1. LAND: LAW, POWER, RURAL
DEVELOPMENT
Lessons from experience of post-independence Mozambique
João Carrilho & Uacitissa Mandamule
Fellows, OMR

2. STATUS
LEGISLATION, RIGHTS
• Constitution: 75,90,04
• Land Law and
regulations: 1979,
1997, 1998, 2000
• Other legislation:
Fisheries (90); Water
(91); Investments
(93); Environment
(97); Forestry and
Wildlife (99), Mining
and Petroleum
(01/02, 14), Local
Administration (03);
Territorial Planning
(07)
• Land Forum on
legislation
ACCESS; USE;
• 80 M Ha
• 36 M Ha arable
(15% in use; other
lack infrastructure)
• 46,8 M ha Forestry
(includes 8.8 M ha
reserves)
• 99.6% SHH, <10 ha
• 45,000 DUAT, 16.7
M ha
• 8,000 villages (est.
4,000 Commun.)
• Land delimitation,
400 communities,
13 M ha
• 1000-1200
COGEPS, 1000
paralegals
VALUE; POTENTIAL
BENEFITS
• Land is property of
the state
• Individuals can
have property and
sell Improvements
• Quasi-leasing
arrangements,
Contract farming
and sharecropping
possible
• Urban land is
automatically
transferred with
improvements
• Communities
retain 20% of the
value of forestry
exploration
• Taxes: location,
size, use type
INSTITUTIONS
INFRAESTRUTURE
• Cadastre mostly on
demand; Torrens
system
• Most land under
customary tenure
• Rural Land
administration
centralised –
adjudication only done
provincial governor and
above
• Local/community
institutions based on
chieftaincies;
• Courts at district level
• Infrastructures to be
provided by attracted
investors (who are
mostly interested
mainly on land the
already with basic
infrastructure)

3. THE ISSUE
• If there is an apparently good legal framework…
• If there is an apparently large extension of available land…
• Why is there land grabbing to access land?
• Why is security of tenure weak for both investor and communities?
• Why land conflicts are left unresolved?
• Why there is outspread rural poverty and inequalities?
• This raises the issue of the exercise of power and the interests it serves
…and there, PROS AND CONS of
• Centralised vs. Decentralised
• Democratic vs. Autocratic
Land administration for poverty reduction and rural
development.

4. OUTLINE
• General Evaluation of Land Use regimes in relation to:
• infrastructure, income generation opportunities, inclusiveness, based on
written law and practice:
• centralization vs. decentralization
1. Up until early 1900
2. From WWI to 1975
3. From 1975 to 1995
4. From 1995 t0 2015
• General lessons learned

5. UNTIL EARLY 1900’s
• Local negotiations
• Prazos da Coroa (Crown Term-bounded Concessions) – the “donas”
• The American Civil War
• The Berlin Conference; the end of slavery and search for alternatives
• Crown Estates
• Decentralization? Transfer of powers to profit oriented individuals
• Some infrastructure and services
• Local resources and labour extraction
• Local people as savage people/bush people

6. FROM WWI TO 1975
• The end of World War I: The New State (Estado Novo): from
Monarchy to Authoritarian Republic
• The end of Prazos and Crown Estates
• Long term land leases
• Centralization: clear definition of exception (terras de segunda classe,
to be ruled under customary norms).
• Forced Labour
• Separate Development and indirect rule: dual land regime
• Labour and commodity division through comparative advantage
• Additional market oriented Infrastructure
• Some degree of inclusion, the dawn of local urban elite

7. FROM 1975 TO 1995
From Independence…
• Nationalization of land; Unification of policy
• Socialist approach: nationalization, prohibition of private property even at
the very small level; low-level attention to the majority of rural family
farming population; priority to cooperatives and rural proletarianisation;
• Villagisation – based on power control and natural disasters
• War: infrastructures and institutional destruction, displacement,
• Return to ventures similar to Crown Lands (ex.: Lonrho)
• State farms Land redistribution
…to the approval of the National and Policy;
• The recovery of power by traditional chieftaincies (regulados) to the level
of the colonial land regime;
• recognition of rights of occupation and customary tenure: legal pluralism
(pluralismo jurídico).

8. FROM 1995 T0 2015
• New land law, part of an African Wave of recognition of indigenous rights
• Return to dualism and to geographical conditions favourable to “separate
development”
• Intensification of Neo-patrimonialism
• (VERY) limited de-centralization with consistent re-centralization (revocation of
laws promoting wider decentralisation)
• Need for private investment in rural areas, to add-up to scarce public resources
for infrastructure and opportunities to increase income in rural households
• Community land delimitation for protection and benefit sharing –
documentation improves protection
• Investment on Coal, Petroleum and Liquid Natural Gas; food and prices crisis
• Land grabbing, allegedly for food and biofuel production
• >50% of land for livestock, forestry and game farming is idle land
• Alliance between local traditional leaders and the neo-patrimonialism

9. GENERAL LESSONS
• In some cases and circumstances, centralization – and even
authoritarianism – presented advantages in the development of
infrastructure and promoting the diversification of income sources.
However, in all cases, it resulted in incomplete treatment of the problems,
sometimes illegally or unfairly displacing people with no compensation.
• Customary-based rights are not systematically documented, not always
democratic and rights oriented. The complexity of community level
arrangements should be kept at that level.
• A combination of centralised general land governance and the issuing of
norms and guidelines for decentralised administration, from cadastre to
maintenance of transactions seem to be the best option. General /
centrally designed and promoted regional plans together with norms and
guidelines for local/community level administration shall play a key role.

10. SOME SHORT TO MEDIUM TERM PROSPECTS
• Improve Community Land Delimitation and recognize individuals/
households/group good-faith occupations in a de-centralised manner
• Improve rural infrastructure, particularly for communication and
markets, based on regional and sub-regional planning and land
development
• Clear local benefit path
• Central guidelines; implementation through local capacities

11. THANK YOU