Malawi National Land Policy - Mokoro

Ministry of Lands Page 10
q A Socio-economic Study of Land Tenure was conducted to understand the procedures and
processes of customary land allocation and alienation.
q Estate, Public and Customary Land Utilization and Interaction Studies to assess land use
effectiveness and socio-economic linkages between land-use categories was performed.
q Special Land Tenure Case studies to evaluate the stability of land tenure arrangements of
special programs and smallholder associations was produced in order to understand their
crosscutting implications for poverty alleviation and land resources management.
q Additional studies were conducted from 1996 through 1998 on commercial estate and public
land tenure as part of a comprehensive review of land use and resource management in
Malawi.
1.2.3 The review of literature also included secondary sources of information from
international development agencies, the scholarly and scientific community and other
sectoral policies with strong synergies with land.
a. The Presidential Commission: To ensure the views of the citizens were not
overlooked, the government took the initiative to establish the Presidential
Commission On Land Policy Reform with the assistance of UNDP in 1996. The
mandate of the Commission was to promote scholarly discourse, gather the
opinions of the private sector, ordinary citizens and non-governmental
organizations, and to organize their findings in such a manner as to aid the land
policy reform efforts of this Ministry.
b. The Secretariat: the Ministry had opportunity to synthesize all the background
research, public findings and the results and input from special studies. Work on
the preparation of the draft policy document (which started in January 2000) also
benefited immensely from the report of the Presidential Commission. In the final
phase of the process initiated in 1995, the Ministry engaged in an extensive
consultative process as outlined below. An Inter-ministerial Steering Committee
composed of senior officers selected from various government ministries assisted
the Ministry in its work.
1.2.4 Stakeholder Consultations: A series of stakeholder consultative meetings,
discussions and symposia were conducted throughout the drafting process across the
nation and at all levels as follows:
a. Small Focus-group Gatherings: Most of the preliminary policy proposals were
discussed in small gatherings with stakeholders, traditional leaders and civil
society groups in selected areas of the country where the land problems being
considered were most prevalent. The primary objective was to use the collective
wisdom of the people to test acceptability of the policy proposals as they were being
formulated.
b. Regional consultative workshops: Three Regional Workshops, one for each
administrative area, were held from July – August 2000. More than 600
participants, including some members of parliament, political leaders, traditional
leaders, members of the judiciary, civil society and ordinary citizens attended
these regional consultations. The regional workshops were used as a platform for a
critical examination of the policy recommendations under consideration for a
variety of issues and land problems. They also served as avenues for soliciting
public opinion on potential policy intervention strategies for addressing identified
challenges in the land sector.
http://www.malawi.gov.mw/lands/landpol.htm 29/03/2005 15:23:13