Large scale land acquisition is a buzzword of the day in the world, more so in Ethiopia. The issue is indeed polarizing, in one hand it is dubbed as land grab and seen as ultimate scramble for land. On the other hand, it is often depicted as key to development, technology transfer and boost in productivity of an otherwise idle land available in Ethiopian lowlands, or somewhere else.

Proceedings of 7th Eastern Africa Land Administration Network (EALAN) Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Workshop Theme:The State of Land Administration in Eastern African Countries: Comparative Overview Venue: Bahir Dar, Ethiopia Date: 21st – 22nd July 2015

An Act to provide for the compulsory acquisition of lands for public purposes and in connection with housing schemes.

The Land Act, 2012

The Land Registration Act, 2012

The National Land Commission Act, 2012

The Environment & Land Court Act, 2011

The Urban Areas & Cities Act, 2011

THE MINING ACT No. 12 of 2016

Date of Assent: 6th May, 2016

Date of Commencement: 27th May, 2016

A Bill for AN ACT of Parliament to consolidate the laws relating to energy, to provide for National and County Government functions in relation to energy,to provide for the establishment, powers and functions of the energy sector entities; promotion of renewable energy; exploration, recovery and commercial utilization of geothermal energy; regulation of midstream and downstream petroleum and coal activities; regulation, production, supply and use of electricity and other energy forms; and for connected purposes.

Kenya’s Vision 2030 aims at transforming the country into a newly industrialized middle income country

and infrastructural development is high on the agenda to achieve this. Competing land uses and existing

interests in land make the use of eminent domain by government in acquiring land inevitable. However

most of the land earmarked for compulsory acquisition comprises of un- registered land whose interests

Matters of environmental migration are frequently looked at from a humanitarian perspective.1 This policy brief will instead look at it with a lens focusing on land issues. The question of environmental migration is inevitably linked to the question of land for several reasons. First, climate and environmental change trigger and accelerate the loss of land due to sea-level rise, coastal erosion, landslides and other forms of land degradation.

Although a large theoretical literature discusses the possible inefficiency of sharecropping contracts, the empirical evidence on this phenomenon has been ambiguous at best. Household-level fixed-effect estimates from about 8,500 plots operated by households that own and sharecrop land in the Ethiopian highlands provide support for the hypothesis of Marshallian inefficiency. At the same time, a factor adjustment model suggests that the extent to which rental markets allow households to attain their desired operational holding size is extremely limited.

This guide has been written as an information resource for government officials, community leaders, humanitarian aid workers, judges, lawyers and others whose responsibilities include upholding land and property rights in Uganda. It outlines the main provisions of Uganda’s constitutional and legal framework and the protection these provide to property rights. It briefly outlines the historical background to existing land tenure relations, describes the constitutional provisions relating to land in the 1995 Constitution and sets out the main provisions of the Land Act 1998.

The constitution and enabling legislation in Uganda, as in many other countries, empower the government to acquire land in the public interest. Under Ugandan law a person whose land is identified for a public purpose must be compensated fairly, promptly, and prior to the acquisition of the property.

Compulsory acquisition is the power of government to acquire private rights in land for a public purpose, without the willing consent of its owner or occupant. This power is known by a variety of names depending on a country’s legal traditions, including eminent domain, expropriation, takings  and  compulsory purchase.