Several governments in Africa are increasingly privatising land rights. Many donors see privatisation and formal property rights as key to generating income or credit from land. But impact assessments suggest that land rights reforms often fail to result in the intended outcome. In addition reforms often create unintended consequences with far-reaching effects.

A recent paper from the University of Sussex, UK, presents a case study of the 1998 Uganda Land Act, discussing the evolution of the reform, and some of its unintended consequences. Uganda’s Land Act is one of a series of legal reforms that followed the end of the civil war in 1986. The Act was prepared over a number of years and attempted to meet two potentially conflicting concerns: to formalise traditional and communal land rights and to allow poor people to strengthen their land rights security.

By broadening opportunities to formalise tenure, the Act intended to strengthen commercial agriculture by facilitating both the operation of a land market and the use of land as collateral for credit. The Act also aimed to strengthen customary ownership and occupancy rights, as well as women’s and children’s rights. It established a Land Fund to compensate those whose rights were weakened by the strengthening of rights of occupancy. A new system of land tribunals and District Land Boards to administer land matters in the districts was also started.

However, the Act resulted in a number of unintended consequences:

• Protecting occupants’ rights created difficulties for municipal governments in urban areas: access to land to develop and maintain infrastructure was restricted and urban authorities lost income from existing rentals and leaseholds that are not allowed under the new rules.
• Prospects for future income from urban leaseholds were reduced by granting urban leaseholders the right to convert to freehold.
• Small-scale rural farmers are still disadvantaged as they cannot use their land as collateral for credit from commercial banks: most banks do not lend small amounts and hence microfinance remains the main source of small scale credit.
• The Act does not allow selling or mortgaging land without the consent of all those who occupy it: as a result multiple claims are made on a single piece of land and the likelihood of land being used to secure credit is low.
• The costs of implementing the Act far exceeded the sums budgeted.

These consequences came about because insufficient attention was paid to consulting all interested parties before preparing the initial drafts of the Act. Some can be corrected by modifying the way the Act is implemented but others are more fundamental because of conflicting interests. The experience of Uganda’s Land Act has some important lessons for other land reform processes in Africa.

The researcher points out that prior to legislation there is a need to:

• assess the potential impacts of reform through systematic consultations and planning with representatives of all affected parties
• identify all possible constraints that are involved in attaining intended results: for example, lack of land ownership need not be the only constraint on the formal provision of credit
• be aware that by protecting the rights of the poor the value of the assets of the better-off may be diminished: as a result the better-off may be less likely to raise money from their land
• be aware that national legislation to reform land rights may have important consequences for the urban economy as well as the rural economy and for the public sector as well as the private sector
• assess the implications of reform for the public sector budget.

The Ugandan experience shows that the implications of land reform for investment, growth and the expansion of commercial agriculture are not all positive, at least in the short term.

Source(s):
‘Unintended Consequences of Land Rights Reform: the case of the 1998 Uganda Land Act’, Development Policy Review, 22, (2), pages 173–191, by Diana Hunt, 2004

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 26 April 2005

Further Information:
Diana Hunt
School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies
University of Sussex
Brighton
UK

Tel: 44 (0)1273 606755 ext 2266
Fax: 44 (0)1273 678889
Contact the contributor: D.M.Hunt@sussex.ac.uk

University of Sussex, UK

Other related links:
'Safe as houses: securing urban land tenure and property rights'

'Supporting indigenous land rights in Latin America'

'Does AIDS threaten the right to land?'

'Land rights in Africa: protecting the interests of vulnerable groups'

'Africa’s changing landscape: new policies to resolve conflicts over land'

'The crisis of land distribution in Southern Africa'