Zambia’s National Lands Policy: What We Need To Know

INTRODUCTION

Zambia has never had a policy to guide the land sector. Therefore, Zambia’s launching of a National Lands Policy (the Policy) on 11 May 2021 represents an important milestone after almost two decades of periodic drafting, consultation and validation attempts.

The policy sets out a vision of a “transparent land administration and management system for inclusive sustainable development by the year 2035,” providing eight policy objectives and a series of non-controversial measures.

In her remarks at the virtual launch of the said policy then Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Hon. Jean Kapata, noted that “some of the challenges facing the sector include land encroachment, land displacements, oftentimes with little or no compensation, inadequate availability of serviced land in view of population growth and land disputes.”

She highlighted new solutions within the policy including: mass land titling; requirements to allocate land to women, youth and disabled individuals; reduction in the age for ownership of land; regulation of non-Zambian ownership of land; and strengthened monitoring to ensure adherence to the law.

DEVELOPMENT AND RECEPTION BY STAKEHOLDERS

The policy had long been in development, starting in 2014. The process resulted in a 2017 draft that was rejected by Chiefs after a national validation. Stakeholders last saw a detailed draft in May of 2020 and a final Policy emerged from the Ministry and Cabinet a year later in May 2021. The Policy was condensed from previous versions to conform with government policy development guidance. As a result, the Policy is less detailed and has fewer specific actions than had previously been expected, leaving these to be elaborated on in a forthcoming implementation plan subject to the new government being agreeable for it to proceed as is.

Zambia’s customary chiefs have not publicly responded to the final Policy, in contrast to previous attempts to finalise the Policy. Given the high level of consultation, chiefs were reportedly content with the validated draft from 2020and wait to see how the contents of the final Policy will be implemented. Likewise, Zambia’s donor community eagerly awaited the finalisation of the Policy, particularly to understand how issues of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in land, as well as urban and rural planning and tenure security issues would be dealt with. As with other stakeholder groups, the donor sector is anxious to understand how the policy vision will be carried out.

The Policy’s vision is a transparent land administration and management system for inclusive sustainable development by the year 2035.

OBJECTIVES

The Policy is guided by principles such as; Governance, Transparency, Equity and Accountability. It has 8 notable objectives. We highlight some measures taken to realise each one of the objectives below:

Objective 1: To strengthen the land allocation mechanisms in order to improve security of tenure. This can be done by facilitating development and application of e-governance in land administration and management, enhance the land allocation for both State and Customary Land among others.

Objective 2: To enhance the land registration system in order to increase volume of registered properties, accuracy, capacity, affordability as well as convenience of land registration. This can be done by digitising all land records, decentralizing land registration to Provincial and District centres.

Objective 3: To strengthen the land dispute management mechanisms in order to reduce caseloads and attendant costs for clients. This can be achieved by decentralising the operations of the Lands Tribunal to Provincial centres with a view to establishing a Land Court and adopt mechanisms to reduce occurrence of land disputes.

Objective 4: To facilitate land ownership by Zambian citizens in order to promote decent livelihoods and socio-economic development by promoting and facilitating acquisition of land by Zambian citizens without discrimination and ensuring the timely issuance of Certificates of Title.

Objective 5: To regulate land ownership by non-Zambians in order to facilitate reasonable access to land, by regulating access to land of non-Zambians, limit the extent and tenure of land lease for non-Zambians.

Objective 6: To enhance the functioning of the land market in order to make the sector more useful to the economy by collaborating with relevant authorities to avail latest information on the operations of the land market, introduce different rates on productive and idle land as well as maintain an updated Valuation and Estate Agents Registers (VEAR).

Objective 7: Mainstreaming of climate change, natural resources and environmental protection in land administration and management for sustainable development. This can be achieved by ensuring policies and programmes that relate to land management, conform to prescribed principles and guidelines on environmental protection and conservation.

Objective 8: To achieve a gender sensitive and youth friendly land sector which is inclusive of persons living with disabilities and other socially marginalized groups by discouraging discriminatory customary practices against women, you and persons with disabilities in the land sector, ensuring 50% of available land for alienation is allocated to women and 20% to the youth, lowering the contractual age for land acquisition from 21 to 18 years and encourage chiefs to allocate land to marginalised  groups in their own right.

CONCLUSION

Zambia in the recent years has faced an extremely high population growth rate, high urbanisation rate which put a lot of pressure on land resources and saw a high rise in land disputes. Other challenges faced as a country are that the laws surrounding land administration are so outdated and land administration was largely centralised resulting in services not being easily accessible by the people. Based on the aforementioned one begins to see what necessitated the launch of National Land Policy in Zambia. The Policy document seeks to streamline land administration and management services in the development of the country. The foregoing is in a bid to improve land administration and promote land development.