MALAWI LAND REFORM STALLED

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 LILONGWE 001018

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR AF/S JEANNE MALONEY
PARIS FOR D'ELIA

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EAGR ECON EINV MI
SUBJECT: MALAWI LAND REFORM STALLED


LILONGWE 00001018 001.2 OF 003


--------------
SUMMARY
--------------


1. Malawi's informal system of land administration
continues to hinder economic development. A land reform
program adopted last year proposes across-the-board
reforms, but resistance from local chiefs is stiff.
There has been some progress putting a land bureaucracy
in place, but the current GOM has shown little enthusiasm
for pushing the reforms. The Mutharika administration's
manifest political weakness makes land reform look very
unlikely in the near future, despite some recognition of
its potential economic benefits. End summary.

--------------
Land Use: Locked in the Basement
--------------


2. As Malawi watches yet another food crisis unfold,
both the government and its development partners are
asking why this keeps happening, and why Malawi's economy
remains stalled. One of the many answers to this
complicated question is the absence of a modern land
policy. Malawi's failure to push through a land reform
program has kept the land and the people who work it
locked in the world's economic basement. A legacy system
of traditional and colonial land use has kept land from
being used productively because it has forestalled
agricultural reform, land consolidation, and economic
specialization. As in other parts of Africa, the
traditional land system has also kept out a formal land
registry, which, by allowing landowners to leverage their
real property, would inject badly needed capital into the
economy.

--------------
Colonial and Traditional Legacies
--------------


3. The land problem in Malawi has two principal
dimensions. The first, higher-profile dimension, is a
legacy of the colonial era. In common with other
southern African countries, Malawi inherited a rural
settlement structure in which foreign farmers held some
of the most fertile and well-watered lands. The
concentration of these large freehold estates in the
Southern Region, and subsequent expansion of estate
agriculture after independence, skewed the distribution
of freeholds, particularly in the heavily populated
south. This disproportionate ownership (16 percent of
Malawi's arable land is under tea, tobacco, and sugar
estates) has been a source of increasing friction between
the estates and the local population because of
population pressure on the non-estate lands. The
scattered instances of land encroachment in Malawi have
occurred mostly in the southern districts.


4. The second dimension is both subtler and more
damaging: the persistent role of traditional chiefs in
administering "customary" land has prevented a formal
system of titles and land tenure. While the public
technically owns all except freehold land, local village
headmen and chiefs control the land in their areas. They
award use of the lands according to custom and whim. The
system is not backed by any formal registry, and tenure
rights are a continuing problem, particularly for widowed
and divorced women and their families. The chiefs'
control over land is their main source of income and
authority, which they are loathe to relinquish; its
informal nature prevents consolidation through sale,
financial leveraging (borrowing against the land for
improvements),and agricultural innovation (owing to the
small size of individual holdings).

--------------
Malawi's Land Reform Program
--------------


5. Malawi has operated without a comprehensive land
policy since independence. A land reform process started
with a presidential Commission in 1996, and the
government drafted and approved a national land policy
(NLP) in January 2002. The NLP's goal is to provide a
framework for land administration that will ensure tenure
security and equitable access to land. Shortly after
approving the NLP, the government undertook a land reform

LILONGWE 00001018 002.2 OF 003


program, based on the NLP. Implementation of the land
reform program has depended on the fleeting availability
of outside funding. The initial efforts over the past
three years have focused on a few thematic areas: public
awareness; land access, tenure security and productivity;
customary land reform; capacity building; and land law
reform.

--------------
Public Awareness
--------------


6. The public awareness strategy seeks to create
grassroots awareness about the National Land Policy and
its implications for people's livelihoods. Completed work
includes stakeholder meetings with civil society,
traditional authorities, and news media. Yet to be done
are production of marketing materials, capacity building
at district and regional levels, and formulation of
participatory drama and radio listening clubs. In the
absence of further DFID financing, no money is available
to complete this work.

--------------
Land Access, Tenure Security and Productivity
--------------


7. The goal under this theme is to decentralize land
administration and facilitate land acquisition among the
landless and land-poor in Mulanje, Thyolo, Mangochi and
Machinga Districts (i.e., in the midst of the large
southern estates). Funded mainly by the World Bank, the
strategy seeks to set up a "willing buyer/willing seller"
market to buy idle estate lands, as well as provide a
local point of presence for land administration
authorities. Ultimately, this project aims to improve
access to land for about 15,000 rural poor in the pilot
districts. At this writing, the first few transactions
have taken place, and resettlement is in process. Other
land buys are awaiting successful resettlement of the
first groups.

--------------
Customary Land Reform
--------------


8. This project is to regularize customary land tenure,
improve access and encourage sustainable use. The African
Development Bank has provided funding for the project's
preparatory activities.


9. Customary land rights are closely connected to ethnic
identity and to traditional authorities. Access to land
is reached through kinship in a genealogical map, with
families and individuals being allocated exclusive fee
simple usufruct in perpetuity subject only to effective
utilization. However, the fundamental ownership, though
technically the public's, in practice remains with
traditional authorities. The NLP proposes to consolidate
customary land rights so that individuals have a private
legal right to the land under their cultivation.

--------------
Capacity Building
--------------


10. The capacity building strategy is one of the most
important components of the reform program. This activity
seeks to strengthen institutional capacity for
implementating the program. This activity will establish
a Technical Land Services Secretariat (TLSS),train
various cadres of land administration staff, establish a
measurement and evaluation system, and establish a
computerised financial management system. Project
implementation has started with training 14 surveyors and
60 certified land administrators.

--------------
Land Law Reform
--------------


11. Land administration and management are governed by
several key statutes developed before and soon after
independence (1964). These laws are now badly out of
date, and the NLP recommended a review of the legal and
institutional structures to suit current constitutional
requirements and democratic principles. The strategy is

LILONGWE 00001018 003.2 OF 003


to review the existing land legislation and formulate a
new legislative framework that aligns with the
Constitution and with international law. A Special Law
Commission on Land Law Reform has prepared a draft land
law report and begun regional consultations. The
commission plans to complete consultations and submit a
final draft to Parliament in February or March 2006.

-------------- ---
Comment: Lack of Enthusiasm and Political Muscle
-------------- ---


12. Neither the past nor the current administration has
been enthusiastic about pushing the land reform agenda,
and the government has inched forward only when an
outside donor has provided funding. Technocrats within
the government, including senior officials in the lands
ministry, are often well versed in the arguments for land
reform, and indeed some of them have quoted Hernando de
Soto to us. Given the limited resources they have to
work with, they have set up an admirable program and made
a good, though small, start. On the political level,
though, land reform is entirely problematic.


13. The NLP proposes to consolidate customary land rights
to give individuals a private legal right to the land
under their cultivation. Local chiefs continue to resist
this move, because land is the foundation of their power,
and they are jealous of prerogatives that will
necessarily dwindle in the face of progress. Because
traditional authorities are the base-level power brokers
in Malawi, politicians are understandably reluctant to
force the issue. A powerful president with strong
parliamentary support would have a hard time selling land
reform in Malawi; the current president, who is
struggling against a hostile parliamentary opposition, is
unlikely to make a serious effort. Up to now, he has
shown no signs of wanting to.

EASTHAM