CHALLENGE OF SHRINKING PUBLIC LAND IN EAST AFRICA
PETER MUHIUMWANGI
East Africa is experiencing phenomenal growth in the fields of transportation, energy, resources, education, health, safety and housing. International investors and lending institutions, working in concert with national and county governments are at the center of these projects. These projects by their very nature demand significant portions of public land. The demand for public land is compounded by the following: · Political reforms have resulted in devolved systems of government; decentralizing services from the national government to the county governments. The national and county governments are under pressure to perform and to offer services to a rapidly growing population. This has increased the demands for public land to facilitate implementation of projects by both the national and the county governments. · An enabled middle class means that the national and county projects are competing for land with private citizens. · Moreover, infrastructural and other developments attract rural urban migration- an ever increasing constituency of mainly semi-skilled labourers who live in informal unregulated settlements built on public land. Indeed, informal developments dot urban areas of each county. There is therefore a disproportionate demand for public land particularly in the urban areas. A characteristic of many urban areas in East Africa is that planning laws and regulations are either non-existent or outdated and in need of urgent reform. As the adage goes, if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. In the context of shrinking public land and rather expensive private land, the following scenarios are developing: · Agricultural land is at risk because it is often the first casualty of land grab; · Urban sprawl and mushrooming informal settlements are spreading at alarming rates; · Exorbitant land compensation claims; · Conflicting laws and regulations relating to land use and planning as well as compensation following compulsory acquisition; and · Challenges of urban planning. The situation poses serious bottlenecks to infrastructural and other developments as they add major financial and social costs due to the phenomenal costs of compulsory acquisition and relocation. A critical concern of urban sprawl and informal developments is the negative impact on environment and sustainable development. Diminishing agricultural land means food insecurity. There is urgent need to explore innovative planning and development solutions to address the problem of shrinking public land in East Africa.
Event: Land Governance in an Interconnected World_Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty_2018
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