Overview of Main Challenges with Regards to Land Tenure in Africa: Factual and Legal Aspects

Abstract

The chapter discusses the fate of customary land tenure systems in Africa in the face of renewed demands for legal land registration systems. The discussion is premised on an assumption that African customary land systems have both inherent weaknesses and strengths, which can be analysed to come up with more appealing land tenure systems that recognise and protect communal land rights of the Africans, especially the women and minorities. The chapter uses examples form a number of African countries to demonstrate the successes and failures of reforms that have been introduced to modernize African customary land tenure systems. African customary land tenure systems are part and parcel of African customary law, and any government interventions must not ignore such a linkage. A key finding made is that African customary land tenure systems, which are essentially communal in nature, have historically been relied on to conserve the environment. That where attempts to reform such a traditional system have been adopted by African governments paying due regard to its operational mechanisms, the introduced reforms have failed to yielded positive results. The chapter concludes that dysfunctional land legislation that vest ownership in the state but which do not recognize communal tenure administered by customary authorities negate African governments intentions to make interventions in favour of their citizens. The chapter recommends that practical solutions to increase security of communal tenure should be adopted in order to provide a basis for more sustainable management of the commons if the implementation issues can be overcome.