Communities’ role in securing customary land tenure in Zambia

Authors

  • Tapuwa Wambe Langton Nzara Zambia Land Alliance (ZLA)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48346/IMIST.PRSM/ajlp-gs.v1i2.13369

Keywords:

Customary tenure, Statutory tenure, Tenure security, community participation, customary land, land governance, customary land certificates, Geographical Information System, Village land Committee, Para surveyors

Abstract

Community land and natural resources lie at the heart of social, political and economic life in much of rural Africa. While the Zambian government acknowledges customary tenure, it has not established required legislation needed to secure it and support to communities in their efforts to protect their lands. As a consequence, many communities continue to lose their land/ access to critical natural resources, undermining local livelihoods and triggering conflicts.

This paper presents the results of a research project conducted in 2015, by the Zambia Land Alliance through a survey of ten communities in five districts of Zambia that are practising customary land certification.

The study revealed that weakness within any property rights regime is its inability to adapt to changes in the resource and institutional environment. If community rights can adjust to changes in the environment but are not supported by the state, encroachment by outsiders will undermine their effectiveness. 

Author Biography

Tapuwa Wambe Langton Nzara, Zambia Land Alliance (ZLA)

Agriculture and Natural Resources Management professional experienced in integrating food security and natural resources conservation through sustainable development by combing natural and social sciences in researches, training, advocacy, implementation and international partnerships.

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Published

30-09-2018

How to Cite

Nzara, T. W. L. (2018). Communities’ role in securing customary land tenure in Zambia. African Journal on Land Policy and Geospatial Sciences, 1(2), 22–30. https://doi.org/10.48346/IMIST.PRSM/ajlp-gs.v1i2.13369

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 2: September 2018, Special Issue on Youth and Land Governance

Section

Land Policy and Regulatory Framework

License

The African Journal on Land Policy and Geospatial Sciences (AJLP&GS) is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Authors with free access retain the copyright of their manuscripts. All open access manuscripts are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc. in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that applicable laws and regulations do not protect these names. Even though the advice and information in this journal are true and accurate as of the date of its publication, neither the authors, the editor, nor the publisher can assume any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions.

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