Our purpose is to present and test a typology of land reform theories as a means of understanding and interrogating the motives behind land reform and to better equip land administrators and policymakers to enact land reform programs that are appropriate for their contexts. Here, land reform is understood to include the related concepts of land redistribution, land restitution, land tenure reform and land administration reform. The theory typology thus has application for land restitution programs specifically operating in the global South.

For historical reasons, Kenya inherited a highly skewed system of land ownership at independence in 1963. British colonialism in Kenya was not merely administrative. Rather, it was accompanied by massive and widespread land alienation for the benefit of settler agriculture. As a result the best agricultural land-the White Highlands and the adjacent rangelands were taken from the Africans, without compensation, and parceled out to white settlers. Colonial legislation was enacted to legalize this process.

The Historical Injustices Issues Paper seeks to present the various historical land claims issues and perspective related to them and consequently proffer policy statements for their redress.

The Land Sector Non State Actors (LSNSA) is a network of civil society organizations working together to promote secure and equitable access to land and natural resource for all through advocacy, dialogue and capacity building. We petition parliament on issues we hold to be of fundamental importance in the context and content of the two bills before the National Assembly.

The women Land Rights Project is a project of Kenya Land Alliance that aims at actualisation Women land and property rights, as provided in the Constitution of Kenya, 2013 and as a means towards poverty alleviation. This considering the fact that, in Kenya where the foundation of most communities is Agriculture and livestock production, women contribute up to 80% of workforce yet they only hold 1% of registered land in their names and around 5-6% of registered titles are held in joint names (Kenya Land Alliance, 2013).

The International Land Coalition (ILC) has commissioned this present report to analyze the illegal/irregular acquisition of land by Kenya’s elites to ascertain the types of land affected, the processes used to acquire land, and the profiles of the perpetrators, as well as to identify the victims and the impacts of land grabbing. The report is drawn largely from the Kenya Land Alliance (KLA)’s series “Unjust Enrichment: The Making of Land Grabbing Millionaires”,

The Kenya Land Alliance (KLA) welcomes the new Forest Act 2005 for placing forest resources at the core of sustaining both the local and national economies. Indeed locally forests are a source of food, fodder, wood fuel, construction materials, spiritual and cultural nourishment and traditional medicines among others. The Act, beyond highlighting the environmental and ecological functions of the forest sector, affirmsthe importance of our forest cover as one of the country’s major national assets, and this underscores the need to entrench it.

The present public land tenure management system in Kenya is fragmented, uncoordinated and non-transparent. The public land tenure as embodied in the Government Lands Act, Cap 280 of the Laws of Kenya lacks a coherent information system and is bedeviled by a lack of clarity in the roles, responsibilities and policies of different institutions in its administration, planning and disposal. Thus, there is a need for a set of national norms and standards to ensure efficient and effective use of public land as an asset in support of land reform.

THEME: “Sustainable infrastructure, services and social protection for gender
equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls”

The National Land Policy in Kenya: Critical Public Land Issues and Policy Statements is a guide to steer the debate and eventual formulation of a National Land Policy and legislative framework that will address issues of management and administration of public land in Kenya.

Land is the foundation of all human activities both social and economic. This is particularly so in agrarian economies such as Kenya. In these economies women are central to economic production in agriculture and livestock sectors. In Kenya, where the mainstay of most communities is agriculture and livestock production, women contribute up to 80 % of the workforce. Nevertheless, women only hold 1% of registered land titles in their names and around 5-6 % of registered titles held in joint names.

As the Government of Kenya treads the path to economic recovery, every Kenyan should be at home with the fact that many forms of economic development activities damage the natural resources upon which the economies are based. Nationally and internationally, a major environmental and development challenge is how to maintain the equilibrium between population, ecosystems and development.