROBI, Kenya, July 8  – Lands Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney has urged landowners in Nairobi to work with the Ministry to fill existing gaps in data that hampers digitization.

Speaking during a meeting with the Ministry’s Heads of Department, Karoney noted that the full deployment of Ardhisasa will rid the lands sector of cartels, fraudsters and middlemen.

A curious fact about Kenya's conservation efforts is that there is no institution, government or any other authority, that can authoritatively give the exact figure of the forest cover.

Over the years, even government ministers have been giving varying indicators on whether the country is losing its forests or gaining cover.

To address this and other issues, the government is doing a comprehensive environmental audit to establish the status of biodiversity and land health in the country.

Photo: Indigenous people form a human chain in Tangail district, Bangladesh as they demand legal rights to their ancestral forest land. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

TANGAIL, Bangladesh, Jul 7 2021 (IPS) - When the Bangladesh Forest Department felled Basanti Rema’s banana orchard, Rema, a Garo indigenous forest-dweller of Madhupur Forest, felt she was living a nightmare.

Several families along river Nile in Jinja are on the brink of losing ownership of their land as preparations for redevelopment of the area take centerstage. The residents however claim the investor, Heritage Site Uganda, has no authority over their land. Buikwe Resident District Commissioner, Jane Francis Kagayi has since asked the investor to liaise with the physical planner's office to establish facts about the land in order to avoid future land wrangles.

The Opportunity: A clear gap in standards for the land sector

The San can be considered as one of the earliest inhabitants of Southern Africa. Much like in the rest of Southern Africa, the San of Botswana have consistently been marginalized, negated, and relegated to the margins of society.

In what is bound to be a historic development in Tanzania, Africa and much of the rest of the world, President Samia Suluhu Hassan has committed her government to “empowering” women on land-related issues.

As part of wider efforts to functionally and effectively champion women’s rights in the name of justice and gender equality, President Hassan has solemnly pledged to ensure that women in Tanzania readily access “economic rights and justice”.

Gender inequality doesn't make sense on any level.

By marginalising women, we deny ourselves the opportunity to lift millions of men, women and children out of poverty. Not to mention the chance of a just and fair world.

From birth, girls, boys, women and men are expected by society to play certain roles and behave in certain ways, based on traditions, religion, and other beliefs.

These behaviours are learned and shaped by the gender norms in a society.

Land is the most important asset in most parts of the world that people can own, including Uganda. In Buganda, land is the way of life as the kingdom’s cultural aspirations are based on land, hence titles like Ssaabataka for a prince who is going to become the Kabaka. Clan heads and elders in Buganda are known as Abataka. However, this scenario isn’t only prevalent in Buganda. Land is a major asset across the country. It is the biggest means of production since our economy is agricultural-based. 

Land grabs facilitated by multinational corporations, foreign investors and local governments in a pursuit for agribusiness have been escalating during the last decade. Huge acquisitions of farmland have led to violent displacements of rural populations. Although reports of the practice are not as recurrent in the media, the problem is far from over.

AS President Samia Suluhu Hassan meets representative of various groups of Tanzanian society, herders have come out with a call that they should not be forgotten because they have longstanding pressing issues worthy of a presidential audience.

He said such a meeting will enable the president to recognize their plight including in being disregarded by political leaders who hand out wrong instructions to them as if livestock keeping activities have no contribution to the national economy.