Will citizens benefit from registration of land?

Together with an extensive network of CSO and radio partners, TRAC FM facilitated a national radio debate on a topic that touches us all, land rights. This was the first of a series of topics was extensively discussed within the Common Matters 2 program.

Results from the national SMS poll have revealed what radio listeners think when it comes to registration of customary land: Will it bring Development or Conflict?

There are 4 Types of Land Tenure Systems in Uganda under which citizens and foreigners can buy, own and utilize land. Freehold, leasehold, customary and Mailo.

80% of all land in Uganda is held under customary tenure. Of this 80%, only 2% of customary land is registered. The other 78% falls under local customary laws and is governed by traditional leaders and elders. A lot of this land is communally owned and boundaries are held in place by verbal agreements between neighbours.
Current government policy on land wants customary land to be titled and registered under freehold tenure.

According to the Ugandan government, registering customary land guarantees people's land rights and will improve investment on land. However, some fear that registering customary land could cause more land conflicts as registered land will eventually be sold to the highest bidder and customary laws will cease to be upheld.

In our first poll question of the Common Matters 2 campaign, we asked radio listeners across the country what they thought about registration of customary land. During 10 live talkshows we had district land officials debate with members of the Uganda land actors platform, that represent civil society interests.

Results from the national SMS poll received close to 20,000 responses, have revealed that the majority of the respondents (68%) believe that the Government’s move will be a source of conflict since it favours those who have money, while the rest(32%) say It will bring development since it will encourage the use of land for investment.

Below is a detailed infographic report of the results with how each region of the country participated in answering this question. Download PDF version.

You can listen to some selected recorded talkshow recordings from our partner radio stations where this poll question was discussed and radio listeners called in to give their views.