Rural Land Rights, Market, and Structural Transformation: A Review of a Ugandan Case

Uganda, just like its counterparts around the globe, is transforming its land tenure systems, from communal systems to private individual ownership systems. However, through the establishment of privatized land rights, several criticisms and collisions have continuously marred the government's well-intentioned vision. They claim that this will negatively impact vulnerable groups, such as women, the disabled, and children. In Uganda, while structural transformation occurred in the economy at least thirty years ago, followed by the enactment of the land policy, the issue of rights through titling of individual ownership is not fully implemented to even 50% in the rural areas. This tenure security and ownership empowerment continues to bleed confusion and reportedly leads to the weakening of traditional communal land tenure systems and erosion of land rights, thus hampering sustainable agricultural production and investment. This paper, therefore, examines rural land rights, markets, and land structural transformation in Uganda, with a specific focus on the rural areas. In this work, several papers are reviewed to get facts about existing land rights, land market structure, performance, and challenges associated with them. Review analysis reveals three main issues: there's a lack of awareness of the new land policies and their implementation, land tenure security is not yet guaranteed, and therefore the vulnerable groups are not fully secure, and land markets, though not yet efficient, are increasing exponentially in many areas. In conclusion, this paper recommends the sensitization of the public, especially the rural landowners and institutions, continuous incentivization of formalization and acquisition of land documents, and finally the need to harmonize with different institutions on the implementation of existing land laws and policies.