securing community land rights in northern tanzania

Securing Community Land Rights

Experiences and insights from working to securehunter-gatherer and pastoralist land rights

in Northern Tanzania







Maliasili Initiatives (2012) Securing Community Land Rights: Local experiences and insights from workingto secure hunter-gatherer and pastoralist land rights in Northern Tanzania. Pastoral Women’s Council(PWC) and Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT) with Maliasili Initiatives. Tanzania: Arusha.

Front cover photo: Akie hunter-gatherers in Napilukunya, Kimana Village, Kiteto District, Tanzania

Back cover photo: A Hadzabe woman elder being awarded a Group Certificate of Customary Rights ofOccupancy by the Assistant Commissioner for Lands of the Government of Tanzania.

This publication was developed with the support of:

Maliasili Initiatives Inc.Registered Address:PO Box 293 Underhill VT 05489United States of America

Maliasili Initiatives is a non-profit organization, registered as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)3 of theInternal Revenue Code of the United States of America.

Copyright ©2012 Pastoral Women’s Council, Ujamaa Community Resource Team and Maliasili Initiatives















Contents

Introduction............................................................................................................................................ 1

The political economy of land rights for pastoralist and hunter-gatherer communities innorthern Tanzania .............................................................................................................................. 3

Introducing the case studies .................................................................................................................... 9

Progress to date, points of debate and emerging ideas for action ........................................................... 12

Ideas for action ..................................................................................................................................... 15

LAND RIGHTS CASE STUDIES BY PASTORAL WOMEN’S COUNCIL ............................................................. 18

Pastoral Women’s Council ........................................................................................................................ 18

Learning from land loss and conflict in Sukenya....................................................................................... 19

Securing land titles for pastoralist women ............................................................................................... 24

LAND RIGHTS CASE STUDIES BY UJAMAA COMMUNITY RESOURCE TEAM ............................................... 28

Ujamaa Community Resource Team......................................................................................................... 28

Conflict resolution at last between the Loita and Batemi peoples? ......................................................... 29

Pioneering collective land titles for Hadzabe hunter-gatherers ............................................................... 32

Land restitution for the Barabaig in Hanang............................................................................................. 36

Securing land for Akie hunter-gatherers................................................................................................... 39

Initiating Women’s Leadership Forums in Maasai communities.............................................................. 42

Selected additional reading ................................................................................................................... 46

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Introduction

In this publication two pioneering grassrootsorganisations from northern Tanzaniaexamine and present their experiences andinsights from their long-term work to securethe land rights of hunter-gatherer andpastoral communities. The case studies werepresented at a one-day learning event heldon 5th October 2012, when PastoralWomen’s Council (PWC) and UjamaaCommunity Resource Team (UCRT) joinedtogether to share and reflect on their workto secure land rights, to learn from eachother, and to identify ways to build on theirachievements moving forward.

The case studies are preceded by a synopsisof the political economy of land rights inTanzania, providing background to helpcontextualize the studies. Following this is asummary outline of the case studies, andthen a synthesis of the lessons and key pointsraised during the one day learning event.

The organisationsPastoral Women's Council of Tanzania wasfounded in 1997 to conceive and implementlong-term structural solutions for ending thepoverty and marginalisation of pastoralistand agro-pastoralist women and children.PWC is women-led and encourages womento openly discuss the positive and negativeaspects of their culture, to act on theirfindings, and to mobilise local efforts andresources. PWC achieves this throughimproving access to health and education,providing economic empowermentopportunities, and building rights andleadership skills for girls and women. Landand property rights are an important part ofPWC’s work. Today the organisation has amembership of approximately 5,000women, who may be both individualmembers and corporate members in theform of women’s action groups or savingsand credit associations.

