Gov’t to digitize customary land rights under new policy framework

Kampala, Uganda: The Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development has confirmed that Uganda’s upcoming land policy reforms will place customary landowners at the center of the new legal framework, amid growing concerns about tenure insecurity and land grabbing.

This landmark announcement was made by Mr. Smith Twinamatsiko, the Commissioner for Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry, during a high-level stakeholder orientation meeting on Land Governance and the Fourth National Development Plan (NDP IV) at Esella Hotel in Kampala.

The forum, convened by the Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF Uganda) in collaboration with partners, was attended by government officials, civil society actors, grassroots leaders, and land governance experts to critically analyze challenges and opportunities in Uganda’s land sector.

It should be noted that Uganda’s land policy has long been criticized for systemic inequities that marginalize customary landowners. Despite constitutional and legislative recognition of customary tenure under the 1995 Constitution and the Land Act, millions living under customary systems, most especially women, lack formal documentation to secure their land rights.

This absence of formal titles exposes these customary owners to frequent land grabbing, forced evictions, and exploitation, especially from more powerful actors such as investors, and sometimes even local elites. Converting customary land into formal freehold or leasehold titles remains a costly, complicated, and often inaccessible process, further disadvantaging rural communities. 

Compounding these challenges are the inadequacies in local land governance institutions like District Land Boards (DLBs) and Area Land Committees (ALCs), which often suffer from capacity deficits, politicization, and lack of neutrality.

Addressing these issues, Commissioner Twinamatsiko emphasized the urgent need to recognize and integrate customary land tenure systems into the formal land governance frameworks.

“We cannot talk about land reform in Uganda without putting customary landowners at the center. Any reform ignoring this reality risks deepening exclusion and conflict,” he stressed.

Digitizing Customary Rights

He explained that the Ministry is working to incorporate Customary Titles into the National Land Information System (NLIS). This integration aims to provide legal recognition, transparency, and tenure security for customary landholders.

According to Commissioner Twinamasiko, this process will be driven by the principles of equity, cost-effectiveness, and community ownership, with Area Land Committees and local communities viewed not just as implementers but as true partners in the reform process.

He highlighted the growing dissatisfaction among the populace with land management, especially with the unclear roles and sometimes conflicting actions between the ULC and DLBs, which have overlapping mandates, resulting in role conflict and confusion, and offered a glimmer of hope that the ministry is actively reviewing these overlapping mandates to improve coordination and reduce administrative conflicts.

The Commissioner also outlined a series of other concrete reforms the Ministry is undertaking. Notably, modern surveying equipment is being procured to accelerate land demarcation and titling efforts, particularly targeting underserved rural areas. The Ministry is also decentralizing technical capacity to district governments to make land services more accessible, timely, and responsive to the needs of local communities. 

However, the challenges on the ground remain formidable. Ms. Betty Acanit, Senior Land Management Officer from Amuria District Local Government, made a chilling revelation when she said that the biggest barrier to fair land access in Uganda might just be the very institutions meant to protect it, referring to the Area Land Committees and District Land Boards.

Ms. Acanit painted a bleak picture of these bodies, which are supposed to register land, resolve disputes, and safeguard land rights under both customary and statutory law, but instead of being strong and dependable, many of these structures are in crisis.

She detailed a range of challenges afflicting ALCs: poor selection processes often influenced by political patronage, inadequate training and funding, and a glaring lack of female representation despite the legal requirement for at least one-third participation.

“This means that many people making decisions about land in our communities don’t have the skills, knowledge, or fairness required to do their jobs properly,” she explained. “Some are chosen based on who they know rather than what they know. Many have never received proper training or orientation.”

Acanit explained that a majority of these “work without any facilitation, not even transport to visit the land they are supposed to inspect. And very few are women, even though women are the most affected when land rights are ignored.”

She recounted a specific case from Amuria, where a plot of land earmarked for a desperately needed police station had been effectively hijacked by the Uganda Land Commission. “The community was on board. The District Land Board was involved. Everyone thought it was a done deal, but then the ULC quietly issued a land title without informing the DLB or the community, and just like that, the district’s efforts were swept aside.” 

The consequences of this institutional confusion are especially grave given Uganda’s ambitious target to issue one million freehold land titles by 2030. While this target aims to enhance tenure security, stakeholders warned that issuing titles without properly accounting for customary tenure and community realities risks fragmenting farmland, breaking social cohesion, and displacing vulnerable groups, particularly women and youth.

Rural Women Demand a Voice in Land Governance

Speaking during the same meeting was Ms. Margaret Masudio, a board member of ESAFF Uganda from Adjumani district also painted a bleak picture on how most rural women in Uganda are impoverished as a result of the unfair land policies, chiefly on customary ownership.

“Rural women are not looking for handouts; they want a seat at the table. They want to shape the policies that shape their lives,” she asserted, highlighting the stark contradiction in Uganda’s development framework, where women constitute over 70% of the agricultural workforce, but hold less than 10% of land titles.

Furthermore, many rural women, she said, are unaware of key policy frameworks such as NDP IV, which outlines Uganda’s ambitious development goals from 2020 to 2025.

Yet, Masudio also pointed to promising progress. In districts like Zombo, Arua, and Nebbi, over twenty women recently secured Certificates of Customary Ownership through collaborative efforts by the Land Rights Support Centre, a unit under ESAFF Uganda, and partners such as Oxfam through the “Power of Voices” project, which has created safe spaces for women to influence local government planning processes.

Mr. Moses Onen, Coordinator of the Land Actors Platform under PELUM Uganda, underscored the critical role of civil society organizations in bridging the gap between policy and communities. “The NDP IV is full of lofty goals, but without civil society translating policy into people’s language and educating communities, those goals will remain distant promises,” he warned.

Onen pointed to examples from Kasese and Nakapiripirit districts, where communities educated by civil society are actively resisting illegal land grabs. “There is no inclusive development without civil society, if we want to transform Uganda through NDP IV, we must resource and embrace these partnerships,” he argued.

The overarching message from these voices is clear: for land reform to be just and effective, it must be community-centered, transparent, and inclusive of women and marginalized groups. Fixing the broken coordination between the ULC and DLBs, investing in local land committees, and embedding customary tenure within national systems are critical steps forward.