Post-conflict northern Uganda has witnessed an increase in disputes over land. This has, to a great extent, been as a result of the armed conflict and its aftermath. Beyond that, other chaotic factors embedded in various social, legal, economic, and political aspects of this society have influenced the nature, gravity, and dynamics of these disputes and the way in which Traditional Institutions and the Local Council Courts have attempted to resolve them.

Northern Uganda is the scene of one of the world’s most volatile and spontaneous processes of reintegration. There are approximately 1.1 to 1.4 million people in the Acholi sub-region at the time of writing3 ; 295,000 internally-displaced persons (IDPs) remain displaced either in IDP camps or transit sites. Approximately 800,000 Acholis have already left the camps and spontaneously returned home over the last three years.

This paper examines the evolution and the nature of the current forms of land tenure in Masindi District and the extent to which these forms impair or facilitate positive socio-economic changes. Such an examination is vital in light of the fact that there exists no convincing empirically grounded studies on the impact of the official land policies on the relationships between forms of land tenure, social structure and agricultural production.

Over 80% of all land in Uganda is held under unregistered ‘customary tenure’. This means that it is private property, but the owners need no documents to prove ownership. Their claims to the land, and the boundaries of the land, are locally recognised, and this recognition is given the full protection of State law.

The protection given to the land rights of women, orphans and any other vulnerable groups in Northern and Eastern Uganda is probably as good as can be found anywhere in the world. Customary land law is based on three main principles. First, everyone is entitled to land, and no-one can ever be denied land rights. A second principle is that all inherited land is family land, never individual property.

SERI worked with the Housing Development Agency in the course of 2015 on a research project on securing tenure in informal settlements on customary land. It involved in-depth research in four informal settlements in four provinces and culminated in a set of recommendations for the HDA and other role players. One of the key issues identified in the research was lack of awareness about IPILRA rights (the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act) among the key stakeholders.

We believe that law should in principle assist vulnerable communities in changing power relations. Law is fundamentally a ‘neutral’ set of rules that constrains power by requiring decisions and actions of those in power to comply with legal rules, rights and obligations. Unfortunately, we have seen the powerful appropriate law as a tool for only protecting and strengthening their interests.

Summary Report of the TA Baseline Survey - Key Findings 

Until recently, the Pokot in the highlands of the Baringo area in Kenya have practised semi-nomadic pastoralism. Today they are rapidly sedentarizing and in many areas suitable for farming, they are adopting rain-fed agriculture. As a result of these dynamics, claims to individual property on de facto communal rangelands have arisen, and to such an extent that they seriously threaten the peace of the community. This article explores the conflicts that emerge in the transition from common property to private tenure.

To provide for the temporary protection of certain rights to and interests in landwhich are not otherwise adequately protected by law; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

Kenya is the most recent African state to acknowledge customary tenure as producing lawful property rights, not merely rights of occupation and use on government or public lands. This paper researches this new legal environment. This promises land security for 6 to 10 million Kenyans, most of who are members of pastoral or other poorer rural communities. Analysis is prefaced with substantial background on legal trends continentally, but the focus is on Kenya’s Community Land Act, 2016, as the framework through which customary holdings are to be identified and registered.

Land-use conflict is not a new phenomenon for pastoralists and farmers in Tanzania with murders, the killing of livestock and the loss of property as a consequence of this conflict featuring in the news for many years now. Various actors, including civil society organisations, have tried to address farmer–pastoralist conflict through mass education programmes, land-use planning, policy reforms and the development of community institutions. However, these efforts have not succeeded in the conflict. Elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa traditional systems are not making much headway either.