Today, around the world – and especially in Africa – new commercial and governmental landacquisitions are proceeding faster than progress on formalizing vulnerable communities' customaryand legitimate rights to land. This increased demand for land and natural resources threatens toreshape local landscapes, ecosystems, and livelihoods without considering how it fundamentallyjeopardizes the communities that depend on these lands. There is now a well established andgrowing body of scientific evidence that documents how local communities are often best placed tosustainably manage and conserve their natural resources, providing ecological and economic benefitsboth locally and globally. With the continued loss of biodiversity and ecosystems critical to the futureof the planet, the erosion of community-owned lands constitutes a serious global challenge andthreat. This situation is a core concern to Maliasili Initiatives and its partners which recognize localrights as being part of a global challenge.

Maliasili Initiatives therefore builds the skills and strengthens the capacity of local partnerorganizations in East Africa that are leaders in community-based natural resource management. Weconnect our partners to a global network of collaborators and support, facilitate and strengthencutting-edge initiatives that seek to advance conservation, rural development and social justiceissues in Africa.

Maliasili Initiatives facilitated the land rights learning event, and the subsequent development of thispublication, as part of its work to strengthen the capacity of its partners PWC and UCRT.

SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

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Ujamaa Community Resource Team wasfounded in 1998 and works to empowermarginalized people in northern Tanzania’srangelands to secure rights to their land andnatural resources in order to improve theirlivelihoods. UCRT aims to promote moreresilient, egalitarian and sustainablecommunities that are responsible for theirown development, and better able tobenefit from and steward their environmentfor future generations. UCRT also workswith these communities to expand theirability to ensure that national policy andlegal processes underpin their rights anddevelopment needs.

Both organisations work with the fullinvolvement of local communities. Theyoperate on the basis that all members of acommunity have equal rights to participateand make decisions regarding communityaffairs, and that decisions should not beundermined by elite or vested interests. Avery high proportion of both organisations’staff (including their executive directors) aremembers of the communities where theywork, which means they are highly effectivein working with local people to addresslocally complex social and natural resourcemanagement issues.


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The political economy of land rights for pastoralist and hunter-gatherercommunities in northern Tanzania

Land has long been a complex andcontentious issue for many Tanzanians andremains so today. Historically landoccupancy had been recurrently contested inthe rangelands of northern Tanzaniabetween different pastoralist, hunter-gatherer and agriculturist groups. However,it is the legacy of government interventionsduring the late and post colonial periods thathave had the greatest impact on the presentday land rights and landscape occupancy ofhunter-gatherer and pastoralist communitiesof northern Tanzania (see box on nextpage).

The re-emergence of legally recognizedcustomary land rightsFrom the outset of the colonial period,customary land rights and practices were, inone way or another, redefined andincreasingly overridden and extinguished bythe pre- and post-colonial state. By the endof villagization in the late 1970s (see box onnext page) the few rights left in the securityof deemed (customary) rights derived fromthe country’s original land legislation (thecolonial Land Ordinance of 1923) had beendestroyed. By the late 1980s, Issa Shivji, aneminent expert on land in Tanzania,described the legal framework of village landtenure as utterly confused; in the opinion ofothers, customary land tenure had beenlegally as good as extinguished by the mid1990s.

However, in the late 1990s as Tanzaniareformed its land laws, the prospects forcustomary and communal land rights took aturn for the better. Two new land laws werepassed – the Land Act of 1999 and theVillage Land Act of 1999 – followed by theCourts (Land Disputes Settlements) Act of2002. Despite its shortcomings, the VillageLand Act, re-established a system of village-based land tenure by recognising customary

rights and creating the means to formalizethem through issuing certificates ofcustomary occupancy. The Village Land Actof 1999 is further supported by the Land UsePlanning Act of 2007 (see below).

The new land acts were ostensibly theculmination of a long consultative process,substantively framed by a presidentialcommission of inquiry into land matters thathad been reported in 1992. Originally, thecommission proposed a series of radicalchanges that would have led to the legalinalienability of land from communities,made land a constitutional category (therebysignificantly safeguarding its newlyprogressive legal tenets), redeveloped localland tenure and management institutionsbased on customary land laws and practices,and divested radical title from the Presidentto national institutions held accountable byParliament. However, theserecommendations were considered radicalby the Tanzanian state and were largelyrejected, not least because they took controlaway from the executive, and wereperceived as being counter to a developmentagenda centred on promoting foreign directinvestment. Ironically, had therecommendations been accepted, theywould have forestalled many of thechallenges that local communities have sinceencountered, including not least in terms ofthe continued appropriation of their land bythe state and commercial private sector,without proper safeguards and in ways thatsocio-economically disempower them.

