The Impact Of Customary Land Secretariats On Land Rights Documentation and Tenure Security In Ghana
Biitir Samuel Banleman et al.
In Ghana, land is vested in chiefs, clans or families who own and control 80% of the total land mass. These corporate bodies have controlled access to land and managed land under customary practices and enacted legislations. However, over the years, the customary land administrators have proved incapable of managing customary lands effectively due to poor records keeping as mandated under indigenous laws and customary practices. This and other problems in customary land administration led to the Land Administration Project (LAP) to introduce a policy on strengthening and establishing Customary Lands Secretariats (CLSs) for recognized and organized land owning communities. This, it is argued will ensure effective documentation of customary land transactions and security of tenure. This paper reports on a study conducted to assess the performance of the CLSs with regards land documentation, disputes resolution and public sensitisation. The analyses show that, the CLSs have performed creditably well in land documentation, disputes resolution and sensitisation in terms of the numbers and consistency in records keeping. The effectiveness of these however depends on continuous improvement of records keeping, collaboration with public land sector agencies especially in areas of sharing information on rights, uses, disputes and preparation of planning layouts.
Event: Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty 2015
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