The report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land is finally out! Popularly known as the ‘Ndung’u’ Report, the publication of this three-volume document is important to the Kenya Land Alliance for two major reasons. Firstly, the appointment of the Coordinator of the Kenya Land Alliance to the Commission marked a threshold in the relations between KLA and the Government of Kenya.

A majority of the Kenyan population live in rural areas accessing land and natural resources through customary systems and institutions that operate largely outside the mainstream legal framework of land administration. Although there are clear provisions in the Constitution and the Trust Land Act on management of trust land there appears to be an unwritten policy on the part of government that sees community land as land that is not owned but rather is available for County Councils and government to appropriate through the setting apart procedure

The National Land Policy in Kenya: Critical Public Land Issues and Policy Statements is a guide to steer the debate and eventual formulation of a National Land Policy and legislative framework that will address issues of management and administration of public land in Kenya.

kenya land alliance download :Memorandum On Continued Engagement With The Ministry Of Lands On Land Reforms Presented To: The Ministry Of Lands. The approval by the public of the Constitution at the referendum on August 4, 2010 and its promulgation on August 27, 2010 heralded a new dawn of governance in Kenya. Through its broad provisions, it is expected that it will spur social and economic development and secure the land rights of all Kenyans, by among others guaranteeing them ownership, control and access to natural resources.

It is significant that for the first time land is specifically recognized as a constitutional category in the Draft Constitution Bill. This is important because it gives the issue of land the level of visibility that is always associated with constitutional matters, and unlike other ordinary legislation, a Constitution can only be amended by a special majority. The chapter that deals with land in the Draft Constitution Bill is Chapter Eleven under the title Land and Property.

The Kenya Land Alliance (KLA) is a focal point for information sharing and networking among those pressing for land reform in Kenya. It was formed in 1999 by members of civil society to propose reforms both to the Commission on the Review of Land Laws, appointed by the President, and the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, appointed by Parliament. Over the last two years, the KLA has coordinated a programme of research on land issues in Kenya by member organisations

Land administration has been described as the set of services that make the land tenure system within a country socially relevant and operational. This is through determining, recording and disseminating information about the tenure, value and use of land necessary for the implementation of land management policies

This analysis and recommendations stem from USAID/Kenya’s request for an assessment of Kenya’s draft National Land Policy (dNLP).4 It was conducted under the global task order: Property Rights and Resource Governance Program, a mechanism designed and supervised by USAID-EGAT’s Land Resources Management Team under the Office of Natural Resources Management.

The purpose of this Issues Paper is to move the debate and stimulate discussion of issues relevant to women’s land rights and social security beyond the unfulfilled demands for gender responsive land policies and land legal framework. It is based on lessons learned from various research findings, Kenya Land Alliance experience and discussions with colleagues with whom we work with in various capacities on land policy and law reforms in Kenya and others parts of Africa.

The KLA proposed constitutional principles on land reform as captured in the constitutional draft have become more pronounced with the approach of General Elections and the transition that is expected to see the departure of President Moi from leadership. We therefore, detest the frantic efforts to go to the forthcoming elections before adopting the Ghai draft constitution, because that will be endangering the aroused expectation that at long last we are on the road to sorting out land problems we have lived with since independence.

The recently released report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Land Law System of Kenya has sparked varying reactions from Kenyans of all walks of life. While some complain that the Commission did not complete its task per all its terms of reference, the land gurus are thrilled by the fact that the report makes many far reaching recommendations on the principles of formulating a National Land Policy Framework and the Constitutional Framework for Land Administration and Management.

For a long time the issue of land and related problems has been debated mostly by academicians, politicians and professionals. Although the problem has remained more or less one of the most talked of in Kenya, the public has very often been left out of the debate. Again mostly the debate has been dominated more by complaining about either the lack of policy or the bad land policies and laws and the failure by successive governments to correct those problems.