Today, while communities are ostensiblyconsulted, it is the President, acting on behalfof the nation, who holds the ultimate powerto transfer any land to general (i.e. grantedrights) or reserved land (for protection).Then – as the state sees fit - either of theselatter land categories can be allocated to


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The implications of reordering landscapes and population growth for land rights in Tanzania

During the colonial and the post-independence eras until the end of the 1990s, Tanzanians’customary (deemed) land rights were gradually extinguished by the state in favour of grantedrights. The impact of this process was that land could be re-ordered in a way the governmentconsidered most judicious and in line with its changing economic development and relatedagendas. During the 1970s up to five million people were forcibly resettled into collectivevillages: although it is not clear whether Tanzania’s two hunter-gatherer communities weredirectly affected, pastoralist communities were not spared. While the theoretical benefits ofvillagization in terms of improved primary health, education service provision, and bettercommunications have been slow to materialize, the villagization era severely disrupted people’scustomary land tenure and land management practices.

Villagization was itself preceded by evictions of communities from their lands – for example, theMaasai were forced to leave the Serengeti to create the national park in the early 1950s, and theBarabaig forced from the Basotu plains for wheat farming in the early 1970s. These evictionshave continued sporadically to the present day; for example, with the eviction of the ParakuyoMaasai from Mkomazi to create a game reserve in 1988, and up to 70,000 Sukuma and otheragro-pastoralists from the Ihefu Swamps in 2006 ostensibly to protect a nationally strategicwatershed.

The net effect has been that Tanzania’s landscape has been heavily reordered, with large areas ofthe country set aside for protected areas (up to thirty five percent), and other areas taken overfor commercial agriculture and other uses. As the country’s population has grown – since itsindependence in 1961, it has quadrupled to 41 million people – Tanzanians have increasinglycompeted among themselves for the remaining space, and particularly, for the few remainingareas of the country that are relatively fertile. The long history of evictions, together withpopulation growth, has meant that people’s movements have become increasingly fluid, aidedby improved transport and communications. Today this means communities who werepreviously little affected by immigration of different groups onto their lands, particularly thepastoralist and hunter-gatherer groups of northern Tanzania, must today contend with theirland being increasingly settled, and sometimes altogether taken over by newly immigrantcommunities. This has led to increased outbreaks of conflict between long-term resident andnewly immigrant groups. In some parts of Tanzania, it is farming groups that are the longer termresidents, and herders are the immigrants: in much of northern Tanzania, it is the opposite.

This process of internal immigration and re-settlement poses difficult challenges for long-termresident communities, newly immigrant groups and the organisations working to support landand natural resource rights and management at local level. As ever, the relationships betweenlong-term residents and newly immigrant groups remain socio-economically fluid and complex.Therefore, the challenge lies in recognising that those areas– previously more uniformly thedomain of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers groups– will increasingly become a mosaic ofdifferent land-users and land-uses. This requires that innovative initiatives be developed forhelping these communities equitably, peacefully and adaptively secure and sustainably managetheir land and natural resources in this increasingly complex and crowded environment.


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non-community members, such as aninvestor, or managed by the state. However,village land can also be leased to outsiders(including investors), which is an option thathas led to strong mutually beneficialpartnerships between villages and the privatesector; for example, with the tourismindustry in northern Tanzania.

