Rwanda is the only country in the Eastern Africa region that has already published her national land policy report.

Eugene Rurangwa, the Registrar of Land Titles in the Ministry of Lands and Environment, said the report released on Wednesday at Hotel des Mille Collines.

The report says Rwanda is the only country among the eastern Africa states with a complete Land Policy and Organic Law.

It was availed to delegates attending a workshop on regional assessment of land policy. The delegates who aim at coming up with a harmonised land policy came from Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea Sudan, Somalia as well as the Indian Ocean Islands of Comoros, Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar.

Apart from Tanzania, the rest of the above countries still have their land policies under formulation.

According to the report, Rwanda’s land policy has prioritised land as the important component in the national economic transformation. This is also recognised in the 2001 Rwanda Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) that land is a foundation for food security and agricultural growth, if properly used.

But the report says that Kenya and Uganda are striving to streamline land issues into poverty reduction programmes. It adds that linking land policy to improving agricultural productivity and efficiency is the principal concern of policy makers in the region.

‘Subsistence farming remains the main activity of tenants land rights in this region,’ the report concludes.

Although some countries have developed policies and programmes for supporting farmers, the report says that they have mostly favoured those holding land under customary tenure systems. Currently, the report adds that such countries have embarked on land policy enactment which is still facing serious difficulties in financing and forward planning for the required land reforms.

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