Land Management and Industrialization in Tanzania: Making Rural Regions Inclusive

While several studies identified driving engines for industrialization as being well-functioning urban centers, infrastructural services, finance both long-term and working capital, improved labour skills and industrial clusters, very little has been explored on the crucial links that exist between industrialization and land management not only in Tanzania but generally throughout the Africa continent.Both the Sustainable Industries Development Policy 1996-2020 and the Integrated Industrial Development Strategy of 2025 in 2011 in the National Development Vision 2025 have not addressed land management issues that are characteristically constraining industrial development in Tanzania. Rural industrialization strategy has been limited to processing agricultural produces and least on access to land for industrial manufacturing purposes.The study aimed at evaluating existing policies and laws that sustain industrialization, the way land and related resources can be accessed without hindering rights of other users, means of safeguarding land rights and adjudication when conflicts happen. The study has established the main problem for industrial development is the land compensation quagmire which is exuberated by existing multiple legal instruments on land acquisition and compensation. To resolve the emerging widespread of informality and ineffective land use planning, the study suggests not just political commitment but leveraging resources towards pro-active land use planning intervention and securing land for industrialization. It is axiomatic that African nations ought to take cognizance of the fact land acquisition, resettlement and compensation are real facts that must be addressed. It is high time that countries formulated standards on compensation matters that address resettlement issues which harmonize local contexts with those of the International Involuntary Resettlement Operational Directives and Guidelines.