Evaluation of Institutional Models for Changing Communal Land in Namibia

At independence (1990) Namibia like other African countries inherited a dual land tenure system and a related management system consisting of customary land tenure administered by traditional leaders and statutory land tenure administered by central government. Before the passing of Communal Land Reform Act 5 of 2002 (CLRA), Chiefs/Traditional Authorities (TA) allocated rights in accordance to customary land tenure. These allocation procedures were not documented and were considered to be unfair by some residents of communal areas, i.e. some people were allocated larger portions of land while others received smaller parcels, some people were allowed to fence, and others were not. Double allocation of land rights has been identified as a results of poor land administration. In this research a framework for evaluating communal land administration (after introduction of CLRA) in Namibia focusing on the process of land allocation, registration and recognition of existing and new land rights as described in the act vs. as practiced on the ground has been developed. The framework is based on three aspects i.e. management, operational and de jure vs. de facto aspect. It has been used to evaluate de jure as well as de facto land management in the three northern Namibian (Oshikoto, Omusati and Oshana) regions. Land allocation practice has been compared to the problems prior to the CLRA introduction. The research results show that there is a difference between the processes as defined by the act and as practised on the ground in all three regions. Human and technical resources, complexity of the processes are some of the core challenges highlighted by this study. Proposed models identify use of a headman as one of the key actors, this could reduce the complexity of the processes and it could enhance participation of land users within the communal land administration. Due to time limitation this work has focused only to three organizations such as MLR, CLB and TA in the three regions.