Securing customary land rights for development in Namibia: Learning from new approaches, opportunities and social settings
Prisca Mandimika, Jericho Mulofwa
Communal land in Namibia extend over 33.4 million hectares supporting 70% of the population but due to historical legacy and unresolved land issues continue to face lack of investment in farming infrastructure. Tenure insecurity persists in communal areas as very few communities have title to land outside informal traditional tenure arrangements. Although Namibia has made strides towards socio-economic and political development a majority of the population still depend on the land for livelihoods making it increasingly urgent to provide for mechanisms that safeguards land rights within the community social settings. The paper is informed by the Project for Communal Land Development in efforts to secure customary group rights in Kavango East and Kavango West. Strategies and lessons learnt from other Regions and projects are explored. Formalising group rights over commonages is expected to spread infrastructure investment across a larger group of people and facilitate economic diversification for improved livelihoods.
Event: Land Governance in an Interconnected World_Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty_2018
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