Village land law, customary occupancy andincreasing internal immigrationAlthough the land laws did not fulfil thevision of the 1992 commission of inquiryinto land, they nonetheless have created theprospect of greater land security, not leastfor pastoralists and hunter-gatherers. This hasbeen the case particularly where thesecommunities have been supported by civilsociety organisations to secure theirCertificates of Village Land (i.e. village landdocumentation). This first and importantstep has then formed the basis for furtherland and resource managementimprovements, ostensibly controlled by thevillage council which in turn is supposed tobe held accountable by the village assembly(of all persons in the village over the age ofeighteen). Government-promoted examplesinclude Village Land Forest Reserves andWildlife Management Areas. In additionnon-state actors have worked with villagesto develop land-easement arrangements.

Yet with increasing internal immigration aswell as newly or more ethnicallyheterogeneous communities, a new step inthe evolution and mediation of village andcustomary land laws is needed, and with thiscomes some important questions: Whosecustomary laws and land managementpractices count most? How can differentpractices, understandings and priorities,particularly in ‘frontier’ areas whereimmigration may have the largest impacts,be accommodated without threatening thelands and livelihoods of existing long-term -and often marginalised - resident

communities? Who is responsible formanaging customary lands when these areidentified and set aside – is it de facto thevillage council or is it local customaryinstitutions or both? And lastly, how cansocio-economically equitable andecologically sustainable outcomes beassured?

Communities have long been struggling toanswer these difficult questions and mediatesolutions. However, as different groups liveand trade in juxtaposition, theserelationships fray and breakdown in years ofhardship, often because of inclementweather (drought or flood), or because ofother factors. This is evidenced by a historyof recurring outbreaks of inter-communalconflict and violence in Tanzania,particularly in the immigration frontiers ofthe country.

A key dynamic in such confrontations, and inthe processes of immigration, is the notionthat pastoralists and hunter-gatherers are‘nomadic’ and that their land areas are‘unused’, a notion shared by incomingagricultural communities and policy makersalike. Yet, this perceived vacancy is anillusion. Pastoralists frequently use differentwet and dry season pastures to allow certainareas to recover; to avoid livestock diseaseand wildlife populations; or to make themost of the presence of minerals (e.g. salt forlivestock), terrain, and forage conditions. Asa result, pastures may be seasonally vacantbut they generally form a part of long-termadaptive rotational grazing system involvingthe seasonal movement of people andlivestock across the land.

More often than not, the government findsthese dynamics difficult to accept,particularly in relation to its very differentperception of what a ‘modern’ livestock(ranching) economy should comprise. In thisregard it seeks to promote its owntechnocratic perceptions of socio-


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economically productive, rationally orderedand sustainably managed landscapes. Forexample, the Land Use Planning Act of 2007sets out a well ordered system of land-useplanning, with national and regionalframeworks, underpinned by district andvillage level land use planning institutionsand processes. To a large degree, the top-down and bottom-up approach makes sense:villages can zone village lands for bothcommunal and individual uses, includingseasonal livestock pastures, and they areencouraged to prepare land use plans andvillage by-laws codifying these zoningschemes.

But in reality, land use planning is moreoften than not a one-time exercise whichhowever ‘participatory’, usually just ends upbeing a static paper exercise. These do notsufficiently endow local land users and landuse managers with the means to adaptivelymanage their land and natural resources, orto resolve recurring and emerging conflicts.The continued emphasis on formalgovernment machinery, procedure andoutputs, particularly in a resource andcapacity constrained environment, meansthere is often a vacuum of pro-active andcompetent planning and management atlocal level. This is compounded by a justicesystem that has a long history of being weak,difficult to access and corrupt, particularly atdistrict level and below. What is needed ismuch greater support for local institutionalarrangements, using a variety of formal andcustomary institutions, together with newpartnerships and incentives, to secure localrights, adaptively manage landscapes andlandscape occupancy, enhance rurallivelihoods, and manage conflicts. This typeof approach, such as has been taken in theYaeda Valley, incorporates and builds uponformal land tenure and land use planningprocesses yet goes well beyond their oftenlimited scope to bring about sustainable andequitable land tenure and landscape use

outcomes, particularly for vulnerable groups(e.g. rural women) and marginalisedminorities (e.g. hunter-gatherers). It isexactly this hybrid approach that PWC andUCRT are adopting, and are seeking todevelop further and expand.

