FAO and Government of Flanders promote application of Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure in Land Law implementation in Malawi

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Government of Malawi through the Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development, in November 2021, facilitated a capacity building session for land clerks on the application of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) in customary land registration processes, as part of the implementation of the Customary Land Act (2016).

Malawi’s Customary Land Act (2016) created the position of land clerk within the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, where land clerks are the Ministry’s interface with communities, providing guidance to the Customary Land Committees and facilitating the land registration processes.

Through the capacity building session, ten land clerks, who will serve in ten of the thirty-one traditional land management areas in Kasungu district, were oriented, on the VGGT, Principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent and the Principles for Responsible Investments in Agriculture and Food Systems.

The purpose of the training was to ensure that land clerks are ready to take up their roles, with a full understanding of the land laws and the global and local instruments that guide land governance at community level. The training came in timely as the Ministry plans to start working on establishing community structures and land clerks are key to this process.

 “With demand for popular participation in land governance, the land clerks will play a very important role in ensuring the activities in the communities follow the dictates of the law. This is the first time that Malawi is having land clerks at Traditional Authority level, hence the need to ensure that they are well-equipped to manage the processes as demanded by the law,” says Yvonne Mmangisa, Head of the Technical Unit at FAO in Malawi.

Addressing land tenure issues for improved agricultural productivity

Smallholder farmers in Malawi primarily operate their agricultural enterprises on customary land, which has been characterized by low levels of tenure security. This low tenure security hinders farmers from committing towards long-term soil and water conservation practices, thus leading to degradation of both soil and water resources that subsequently affect agricultural productivity.

Within this context, the Government of Malawi and FAO are implementing the ‘Land Use Planning and Sustainable Land and Water Management for Improved Agricultural Productivity in Kasungu and Mzimba districts’ (SLM) with financial support from the Government of Flanders. Through the project, the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development and the Ministry of Agriculture aim to achieve sustainable land and water management to improve agriculture productivity in Malawi, recognizing tenure security as a catalyst for ensuring that land and water resources are conserved for improved agricultural productivity.

The capacity building of land clerks was done within the framework of the SLM project, while Malawi’s land laws are under review, in anticipation that they will be approved in the current sitting of parliament. This approval will enable the SLM project to commence land registration processes.

The SLM project aims to contribute to Malawi’s National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP) intervention area 6- Empowerment and tenure security, and 11- Natural resource management. It also strategically contributes to the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development. Specifically, it contributes to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 and promotes progress towards goals 8, 11, 15 and 17.