Discretionary Space as a Concept to Review Innovation in Land Administration in Africa

Abstract

Innovations in land administration are currently primarily looked at from either a legal, a technical or agricultural point of view. This article reviews the role of 'discretionary space' in land administration innovations. This is a concept from public administration sciences, referring to the degree of freedom that both strategic managers and operational professionals in land administration often maintain to make decisions based on their personal judgment. The article reviews this discretionary space for 3 cases in Africa: the legal land reform in Uganda, the flexible land tenure in Namibia and the organic land law in Rwanda. The cases represent 3 different historical paths of land innovation in which the discretionary space within the respective public sector organisations developed. Vignettes, being a combination of factual and anecdotal descriptions, of these cases provide the analytical basis for a comparison. From the comparison we conclude that zooming in on the issue of discretionary space of land administration organisations provides added value to the discourse of land administration innovation in Africa.