Indigenous people and local communities across Kenya on Tuesday launched a campaign to push the government to actualise its decade-long commitment to register and provide title deeds for their land.
The commitment was made in 2016 following the signing into law of the Community Land Act.
The nationwide campaign dubbed Sajili Ardhi ya Jamii is led by the people who steward their community lands, which collectively make up 34 million hectares, about 60 per cent of the country.
The communities are running it through a partnership with the Drylands Learning and Capacity Building Initiative, Community Land Action Now!, Kituo Cha Sheria Legal Advice Centre, Namati, IMPACT (Indigenous Movement for Peace Advancement and Conflict Transformation), Natural Justice, and the Pastoralist Parliamentary Group.
In a statement after the launch, the stakeholders said the Act has been broadly ineffective. While the Act opened the door for communities to receive land titles, only 64 out of about 1,000 have received them so far.
"The current process is expensive and lengthy. In some cases, it can cost up to Sh20 million. That's a sum that is far beyond the reach of most communities, which are often politically and economically marginalised. Without land titles, the communities are vulnerable to land grabs, unfair investor deals, climate-related crises, conflicts, and displacement," they said.
The campaign advocates for urgent action to fully implement the Act, which created a process for community land to be registered and for titles to be issued to achieve 100 per cent of all community land registered by 2030.
It urges the government to create a faster, affordable, community-centred title and registration process that would enable communities to take the lead in the adjudication process by identifying and mapping land boundaries.
"By doing this themselves, they can safeguard natural resources, manage land proactively and negotiate equitable agreements with external parties," they added.
Additionally, an easier process would help create a mass registration process, introduce amendments to the Adjudication Act, the Survey Act, and the Community Land Act to address registration bottlenecks, including the high cost of adjudication, and issue certificates of title to all communities by 2030.
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