Lack of an effective land reform breeds conflict and also complicates the government's plans.
Land reform is probably one of the most difficult policy issues to be dealt with in any country, especially in Africa. Yet, lack of an effective land reform breeds conflict and also complicates the government's plans.
In 2009, the government began its land tenure regularization programme, creating a land registry to help Rwandans claim land title through valid land transactions.
The major impact of the new land administration reforms lay in the more effective processing and transaction handling of land titles.
Previously, it took up to one month to process a land title. With the new administration processes in place, this elapsed time was reduced to three days.
Part of the land reforms also extended to urban land expropriation, which is defined by law, which says “expropriation is an act of taking away individual land by the state due to public interest in circumstances and procedures provided by law and subject to fair and prior compensation.”
But to curb the proliferation of unplanned housing and improve population living standards in irregular neighborhoods, the government has been keen to enforce the Kigali City master plan. This is leading to widespread urban expropriation.
However, delays in compensation remain a key challenge. There is a growing sense of impatience among the large numbers of landless Rwandans waiting to be expropriated.
Unfortunately, the slow pace of compensation hurts the most vulnerable whose only asset and source of livelihood is land. As such, expropriation is increasingly becoming an emotive issue.
It is extremely important that the government agencies in charge of expropriation be adequately resourced, not only in terms of paying a fair market price for the land acquired, but also in terms of the funding necessary to ensure that the evicted populations get compensated in a timely manner.
Perhaps more important, is the need to compensate for losses incurred when expropriation projects are abandoned.
Compensation should be provided for losses incurred when families are notified of the intent to expropriate and prevented from carrying out activities on their land while awaiting expropriation, but then the expropriation projects are ultimately abandoned.
The government should also compensate for partial takings that arise when some of a landowner’s rights to their property are extinguished while other rights are left intact.
The result can often deprive the owner from deriving the benefits from the land that he or she was once able to, such as cultivating crops or residing on the land.
Given that such partial takings can impose considerable costs on the landowner, even while she or he may not be deprived of official ownership of the land, such takings should also be eligible for compensation to reflect the negative impacts imposed on the owner even if the planned project has not taken off due to change of government policies.
Surrendering land to pave the way for government project should not be take for granted even if not used.