Women’s land rights: national law and thegap with customary normsTanzania has long been a regional leader inpromoting the rights of women in manyaspects of public - and to a lesser extent -private life. For example, women areprovided with equal rights as men under thecountry’s constitution, they have varying butrelatively strong property rights under thecountry’s marriage law, and following theenactment of the new land laws, womenhave the same rights as men to own, leaseand sell land. However, women’sinheritance rights in law are more ambiguousand women’s rights groups continue toadvocate to see them strengthened.

The relatively strong gender equalityprovisions in the country’s national lawsstand strongly apart from the discriminatorycustomary norms and practices that are apainful reality for most Tanzanian women,and for pastoralist women in particular.Traditionally, patrilineal systems of socialorganisation, property ownership andinheritance are the major reason for thesewidespread discriminatory norms andpractices. The country’s laws safeguardingwomen’s rights are explicit in disqualifyingany contravening customary laws andpractices. However, women have littlerecourse for challenging discriminatorycustomary norms and practices within theirown communities, and as little or even lessopportunity for seeking recourse from thecountry’s justice system. This latter challengestems from the fact that access to thecountry’s judicial system remains slow andcostly for local people, and is often beset bycorruption. Despite these challenges, there


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are a small but increasing number of caseswhere women have successfully challengeddiscriminatory practices in formal courts oflaw, but these successes remain theexception.

It is clear that much remains to be done inbridging the gap between de jure and defacto norms and practices: women’s equalitywill not be advanced by only focussing on atechnocratic and perhaps improbable feat ofensuring that the law is enforced. Rather, thegrowing emancipation of women will inlarge part depend on empowerment throughtheir education and training to collectivelyorganise within their own communities andto take locally appropriate and informedaction. This will ultimately enable them totransform their communities’ customarynorms and practices to a point where theydeliver and reinforce the rights andentitlements women locally desire. Again,PWC and UCRT have been working togetherto implement this approach in thecommunities they work with.

A new wave of village land loss to nationalelites and international businessThe decline of the socialist state in Tanzaniaand its replacement with a more capitalisteconomy from the mid-1980s onwards ledto a wave of land grabbing as nationalisedland assets began to be divested, and asbusiness and political elites sought to takeadvantage of the new economic climate.While these land loses were documented aspart of the commission of inquiry into landin the early 1990s, land grabbing issues havesince returned to central prominence inTanzania’s social and political discourse.Two distinct phases within this period arediscernable.

In the first phase, from around 2005 to2008, interest in establishing large-scalebiofuels plantations in Tanzania surged,particularly around the ‘miracle crop’ ofjatropha. Up to four million hectares of

land were requested for biofuels, mostlyjatropha as well as some large sugarcaneschemes in river basins along the coast.Most of the investment in biofuels wasdriven by European companies, includingsome with their own government financingor public ownership, and most productiontargeted European export markets. Similarinvestments were spreading across much ofsub-Saharan Africa at this time.

More latterly, while enthusiasm forEuropean biofuel investments has waned,many of the major biofuel investments havesince collapsed. Yet public concern inTanzania around land grabbing hascontinued to grow, particularly since 2009.This increased prominence of land grabbingin the public discourse is to a large degreethe result of wider political reconfigurationsoccurring in Tanzania, as public debatesintensify over corruption, accountability, andthe use of public assets. Civil society andmedia institutions are increasingly callingattention to land grabbing as a centralelement in this wider debate over whobenefits from the country’s natural resources,how decisions over resource governance aremade, and who is able to participate in themodern market economy. Land rights – forwomen, marginalized communities, andeven ordinary citizens – are the foundationof economic empowerment and sustainableforms of development, and as such lie at thecenter of policy debate and political strugglesin Tanzania today.


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Introducing the case studies

The case studies presented here are examplesof unique approaches used to address issuesregarding community land rights, socio-political marginalization of pastoralists andhunter gatherer groups and women’s rights.The case studies provide insight into howlocal communities, supported by PWC andUCRT, have engaged with these issues.

