DIIS Working Paper
Tanzania's Land Law Reform
Slow and uneven progress
NGOs and the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Development are involved in a significant number of projects to implement Tanzania’s land law reform from 1999. Still, progress in rural areas is slow and uneven. The Village Land Act, which regulates land in rural areas in Mainland Tanzania, is largely being implemented through donor-funded, geographically limited, projects. The result is limited access to land administration services for the majority of Tanzanians who live in rural areas. That is the conclusion of a new DIIS Working Paper by PhD candidate Rasmus Hundsbæk Pedersen.
A slow implementation process after the passing of the land acts carries the major part of the responsibility. Implementation was furthermore severely under-funded. When the Strategic Plan for Implementation of the Land Laws, SPILL, was finished in 2005, it was estimated to cost over 300 billion TSH. Only about 3 billion were however foreseen to come from the ordinary government budget. Subsequently, availability of donor funding has been largely decisive for the type and scale of implementation interventions.
The working paper provides an overview of the major implementation projects carried out in Tanzania so far. It describes several pilot projects which have been carried out to test how to implement the land acts in practice. Often these projects focus on one aspect of the reform only, for instance facilitation of titling or conflict resolution. Not much implementation has been going on nationwide. Furthermore, the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Development has done little to share its knowledge about implementation procedures with other stakeholders.
Consequently, most villages are unable to deliver the services which citizens were promised by the reform. Basic services like land use planning, registration of rights, and institutions for land dispute settlement, are inaccessible. Local authorities in rural areas, in other words, do not have the resources and competences to implement the complex reform on their own.
The need for more resources for the implementation of the Village Land Act nationwide is obvious. But a higher degree of engagement by public authorities, especially by the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Development and by the district authorities, is equally important. Finally, the paper concludes, there is an urgent need for independent research. A large World Bank-financed project may herald a speeding up of activities in Tanzania to implement the land acts. Findings from similar projects elsewhere in Tanzania, however, indicate that the type of approach chosen for the project may result in irregularities and even land grabbing.
A slow implementation process after the passing of the land acts carries the major part of the responsibility. Implementation was furthermore severely under-funded. When the Strategic Plan for Implementation of the Land Laws, SPILL, was finished in 2005, it was estimated to cost over 300 billion TSH. Only about 3 billion were however foreseen to come from the ordinary government budget. Subsequently, availability of donor funding has been largely decisive for the type and scale of implementation interventions.
The working paper provides an overview of the major implementation projects carried out in Tanzania so far. It describes several pilot projects which have been carried out to test how to implement the land acts in practice. Often these projects focus on one aspect of the reform only, for instance facilitation of titling or conflict resolution. Not much implementation has been going on nationwide. Furthermore, the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Development has done little to share its knowledge about implementation procedures with other stakeholders.
Consequently, most villages are unable to deliver the services which citizens were promised by the reform. Basic services like land use planning, registration of rights, and institutions for land dispute settlement, are inaccessible. Local authorities in rural areas, in other words, do not have the resources and competences to implement the complex reform on their own.
The need for more resources for the implementation of the Village Land Act nationwide is obvious. But a higher degree of engagement by public authorities, especially by the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Development and by the district authorities, is equally important. Finally, the paper concludes, there is an urgent need for independent research. A large World Bank-financed project may herald a speeding up of activities in Tanzania to implement the land acts. Findings from similar projects elsewhere in Tanzania, however, indicate that the type of approach chosen for the project may result in irregularities and even land grabbing.
Topics
Regions
Tanzania
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Tanzania's land law reform
the implementation challenge