By Busani Bafana
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia | 2 December 2025 (IDN)– Dr. Joan Kagwanja is the coordinator for the African Land Policy Centre in driving transformative land reforms across the continent. With decades of expertise, she champions policies that secure land rights for women, youth, and rural communities, while promoting pathways to restore land justice and position Africa for sustainable development. Dr. Kagwanja spoke to Indepth News on the sidelines of the Conference on Land Policy in Africa held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Excerpts:
The African Union launched the Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa in 2009, how do you see these guidelines empowering African countries to tackle corruption in the land sector and the loss of land rights, especially for women and the youth?
The African Union did not just launch the guidelines in 2009 but also endorsed a declaration on land issues and challenges. The African Union Heads of States and government committed themselves to using the framework and guidelines for policy development and implementation and committed to certain interventions. One of them was to reform the land sector through their ministries so that land issues that continue to challenge Africa’s development are addressed. They also then committed themselves to addressing issues of equity, i.e., equal land access for women and indeed by all land users. Since 2009, we have been supporting member states in the implementation of this declaration by developing programmes, tools, and guidelines. We developed guidelines on how to engage in investments, including large scale investments in agriculture, without disenfranchising African communities and ensuring smallholder farmers, pastoralists, and women are at the center of those investments. We have also developed guidelines for curriculum development on land governance in Africa which helps universities develop degree and certificate courses to enhance skills to address Africa’s land issues in an appropriate way. We also developed guidelines on preventing and addressing conflict because we know most conflicts in Africa are land related. Most recently, we developed guidelines that strengthen women’s land rights. So all these tools and commitments form the foundation for interventions by stakeholders and the basis to hold governments to account, including on tackling the issue of corruption in the land sector. In 2019, we had a conference that focused on the issue of corruption in the land sector, and a lot of knowledge came out of that, and a lot of programmes have been built after that, but we still continue to see the land sector as quite corrupt.
What policy and legal reforms are needed to promote women’s right to inherit and access land, given that women are in many cases excluded from land ownership in Africa?
We have seen positive improvements through constitutional and legal reforms as well as inclusive policies. So in most cases, we cannot say it is a legal framework that is a problem to women’s access to land. We have worked with governments to look at their acts in Parliament to see how we might mainstream gender. Constitutions have been very fundamental in ensuring that there are no clawbacks, where we say we respect customs, but if the customs are adversely impacting on women, then that should not be allowed. In many countries, there are provisions in the law, and what remains is practice. With women’s land rights, it’s not just an issue of the law, it’s an issue of practice by empowering and having those discussions with, especially, traditional authorities, who allocate and manage most of the land in Africa. Through the Forum for African Traditional Authorities that was established in 2016, the issue of women’s land rights is being addressed by traditional leaders where they try to allocate land to women and the youth.
What programmes and models have worked in facilitating land rights in Africa at a time the continent is promoting investment on the back of the African Continental Free Trade Area?
The basis for trade is usually in the products that we produce, and in many, many African countries, those are agricultural products. So ensuring that trade in itself and an increasing trade does not have unintended consequences on the land is key. Land values go up when there is a demand for land, when the value of land goes up, those without documented rights are the ones who suffer. We always, if you look at the guidelines on scale-and-land based investments, we talk about documenting land rights. If possible, ahead of inviting investors to the land, that way you are sure who claims the land and how you might be able to include them in inclusive models of investments. If for instance, they are using the land for production themselves, look for land uses by investors which include them in outgrower type schemes or such where they can also productively use the land as opposed to them becoming squatters on the land or, in many cases, labourers on the land. The kinds of models that we have seen that are most inclusive are those that rely on solid data that are able to document the suitability of the land on the one hand vis-a-vis the country’s vision and strategy for development, and so you’re choosing, for instance, crop and livestock investments based on what your strategy says you should. But the next one is to look at those that are already using the land and what they are using it for, and then include them in deciding the ‘what’ and ‘how’ relating to the investment.
We recommend that as much as possible, you do not sell the land to investors because issues of compensation are complex, and land values are not only a monetary issue but an issue of spirituality and culture. So many things sometimes go wrong when people lose their land. So this particular framework provided by the guidelines on large scale land based investments provides an avenue for responsible investments. We are encouraging sharing of best practices on what is working out there because the first wave post 2008 of large scale investments did lead to the type of increase in production expected at all. This is because you had communities that were disenfranchised, leading to conflict, and we encourage adopting models that are evidence based, including answering the question of who claims that land, in order to engage them in investment related negotiations.
The 2025 Conference on Land Policy in Africa discussed colonial reparations for land dispossession, how do you see reparations correcting the past wrong where women have been denied land access and land rights?
It starts by understanding the impacts of colonialism on Africans’ lives. Land dispossession is not just an economic issue but a social and cultural one. The basis of the struggle for independence in many countries was land and reclaiming that land from their settlers. Since then we have not put programmes in place to ensure that those who lost their land regained it with an understanding that land is not just a factor of production but a basis for our cultural heritage, for religion and spirituality. We need to re-examine the question, ‘What was lost and what needs to be regained, and how can we do it ?’. This is what forms the basis of historical injustices. Colonialism affected what we grow, which is not usually our food or the basis of biodiversity. What we grow can form a basis for trade. We need to look at our AfCFTA agenda and ask what the basis of our trade is. Instead of continuing to focus only on cash crops, many of which were brought to Africa during colonialism, can we refocus on producing and trading food related produce which has a ready demand on the continent to solve Africa’s food insecurity challenge?.
What is the African Land Policy Centre doing to build the capacity of the next land experts in shifting the narrative about the colonial land dispossession in Africa?
The African Land Policy Center was established because we noticed that we have very few professionals in the land sector in Africa. Each country has very few, we have very few surveyors, for instance. You can have a whole country with only 15 licensed surveyors and other professionals. So we did a capacity gap assessment, looking at the land sector to identify gaps in professionals and capacity in general on land governance. We also looked at the curricula offered by the universities through a comprehensive assessment, and we noticed that our curricula are mostly borrowed from our colonial masters. This needed to change as legitimate traditional land governance systems are not being included in the curricula. We have so far supported the application of these guidelines to develop over 30 curricula and supported land professionals across African universities by establishing a network of excellence on land governance in Africa (NELGA).
NELGA helps to enhance university education and training of policymakers. We also established a journal on land policy and geospatial sciences which is housed by a university in Morocco, but it’s a continental journal where African peer reviewed papers are being published. Most of the papers published have been presented at the Conference on Land Policy in Africa by African researchers.