Social security and peace thanks to clear land ownership rights

The Ugandan experience illustrates the importance of clearly defined land rights. Over 80 per cent of pending court cases in Uganda are about land disputes. The country’s violent past, a rapidly growing population and the impacts of climate change will likely lead to an increasing number of conflicts over land and land rights in the future. Because of the prevalence of traditional structures, women and marginalised groups are at a particular disadvantage. Milly Namyenya’s family has owned land for generations. When she inherited land from her father and tried to register it in equal shares, together with other heirs, violent clashes erupted with tenant farmers who lived on the land and grew their crops there. They threatened Milly and her family – the rightful landowners – with violence, causing them to drop the registration procedure. Time and again, Namyenya tried to start a peaceful dialogue with her tenant farmers, but to no avail. Educational campaigns initiated in her village finally led to a breakthrough. The farmers contacted her and made peace with her and her family. “I am now a proud landowner”, the 65-year-old beams, and happily describes the relationship she now has with her tenants. Today, Milly maintains close contact with them and knows the dimensions of her plot of land. She was able to use the income from the leases to finance the construction of her house.

Multi-stakeholder platforms boost land rights for farming families

For generations, millions of smallholder families around the world have been farming their land without recognised or formalised acknowledged rights to that land. Other stakeholders are increasingly interested in this sort of land: to use it for large development projects, large-scale agricultural production or growing cities. How can different interests be reconciled with one another, and how can political frameworks be shaped that comply with international human rights-based standards?

In Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Germany’s Welthungerhilfe supports partner organisations in the process of setting up and strengthening Multi-Actor-Partnerships (MAPs) for good land governance. These MAPs serve as spaces for collective dialogue and collaboration between representatives from ministries, civil society organisations, businesses and other relevant stakeholders. A key concern is the meaningful participation of legitimate rural landowners and users – including women and young people. “With striking similarities in all countries, MAPs promote relationships of openness and trust”, an external evaluation stated in late 2019. The platforms can lead to joint successes, for example in Liberia, where a new land law for the first time ever protects the collective land rights of rural communities and ensures equal land access for women.