The case studies were written by PWC andUCRT staff, and Maliasili Initiatives compiledand edited them as part of its ongoingprogramme of support to theseorganisations. Seven case studies arepresented (see map overleaf):

Each of the seven case studies falls into oneof four themes:

A. Strengthening women’s access to land andtheir participation in customary governanceinstitutions;

B. Securing collective land rights formarginalised and minority communities inmulti-ethnic contexts;

C. Securing and/or restitution of collectiveland rights from commercial government-backed interests;

D. Building inter-community conflictmanagement and resolution mechanismsthrough customary institutions.

These themes are taken up and furtherdiscussed in the following section.

Case studies from Pastoral Women’s Council

‘Learning from land loss and conflictin Sukenya’ by Maanda Ngoitiko andCara Scott – traces the history and

examines the challenges of resolving aconflict over 12,000 acres of land that wasexcised from Sukenya Village in Loliondo inthe mid 1980s for growing commercialbarley by the government for TanzaniaBreweries. Despite its excision, the land

remained largely uncultivated, and thevillage continued to maintain their accessrights for grazing and water. However,when the land was subsequently sold to atourism company in 2006, the communitywere no longer able to access the land, asthe company began to enforce theirexclusive rights. PWC, on behalf of Sukenyaand Mondorosi villages, is seeking to havethe land returned to the community whilethe tourism company continues to defend itsright to the land and the investment itrepresents. The case study looks at thevarious approaches that have been takentowards resolving the conflict. It examineshow the imbalance in knowledge, access topower, and challenges in both parties’understandings of what options exist andhow best to seek resolution, has resulted in adispute quickly becoming acrimonious andhas continued without any real signs ofresolution.

‘Securing land titles for pastoralistwomen’ by Joseph Melau and JillNicholson – documents an initiative

by Sakala Village and its Women’s RightsCommittee in Ngorongoro District tosafeguard their land as a village, and in theprocess to improve the land rights of womenin the community. The initiative was ground-breaking in the sense that it directlychallenged the existing inequitable propertyrelations of men and women in Maasaipastoralist society where women own littleoutside of their immediate domesticenvironment. Regardless of the socio-economic benefits associated with havingindividual title to land, the womenexplained that securing ownership of theirown land transformed their perception ofself-worth and standing in society for thebetter. The case study identifies some salientquestions about the replicability andsustainability of the initiative, and provides

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some recommendations for taking itforward.

Case studies from Ujamaa CommunityResource Team

‘Conflict resolution at last betweenthe Batemi and Loita?’ by LaurenceKondei & Jamboi Baramayegu –

documents how two communities were ableto institute a conflict resolution mechanismwhen all previous outside attempts to solvelong-term land conflicts had failed. The casestudy explains that in realising the cost of thelong term conflict, both communities cametogether to take ownership of the problem,developing a mechanism for managingoutbreaks of conflict and preventing futureescalation. The case study demonstrateswhere customary leadership institutionsretain sufficient local legitimacy, they canplay a central role in managing and resolvinglocal conflicts over land and naturalresources - even in cross-cultural contexts.Notably, the government subsequentlyrecognised the success of UCRT’s approachand has since requested UCRT to work withother communities to help them manage andresolve their land conflicts in a similarmanner.

‘Pioneering collective land titles forHadzabe hunter-gatherers’ byPartalala Meitaya – describes how a

new legal instrument set out in Tanzanianland law, but never before implemented, hasbeen used to secure the land rights of aHadzabe hunter-gatherer community thathad been suffering from long-term land lossdriven by the expanding settlements ofherders and farmers in what was once theirdomain. The legal instrument – a Certificateof Customary Occupancy (CCRO) – createsmuch stronger and legally defensible rightsfor its holder. Through the process ofsecuring these rights for the hunter-gatherercommunity, a neighbouring pastoralistcommunity also subsequently requested

UCRT’s support for securing their ownCCRO. This demonstrates how promotingrights-based approaches with different user-groups within diverse communities can bescaled up through local demand leading toresource use agreements and a reduction inlocal conflict.

