Customary Land Reform Essay

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Customary land is land that is owned by native communities and its administration is in accordance with their customs, as opposed to statutory tenure which was introduced during the colonial periods (AusAID, 2008) for example, common ownership. In the Malawi Land Act of 1965, Customary Land is defined as land that is held, occupied or used under customary law however; it does not include any public land (ibid). Different customary systems of tenure have evolved in different parts of Africa and the world at large and may differ from one country to another. Customary land maybe subject to land reforms; land reform has many definitions by scholars and government papers.
Land reform generally involves changing the rules, laws, customs and regulations …show more content…

Customary land reform can then be defined as the process of changing the rules, laws, customs and regulations governing customary land ownership, administration and distributions. Customary land reform provides security of tenure to the indigenous people by providing title for holding and using land.
It is difficult to differentiate land reform from agrarian reform, as Erich and Charlotte Jacoby noted four decades ago, the distinction cannot be translated or changed in many languages of the world. In French land reform is réforme agraire, and reforma agraria in Spanish (White et. al. 2012). The idea of agrarian reform serves the purpose of emphasizing the failure of redistributive land reform by itself in bringing about lasting, structural change in the rural economy and society. As a result, land reform and agrarian reform have become synonyms of each other in the past years. This paper looks at Mozambique as a case study and agrarian land reform as the type of reform that has been adopted in the country. It seeks to bring out the benefits that arose as a result of the adoption of this type of …show more content…

Locals were not allowed to own land and hence had no say in any land issues and therefore, could not refuse to vacate land as soon as they are asked to. Local people had no security of tenure then but after independence and the introduction of agrarian land reforms, speculative land grabs were abolished as they provided communities and local people with a secure title to land. There was an introduction of a DUAT which gave them the rights to use and benefit of land (Van Den Brink, 2008). This however, did not provide full ownership of land but was good in that it was similar to a lease, was more secure, renewable and it was long term (could be held for a period of 50

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