News on Land

The Commission on Human Rights  highlighted issues faced by indigenous people as it observed the 23rd anniversary of the passage of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act and the National Indigenous Peoples Month this October.

Based on the experiences faced by CHR employees on the ground, most of the human rights violations perpetrated against indigenous peoples are land-related harassments, attacks, and killings.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs that he will set up a committee to take a comprehensive look into the issue of the compulsory acquisition of lands by the government in the region.

The committee, which would be established to start work next year, would look at the possibility of restoring lands to their allodial owners, he said.

President Akufo-Addo gave the assurance when he addressed the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs in Dodowa yesterday as part of his working tour of the region.

Landowners of the Porgera gold mine in Enga Province, are seeking relief orders from the Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional recent amendments to the Mining Act that will enable the State to cease negotiations with landowners over royalties.

For years, Christiana Akwabea admired the vast fields she visited in neighboring districts to buy maize for reselling and dreamed of one day owning a plot of land where she could grow the staple crop.

But there wasn’t much land for commercial farming in Seikwa in Ghana’s Bono Region, and the local soil is more suitable for cultivating cashew and yam.

A licence to restart work at an iron ore opencast mine has been issued despite complaints of poor working conditions and dust and water pollution affecting the surrounding areas.

The second-biggest mountain in eSwatini, located in the north-east near the main border gate, is called Ngwenya because, at first glance, it looks like a crocodile. On its crown is a massive man-made crater, and on its side is a small hollow big enough to shelter a pride of lions, called the Lion Cavern.

Communities being able to participate on an equal basis in land governance is key to food security and inclusive development. How can securing land rights pave the way for responsible investments and what can we learn from experiences with the palm oil industry? To answer these questions we turn to West Africa where two activists are fighting for their communities’ right to land. ‘If we want to move forward, we need to share the wealth that the land brings.’

The first ever global dataset that quantifies tenure insecurity puts Botswana in a category of countries with the highest land and property insecurity.In terms of the Prindex, a methodology for measuring tenure security for land and property around the globe, more than 30 percent of Botswana’s adults (18+ years of age) feel insecure about their land or property rights. In terms of the Prindex, which was developed by a London think tank, more than 30 percent represents extremely high levels of insecurity.

The government recently requested a change in administrative boundaries between Phnom Penh and Kandal province by re-allocating 302ha from Kandal’s Takhmao town to the capital’s Dangkor district.

A letter signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen and sent to acting head of state Say Chhum on October 19 said the move will help the development of the new satellite cities of Boeung Tompun and Boeung Choeung Ek. It will also make the management of the district more efficient and improve public services.

Can Sri Lanka live up to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s environmental commitments?

WHILE the principle of land reform in Zimbabwe was primarily to address the skewed legacy of colonial land ownership imbalances, the late former president Robert Mugabe and his family engaged in greedy accumulation of farms establishing themselves as the new landed aristocracy.

Owen Gagare

By the time of his death on 6 September 2019, Mugabe had became a top land baron with 24
farms in violation of his regime’s one-man-one-farm policy.