‘Land restitution for the Barabaig inHanang’ by Elikarimu Gayewi –documents the long historical struggle

of the Barabaig people for the restitution oftheir land after it was taken away from themby the government in the late 1960s for acommercial wheat-growing scheme. The casestudy narrates how focussing on thedevelopment of solidarity within Barabaigsociety through building the capacity ofcustomary leadership institutions contributedto a greater ability and some success inadvocating for the return of their land.

‘Two options for securing land forAkie hunter-gatherers’ by EdwardLekaita – in a story similar to the

Hadzabe case study, the Akie, Tanzania’sonly other hunter-gatherers, are increasinglythreatened by the expansion of farmingcommunities around them, driven bypopulation growth and the search for fertileland. The case study documents a ‘work-in-progress’ of a collaborative initiative tosecure the land rights of the Akie, a processbeing resisted by certain local elites whowould prefer they retain control over theland to use for agriculture. An initial attemptto create a separate village for the Akie as ameans for securing their rights has stalled andUCRT now wants to replicate the successthat they experienced using CCROs for theHadzabe with the Akie case.

‘Initiating women’s leadership forumsin Maasai communities’ – by EddahSaileni, Fred Loure & Paine Makko -

describes how women’s leadership forumshave been initiated in the Maasai Steppe asmeans for empowering women to

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SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTSSECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

participate in village government and as partof building greater levels of accountability informal and informal (customary) institutions.In addition to enabling women to voicetheir issues and concerns, it is anticipatedthat women will also become increasingly

active in preventing the illicit sale ofcommunal land and its fragmentation,thereby safeguarding the community’sinterests and their pastoralist livelihoods.


An Akie man out hunting

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Progress to date, points of debateand emerging ideas for action

A substantial investment has been made byPWC and UCRT over the last ten years toimprove the security of collective land rightsin the communities where they work. UCRThas carried out much of the work on theground to strengthen local institutions andput in place the steps needed for improvedland security. PWC has invested in buildingawareness about women’s rights andstrengthening their participation in localgovernance institutions, which now stands toplay an increasingly important role inunderpinning and improving the overallsecurity of collective land rights in thesecommunities.

A. Strengthening women’s access to land andtheir participation in customary governanceinstitutions;Ostensibly, strengthening women’s access toand ownership of land should be a straight-forward issue in terms of its intrinsic benefitsand positive implications for women andtheir pastoralist communities1. Empoweringwomen to access land in whatever way ismost appropriate for their needs, shouldenable them to have new and enhancedlivelihood opportunities. However, PWC’sengagement with such efforts hasprecipitated a debate about what are themost appropriate approaches forempowering women to have access to theland and related entitlements they need.Concerns were expressed that if theapproach were too unilateral in enablingwomen to gain access to land—without therequisite social sanction and support neededat local level—the result could be a countercurrent from men-dominated communities.In addition, concerns were also expressed

1Land is not really ‘owned’ in egalitarian hunter-gatherersocieties and therefore, at least customarily, theallocation and inheritance of land between men andwomen is, at least in theory, much less of an issue.

about what impact promoting titling for anysocial group might have on the overallincreasing rate of fragmentation ofpastoralist rangelands. Throughout EastAfrica, what was once communally ownedrangelands has increasingly becomeindividually owned, inherited and furthersub-divided. This trend has become anincreasing challenge to the maintenance ofsocial equity in pastoralist communities andhas also seriously undermined ecosystemfunctioning and value. Once contiguousrangelands are being divided by and intoareas of farming and fences, disruptingcustomary rangeland management practicesand resulting in increasing inequality ofaccess to land and range resources, oftenthrough elite capture.

