Renegotiating customary tenure reform – Land governance reform and tenure security in Uganda

Abstract

In academic and policy debates on how to effectively secure land tenure, an uncompromising belief in the need to formalize and title landownership has increasingly given way to an acknowledgement of the contributions non-state, ‘customary’ or otherwise local institutions may make in securing tenure. However, the question remains as to how different tenure systems may most effectively complement each other. This paper argues that the debate needs to give more attention to the local dynamics and politics of tenure reform, and how reforms are locally renegotiated as part of local institutional competition. It reflects on the case of Uganda, where legislation and policies over the last 15 years have promoted formalizing land titles and modernizing land law in combination with recognizing customary ownership and land governance. Fieldwork in Mbarara District in South-western Uganda shows that, although reforms delay, they increase institutional multiplicity and fuel contestation among local authorities and about the norms applied. Rather than strengthening local mechanisms to make small customary landowners more tenure secure, renegotiating of the reforms results in delegitimizing customary authorities and the reforms do not succeed in ‘modernizing’ the customary rules and conventions applied. Moreover, reforms fail to generate confidence in both statutory and customary land governing authorities as protectors of smallholders’ claims to land.