Africa: Land rights in the Apac District of Uganda

Land rights in the Apac District of Uganda

The Land and Equity Movement in Uganda (LEMU) reports that the District of Apac is typical of most of Northern Uganda, almost completely un-industrialised with few urban centres of any size. In a report, 'Land Rights: Where we are and where we need to go' LEMU states that the population is rural and depends entirely on agriculture for its livelihoods. Mechanisation is rare, so the only productive assets which most households own are land, a few hand tools and livestock. This is described as 'traditional' and has in recent years seen changes. The report reviews the situation of land rights in the Apac District and looks at opportunities for land rights protection work. It examines the 1998 Land Act and its implementation in practice and finds that the protection clauses for women are proving ineffective.

The report says that at national level, the major change was the 1998 Land Act which implemented the provisions of the 1995 Constitution. The law now recognises so-called “customary tenure”, with two major implications. Firstly, even without any formal papers, people who have always been considered locally to “own” land now have legal recognition of this fact, without the need for them to acquire papers (ie the land can be legally owned but remain unregistered). Secondly, according to the wording of the law, the rules governing the administration of this land should be those very local rules by which ownership of the land was claimed, i.e. “customary” or “traditional” rules (of the clan). The law also offers protection to wives: where customary rules do not protect them, then the law take precedence. Although most land is considered to be owned by the male head of the household, wives automatically have rights over any land on which they depend, even where the man is the sole legal owner with freehold title.

Despite this legal context which is favourable to customary tenure, in pratice the government has shown very little interest in customary tenure as various provisions made in the 1998 act to support and protect customary tenure have never been implemented, says the report. The Government has taken away the authority of ‘customary’ institutions of land administration for administering land held under customary tenure, despite the clear statement of the 1998 Land Act. Government policy has been to encourage titling of land for freehold tenure. This gives all rights in land to named persons, usually a single individual, and frees the owner from any social obligations that may be held under customary tenure regarding the land, says the report.

According to LEMU, the situation regarding the implementation of the Land Act in Apac that has been discovered on the ground is not different from that in the rest of the country. The main differences would be that in some parts of the country, especially in the old kingdoms, more land is held under title. In the north and east, the vast majority of land is owned under customary tenure.

The report clusters barriers to land rights into three main groups. First the barriers to accessing rights under the customary system; second the barriers to accessing land rights under the formal state system; and third are the barriers to judicial protection from threats to land rights held under customary tenure. Even where the law gives people rights over land, it is often hard for them to defend those rights.

There are four noted barriers to improving the land rights situation: central government, international actors, district authorities and other actors.

LEMU has made a few suggestions on how to move forward in addressing land rights in the region of Apac. The potential for helping people to improve their rights and the protection of those rights in land is considerable, and the job is one of highest importance and urgency. Lobbying is needed for the proper application of the law and implementation of official policy. This is needed:

- for state law
- consent clause
- certificates of customary ownership and communal land associations
- for customary law
- protection of widows, children
- women’s rights
- family ownership vs. individual claims.

The land rights in the Apac region in Uganda should be a learning curve for many African countries. Many lessons can be taken from this region in order to improve land rights and to eliminate the barriers to it.

* This is a summarised version of the report by Mandlakazi Motsoaledi, Fahamu student intern. The full text of the paper, by Judy Adoko of LEMU, can be seen at http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/livelihoods/landrights/africa…