DISTRICT MULTI-STAKEHOLDER FORUMS: AN UNEXHAUSTED OPPORTUNITY FOR SECURING LAND RIGHTS; THE TANZANIAN EXPERIENCE

By Masalu Luhula

Administration of land in Tanzania is more decentralized from the president to the village level. The law gives power to village councils and village assemblies to administer village land. The District authorities are given advisory and supervisory mandates over villages and represent the commissioner who takes overall administrative powers.  Despite decentralization, institutions responsible for land administration, land have continued to be cause of many conflicts for years.  Conflicts have been escalating and lead loss of lives and property. Lack of coordination among land administrative institutions has been the main route cause of land conflicts and ineffective systems of handling land conflicts administratively.

Civil society organisations, government institutions and development partners have been working to address and enhance coordination and communication among responsible institutions responsible for tenure security. TNRF is one of the three implementing partners of the “Ardhi Yetu Project” that focuses on, among other things, strengthening platforms at the local level. The platforms aim at multi-stakeholder policy dialogue on sustainable land-based businesses and investment solutions in ways that build upon active citizen participation. Therefore this paper presents multi-stakeholders forums as best model to address institutional coordination for land tenure security.DOWNLOAD BELOW