The Land Act, 2012
The Land Registration Act, 2012
The National Land Commission Act, 2012
The Environment & Land Court Act, 2011
The Urban Areas & Cities Act, 2011
In Kenya, insecure land tenure and inequitable access to land and natural resources have contributed to conflict and violence, which has in return exacerbated food insecurity. Most farmers in Kenya have no legal title for the land on which they farm. Sources of tenure insecurity can be ethnic conflicts over land between neighbouring communities, particularly in the Northern provinces, expropriation by the state or local government and land grabbing by local elite or companies. Competition is as well growing over water, especially over groundwater, which is scarce in Kenya.
Kenya’s Vision 2030 aims at transforming the country into a newly industrialized middle income country
and infrastructural development is high on the agenda to achieve this. Competing land uses and existing
interests in land make the use of eminent domain by government in acquiring land inevitable. However
most of the land earmarked for compulsory acquisition comprises of un- registered land whose interests
are not formally documented. Kenya has progressive statutes that provide for compensation of land that is
The first set of the land laws were enacted in 2012 in line with the timelines outlined in the Constitution of Kenya 2010. In keeping with the spirit of the constitution, the Land Act, Land Registration Act and the national Land Commission Act respond to the requirements of Articles 60, 61, 62, 67 & 68 of the Constitution. The National Land Policy, which was passed as Sessional Paper No. 3 of 2009, arrived earlier than the Constitution, with some radical proposals on the land Management.
This Act provides rules for the prospecting for and mining of minerals specified in the First Schedule to this Act. Save to the extent provided for in this Act, it shall not apply to matters relating to petroleum and hydrocarbon gases. The Cabinet Secretary responsible for mining, the Principal Secretary of the responsible ministry and any person shall be guided by the values and principles enshrined in the Constitution and in particular Articles 10, 66 (2), 201 (c) and (d), and 232 of the Constitution and the principles of leadership and integrity.
This Act makes provision for the recognition, protection and registration of community land rights and also provides for conversion of community land, special rights and entitlements with respect to community land, environment and natural resources management of community land and settlement of disputes relating to community land.
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