Connect with us

General News

Kenya: Ongoing Land Reforms to Cost the Govt Over Sh5 Billion

Published

4 years ago

on

[ad_1]

Kenya’s ongoing land reforms, including digitisation of land records and cleaning up of registries, will cost the government over Sh5 billion.

Players in the sector have continued to call for measures to ensure all necessary changes are made to end pains that have rocked land transactions and ownership in Kenya, leading to deaths, violence and thousands of court cases.

The land sector non-state actors want the government to ensure, through the ongoing reforms, that cases of historical land injustices are concluded, concerns on encroachment of community lands are addressed and a framework to support better land use for food security is created.

They have also called on county governments to start including land issues in the County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs), in order to ensure peoples’ views are considered.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which together with the European Union (EU) co-financed Sh1.35 billion (20 per cent of the project cost) to support the reforms, has called on the government to listen to non-state actors in the sector,.

“Land reforms is a priority area for FAO and there is need to strengthen non-state actors in order to have land sustainably managed.

National land dialogue

“The funding by FAO and EU is supposed to facilitate the reform processes and implementation of land policies,” said FAO’s Land and Natural Resources officer Husna Mbarak.

Ms Mabarak also said concerns over excessive subdivisions of land across the country as the population grows is a cause for concern since it is starting to have ripple effects on food security, land sustainability and the nutritional health of communities.