Land reforms boost women rights

A woman inspects her farm. With registration, land rights are better safeguarded. The New Times / File.

Rwanda’s land reforms have allowed the public to safeguard their rights on land which has significantly improved livelihoods among communities, according to the 2012 ActionAid report.

The report, titled ‘Lay of the Land Improving Land Governance to Stop Land Grabs’, is a result of a survey that covered 24 countries worldwide.

“By making land registration a top government priority, Rwanda’s communities’ and women’s land rights are better safeguarded. Women-focused legislation has improved women’s access to land, removing, on paper and customary gender discrimination,” the report reads in part.

“The research has revealed that the new land policy and legislation are, in practice, ensuring that women’s land rights are protected, especially land access and rights for widows and female orphans.”

The survey states that women and vulnerable groups are safeguarded from land grabbing and uncompensated displacement, which is remarkable considering Rwanda’s recent history and existing pressure on land.

In 2004, the government enacted an organic law on land to guarantee a safe and stable form of land tenure. Before that, the country never had a proper land policy.

In order to define and decide how the land registration process should be carried out, a Ministerial Decree determining modalities of registration was enacted in 2008 and a year later, the land registration process kicked off.

The land registration exercise that was completed in June saw about 10.4 million land parcels demarcated and adjudicated around the country.

Speaking to The New Times yesterday, Deputy Director General of the Rwanda Natural Resources Authority (RNRA) in charge of Department of Lands and Mapping, Eng. Didier G. Sagashya, noted that the report acknowledges Government efforts to address issues of land ownership.

“It is true Rwanda is carrying out land reforms since 2004, this started by putting in place the national land policy and then the organic law determining the use and management of land, and lately the implementation of systematic land registration process through the Land Tenure Regularisation,” he observed.

Sagashya said the institution has so far distributed 2.8 million land titles to land owners with the remaining expected to be issued by December 2013.

However the collection process is slow with at least three million land titles still unclaimed.

The ActionAid report argues that the current rise in land grabbing needs to be addressed urgently. It focuses on the actions that developing countries can take to mitigate land grabs through strengthening national land governance by making it transparent, accountable and protect communities’ rights.

“Rwanda is not among countries concerned with land grabbing because it has a clear policy on land ownership. With implementation of that policy that is why all land parcels in the country are being registered to their claimants (who used to have it as customary),” said Sagashya.

The survey states that Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Liberia, among other developing countries, have large-scale land acquisitions for investment and agri-business which has resulted in land grabbing from customary owners.

Rwanda is not devoid of land conflicts either.

“During the land registration exercise, we registered 10,716 parcels of land with conflicts which is 0.1 per cent  of the total number of parcels demarcated in the country and 90 per cent of those conflicts are intra-family,” Sagashya said.

“Resolving land conflicts starts from family meetings; if not resolved; the case proceeds to mediators if the value of the conflicted property does not exceed Rwf3 million. If the conflict is not resolved, it has to be taken to courts of law.”

Sagashya cited the land and succession law, which gives men and women equal rights over land whether it is through land sharing, inheritance or land allocation.

From Newtimes

Expedite mass Sensitisation on land rights

Three million land title deeds remain unclaimed at the Rwanda Natural Resources Authority.The Authority says that most land owners claim that only government can guarantee safe custody of the valuable documents. This is a vote of confidence in government.

It shows that people have more trust in government to keep their valuable assets.
However it is important for the people to be enlightened on how best to use their land titles instead of leaving them in custody of the Lands office.

This could partly be addressed by mass sensitisation on land rights from the grassroots to the national level.  When government embarked on the land policy reforms in 2009, the exercise aimed at stimulating growth through improved land tenure rights. 

And this objective will be realized  when land owners realize that these land title deeds are an asset to the owners and can be used as security to get loans to start up income generating activities.  

Land is the biggest capital that most people in rural areas can use to alleviate themselves from poverty.
It is encouraging that the Authority intends to increase awareness among Rwandans on the importance of being the primary custodians of their land title deeds and to use them in the best way possible to uplift their standards of living.

The awareness is important because for most rural people their only security is usually land.  The Authority should consider using local leaders in this sensitisation programme. 

There is a growing consensus among the development experts that ensuring access to land and security of land tenure have potential to spur improved socio-economic development.

Source: Newtimes

Millions of land titles unclaimed

Three million land title deeds remain unclaimed at the Rwanda Natural Resources Authority, a senior official has said.

“We issued 5.8 million title deeds of which only 2.8 million have been collected… another three million are with us unclaimed,” Didier Sagashya, a Deputy Director General responsible for lands and mapping at the authority told The New Times during an interview last week.

He said that most land owners claim that only government can guarantee safe custody of the valuable documents.

The official also said that although his office has demarcated 10.4 million plots, countrywide, it has full information for 8.7 million only.

He added that the majority of Rwandans in rural areas fear the documents can either be destroyed by rodents or mortgaged to banks by dishonest relatives.

According to Sagashya, often a number of title deeds have been dispatched to sectors only to lie idle and later returned. Sector offices are easily accessible to all citizens countrywide.

“Collection of land title deeds is ongoing…,” he noted.

Sagashya says other individuals claim they lack the Rwf1,000 title deed processing fee.

However, government through the Ubudehe scheme, has waived this fee among citizens under category I and 2 who are regarded as the most vulnerable and also qualify for free health insurance cover.

According statistics at the ministry of Local Government and Social Affairs, which oversees the Ubudehe programme, Rwandans under this category are slightly above two million, representing 22.28 per cent of the total population.

“They are mainly the vulnerable people who constitute 25 per cent of total households in Rwanda,” an official at the ministry told The New Times.

Another group said to be reluctant to collect the title deeds are urban dwellers with pieces of land in rural areas.

The official said his department intends to increase awareness among Rwandans on the importance of being the primary custodians of their land title deeds.

He added that his office is working alongside the Rwandan Development Board (RDB) and the City of Kigali to create an interfaced land administration system to work as a data bank for all land transactions in the country.

Narcisse Kalisa, the national programme manager at Search for Common Ground, told The New Times in a separate interview that his organisation was sponsoring a number of drama programmes on community radios to increase awareness on land rights.

“We are saying that ‘look, these are your codified land tenure rights’,” Kalisa explained.

According to Sagashya, the land registry is working hard to ensure another 1.2 million title deeds are issued by end of December 2012.

“Apart from hospitals, I think this is the only public office in this country where staff work in shifts,” he emphasised.

He revealed that family conflicts over land ownership had grossed over 10,000.

Other experts argue that some people are reluctant to collect the deeds as they are unfamiliar with the new concept of individualised land tenure system.

Until 2004, all land belonged to government, but citizens would exercise the right of use.

To operationalise the land policy reforms, government began to map land in countrywide in 2009. The exercise ended in June 2012 with 10.4 million plots of land demarcated.

The project cost $56 million with most of funds coming from the UK government through its international development agency, Department for International Development (DfID).

The exercise aimed at stimulating growth through improved land tenure rights.

Worldwide, there is a growing consensus among the development experts on the link between ensuring access to land and security of land tenure and improved socio-economic development.

Source: Newtimes