Implications of the Recent Land Reforms in Tanzania on the Land Rights of Small Producers | Land Portal
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Resource information

Date of publication: 
December 2005
Resource Language: 
Pages: 
6
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The land tenure system of Tanzania has passed through different historical milestones which form the basis for the analysis of the land tenure regime in general and tenure relations for land owners and users in particular in the past eight decades. The history dates back to 1923 when the British colonial legislative assembly enacted the Land Ordinance cap 113 to guide and regulate land use and ownership in Tanganyika which was their protectorate colony. Prior to this law, all the land in Tanzania was owned under customary tenure governed by clan and tribal traditions. Ideally, elders of respective clans and tribes were bestowed with powers to determine land allocations and resolve conflicts whenever they arose.


When the 1923 land law came into force, it ideally imposed radical changes on the land ownership and use pattern that existed prior to colonialism. The noble arrangement in the local land administration systems were disrupted and traditional institutions replaced with colonial machinery that had little regard on the rights to land of the colonial subjects.


It also stated that, all the land in Tanzania and the use rights were under the control of the British governor and that any use must be subject to the will and permission of the governor. This was virtually a transfer of ownership and control over land from the people to one person, the governor. In order to reinforce administrative decisions, a new form of ownership through granted rights of occupancy was introduced. Although the deemed rights of occupancy that the natives enjoyed were not dissolved by this law, the actual practice reveled big differences in realization of the two sets of occupancy rights. Deemed rights were considered to have low value and un enforceable unlike the granted rights which one could prove by just a show of title deed or certificate. Thus between 1920’s and 1960’s when Tanzania got her independence, the natives who owned land customarily experienced loss of their lands to the colonial state in favor of introduction of commercial farm estates. Those whose land was alienated were forced to become casual laborers in the estates.

Authors and Publishers

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Yefred Myenzi

Corporate Author(s): 

 


The Land Rights Research & Resources Institute was founded in 1994 and registered as a non-governmental not-for profit company limited by guarantee under the Companies Ordinance, Chapter 212 of the laws of Tanzania. 



The Institute was established out of the need to generate and sustain a public debate and participation, particularly where it matters in villages on issues of land tenure. 

Publisher(s): 

 


The Land Rights Research & Resources Institute was founded in 1994 and registered as a non-governmental not-for profit company limited by guarantee under the Companies Ordinance, Chapter 212 of the laws of Tanzania. 



The Institute was established out of the need to generate and sustain a public debate and participation, particularly where it matters in villages on issues of land tenure. 

Data provider

 


The Land Rights Research & Resources Institute was founded in 1994 and registered as a non-governmental not-for profit company limited by guarantee under the Companies Ordinance, Chapter 212 of the laws of Tanzania. 



The Institute was established out of the need to generate and sustain a public debate and participation, particularly where it matters in villages on issues of land tenure. 

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