LESSONS LEARNT FROM 1995 NATIONAL LAND POLICY REVIEW AND CSOS ENGAGMENT
Mary Ndaro
CARE International in Tanzania
The Ministry of Land, Housing, and Human Settlement Development is currently reviewing the National Land Policy of 1995 to ensure equitable land rights to enable citizens to enjoy economic development and poverty reduction by promoting sustainable investment, address land disputes, and effect land redistribution. The draft of the policy has been developed and is accompanied by implementation strategy to ensure effective implementation of the policy including the allocation of adequate budget to address challenges facing the land sector. This is an important shift that needs to be supported as long as it puts the majority of the Tanzanian population of 70% depending on land at its heart. However, the implementation strategy has not been shared to stakeholders for review and comments before it’s approved. The inclusion of CSOs has been of great concern throughout the whole process, and important information being kept confidential from most CSOs. For example, up to this time when this paper is written there has not been any official document shared apart from the first and only one which was shared for the stakeholders meeting in 2016. This paper revisits the National Land Policy of 1995 review process and the CSOs engagement in the process. Despite of the challenges, and considering the importance of land CARE and other CSOs have worked tirelessly to bring in more stakeholders to represent different voices and ensure the policy puts the more than 70% population needs at the centre. CSOs developed analytical tools outlining issues that can be compromised and uncompromised issues especially those on women’s land rights, village land management and administration, and large scale investment on village land.
Event: Land Governance in an Interconnected World_Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty_2018
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