Zambia recognizes two types of land tenure: customary and leasehold tenure. While historically the majority of land in Zambia has been held under customary tenure, leases (also called leasehold titles) are the only legal means of holding land rights. In 1995, a new Land Act was passed, which makes it easier for investors to acquire leasehold titles to customary land. When an investor obtains a leasehold title to customary land, the customary land reverts to the state once the lease expires and is thereafter governed by statute.

This paper analyses the Zambian land governance system, the actors and institutions shaping it and its reaction to the new interest in farmland. We draw theories from New Institutional Economics and base our empirical analyses on expert interviews and focus group discussions conducted in Zambia. 

Most women in Zambia do not enjoy the same land rights as men. Zambia’s Lands Act provides support for women who hold statutory land, but the law does not apply to customary land. Most land is held under custom and most customary tenure systems do not provide women with significant land rights — even when they do, traditional institutions often do not effectively implement the rules.

This report was commissioned by UN-Habitat to review the laws and land tenure of a selected number of southern African countries. It involved the appointment of country specialists who researched and produced country chapters for their respective countries namely, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia. A regional expert was appointed to produce a regional overview to serve as a source document for the country reports, as well as provide overall coordination of the project. The project was carried out over a period of roughly one year, which began in March 2004.

Customary tenure has been associated with absence of individual ownership, inadequate security of tenure, weak institutions, causing environmental degradation, and discriminating against women. These perceptions are re-looked at in the light of personal experience and observations, and literature review in the context of Zambia.

This paper presents the empirical findings of a research study undertaken in the Western Province of Zambia. The principal objective was to explore if the issuance of land ownership certificates (LOCs) improves the customary landholders’ perceptions of security of tenure. Thus, we test a null hypothesis that: ‘There are no significant differences in the perceived security of tenure between customary landholders with land ownership certificates and customary landholders without land ownership certificates’.

The use of modern seed varieties and other improved technologies is essential for farmers to significantly increase their crop harvest and improve their livelihoods. All over Sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture productivity growth has remained very low over many decades irrespective of gender of the farmer. However, studies have shown that women farmers fare worse than the male counterparts in terms of adoption of improved technology and productivity.

The need for energy security and climate change mitigation have increased blending mandates worldwide; in Southern Africa, demand for biofuels could increase following South Africa’s planned blending mandates. However, land constraints limit local industry expansion, with demand likely to be met in land-abundant countries. This paper reviews the status of the biofuels industry in Zambia, as a land-abundant country, for the local and wider Southern African market. It identifies potential biofuel feedstocks as crucial elements for establishing a viable industry.

This paper analyzes the implications of copper mining in Zambia on customary rights to land and forests, and the societal stakes associated with foreign investment in the mining industry. Copper mining affects forests, and in turn the people with customary rights to those forests, in a number of direct and indirect ways, from deforestation during green site development and selective harvesting of timber to the significant but indirect pressures over forests through infrastructure development and the population pull effect of mining towns.

This study relates to an on-going debate as to whether customary African land tenure must be reformed or converted to a statutory, individualised land tenure system (often referred to as a ‘titled’ system) as a pre-requisite to agricultural development. Past arguments in favour of titling claim that traditional tenure is insecure for the small farmer and thus creates disincentives for land improvements; that it prevents land from being used as collateral for credit; and that it prevents the transfer of land from inefficient users to efficient ones.

Zambia remains committed to the socio-economic development planning of the country as reflected by the return to development planning in 2005. The Seventh National Development Plan (7NDP) for the period 2017- 2021 is the successor to the Revised Sixth National Development Plan, 2013-2016 (R-SNDP) following its expiry in December 2016. The Plan, like the three national development plans (NDPs) that preceded it, is aimed at attaining the long-term objectives as outlined in the Vision 2030 of becoming a “prosperous middle-income country by 2030”.

In recent years, Zambia has witnessed increased interest from private investors in acquiring land for

agriculture. As elsewhere, large-scale land acquisitions are often accompanied with promises of capital

investments to build infrastructure, bring new technologies and know-how, create employment, and

improve market access, among other benefits. But agricultural investments create risks as well as

opportunities, for instance in relation to loss of land for family farmers. While much debate on ‘land