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moving quickly on land reforms. This strategy is not intended to put foreign investment or private
commercial interests on hold. Land titles may still be issued to viable commercial interests and even
be given special treatment but in moderate measure, with transparency, and with careful monitoring.
A special body with wide powers for designing new legislation under wide advisement should
be appointed (e.g., the standing law reform commission, a land tenure reform commission, or the law
school) with the sole responsibility for drafting the new legislation. The current process whereby a
person or department designs and submits for review legislative acts is not the process of legal reforms
that this study recommends. Hearings and local workshops with interested parties should be held to
hear the views of citizens on land policy needs, legislation outside Zambia should be thoroughly
reviewed, legislation should be drafted, hearings and local workshops should again be held to review
the legislation, changes will again need to be made, and finally the legislation will have to be enacted.
This process, while requiring considerable effort, will stand a much better chance of developing a
policy that is acceptable to government, the people, and the business community alike, than the
top-down legislation that is easily enacted by government but is rendered ineffective by noncompliance
and illicit activity.
B. Land administration
Specific proposals on decentralization and land administration are presented in chapter 3, and
on land valuation, in chapter 4.
C. Research
The process of land tenure reform will need to be complemented by a program of
policy-relevant research. The below-mentioned research activities are indicative, and neither exhaustive
nor mutually exclusive. Chapter 3 covers further research issues related to land registration, chapter
4 on land markets, and chapter 7 on data.
1. Land tenure in customary lands. There is an inadequate understanding of land
rights, inheritance, dispute processes, land markets, and resource management in the customary areas
that will need to be alleviated before any legal changes affecting rural areas are considered. Detailed
field-level research is needed in different areas of the country and under various socioeconomic
contexts (peri-urban versus rural). Answers need to be sought to such indicative questions: Is tenure
security robust or weakening, and by whom, for whom, and where? Is tenure insecurity constraining
commercial and agricultural investment? To what extent are chiefs encumbering land transfers,
undermining security of transfers, or resisting title? To what extent is the expansion of the leasehold
system undermining the security of producers under customary arrangements? Do women and
minorities have equal and free access to land or are they constrained by customary norms and
traditions?
2. Land tenure at the periphery of titled areas. The conversion of customary land
into State Land represents a second priority area of research. Land is converted through the process
of sporadic land allocations and acquisitions, demarcations, and allocations of newly opened lands and
through resettlement schemes. It is at the periphery of these transfers that potential conflicts between
state and customary tenures will be evident and where equity issues will be most manifest. Priority
questions include: What are the characteristics of groups and individuals acquiring land in resettlement
schemes and newly opened farming areas? To what extent have women and minorities been able to