National Lands Policy Analysis

On the 11th?of May, 2021, Government launched the National Lands Policy in a bid to?streamline land administration and management services?in the development of the country.?The National Lands Policy has been put forward to improve land administration and management in order to place the country’s land development on a sustainable path.?Since independence, land administration in Zambia lacked an adequate Policy framework as the country only had fragmented Policy pronouncements by Government. Due to the complexities surrounding land management and administration, a comprehensive Land Policy framework was only arrived at in 2000 when Government embarked on an initiative to consult various stakeholders in order to come up with a Land Policy for the country. This analysis will focus on some of the challenges faced in the management and administration of land and how the Policy seeks to remedy them.?

Land is an important natural resource both politically and economically.?Likewise, it is one of the most?critical components in the means of production; land, capital and labour.?Geographically, land represents spatial space occupied by an entity which translates to socio-political boundaries. Zambia has a surface area of approximately 752,614 square kilometres and a population of about 18 million.?As at independence in 1964,?Zambia was considered to be one of the least densely populated countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region with about 94% of its land under the customary land system and administration, while 8% of both state and customary land is reserved for national parks and about 9% for forests.?However, it was observed that customary land had drastically decreased as parts of it had been converted to state land. Hence, conducting a comprehensive land audit will be necessary to gather sufficient information on the quantities of land currently held under both systems.?

One critical challenge that has continued to affect land management is the?limited capacity to provide integrated land use and planning services in customary areas.?This has resulted in land related conflicts and disputes. Therefore,?chiefdom boundary maps need to be enhanced in order to prevent encroachments on National Protected areas like National Forests, National Parks and other Government and privately owned properties by surrounding villages.?

In view of these challenges, Government developed the?National Land Audit Programme (NLAP) currently being implemented by the National Land Audit Commission which began in 2014 as a strategy to improve land governance.?The Government aims to take stock of all land in the country by 2026 which will run concurrently with the Land Titling Programme.?The aim of the programme was to gather key data on land ownership as well as land use patterns in Zambia which would aid planning, decision making and Policy formulation.?In addition, the enactment of the Urban and Regional Planning Act No. 3 of 2015 was another strategy which sought to address the lack of land use planning on customary land. It is for these various reasons that the?National Lands Policy was developed in order to provide regulation and improve administration while making land more accessible to all citizens, particularly, the youth, women and persons with disabilities.?

National Lands Policy Analysis