While PWC and UCRT are strongly awarethat customary gender property relations inpastoralist societies continue to beinequitable, they also realise that introducingand promoting a set of solutions to addressthese imbalances without first opening adebate within communities about localpriorities and ways forward, would be short-sighted and could easily become counter-productive. It was suggested that the issue ofwomen’s land rights become a subject forfacilitated debate and exploration withinboth Women’s Rights Committees and men’sCustomary Leadership Forums as a way ofdeveloping consensus about how (i)Women’s increasingly independent land andeconomic entitlements could be promotedand supported as an emerging norm fromwithin local society, and how (ii) Safeguardscould be agreed to protect vulnerablewomen – such as widows – from beinginiquitously deprived of the entitlements andassets they need for a secure and dignifiedlivelihood. A further dynamic that wasbriefly discussed, and which would meritfurther thought, was the role of women’sinstitutions in holding formal and customaryland management institutions at local levelmore accountable.


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The status of Participatory Land Use Planning (PLUP) and issue of Certificates of Village Land(CVLs) in different villages and districts in northern Tanzania that UCRT and PWC support

Numberof villages

LUPprepared

Village by-laws developedand approved

Land use zoningdemarcation

Issue of CVLS andregistration of LUP

37 97.3% 73.0% 35.1% 21.6%

Overall, the issue of women’s land rights is arelatively new area of work for both PWCand UCRT. And while PWC’s first effortshave got off to a positive start, a concernwas expressed that if this success is to bescaled up, the approach may need to beadapted, and will need to receive muchwider support and buy-in from both womenand men across pastoralist communities.Although PWC’s advocacy andoutspokenness is a crucially important driverof change, this process may need to bebalanced somewhat through adopting anevolutionary approach to strengtheningwomen’s rights and entitlements that firstfocuses on local women’s immediatepriorities in light of longer-termtransformational goals.

B. Securing collective land rights formarginalised and minority communities inmulti-ethnic contextsMuch of the effort invested thus far inpromoting local land rights in northernTanzania has correctly focussed on raisingthe awareness of local communities andworking with them to fulfil the statutorysteps required to secure their territorial rightsat village level. The pre- and post-independence history of land loss andongoing pressure for land alienation in manyof the communities in which UCRT andPWC work, has meant that communitieshave welcomed this support. However, localconflicts over boundaries between andwithin administratively created villageslinked to ethnic identity and affiliation,together with a substantial amount of

bureaucracy, have meant that thedelineation of boundaries and finalisation ofthe formal land titling process at village levelhas been slow – as shown above.

A key challenge has been that villagegovernments and local communities haveoften hesitated to commit to and have beenslow in resolving their territorial conflicts.This may be part of more protracted andcomplex identity-based disputes andtensions—part of this is simply due to thefact that customary boundaries have rarelybeen definitive and instead have tended tobe fuzzy and shifting, or boundaries havebeen arbitrarily drawn on maps byadministrators reflecting at one point in timea particular understanding of a domain orextent of an administrative area. As a result,collective lands – or villages – often sufferfrom boundary disputes, and remain insecureand easily open to land alienation orfragmentation into smaller units.

Three key steps have been identified andhave started to be taken to move beyondthis hiatus:

1. Strengthening customary leadershipinstitutions to build collective consensusand commitment about the need toresolve (i) administrative boundaryconflicts and (ii) identity-based disputesfor the collective good. In reality, wherethere is a commitment to resolving thelatter, resolving the former becomesmore straightforward, particularly whencommunities realise that anadministrative boundary does not


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preclude their continued access toresources beyond that boundary.

2. Resolving territorial disputes on theground and supporting resource-usearrangements that depreciate thesignificance of boundaries. Key to this isdeveloping a set of conflict resolutionpractices and norms that are widelyaccepted and supported by customaryleaders, local government and localcommunities. UCRT has developed amethodology that has seen success in therecent past, particularly whencommunities have perceived an overtexternal threat to their land, quicklyincentivizing them to put theirdifferences to one side and collectivelywork together to secure their commoninterests. In the absence of communitiesperceiving a sufficiently pressing threat intheir locality, it will take a renewedcommitment by customary leadershipinstitutions to sponsor and promote thedelineation of boundaries and reciprocaluse arrangements in order to secure theircollective lands.

3. Actively pursuing and securing thecertificates of village land and registeredland use plans required to finalize thetitling of collective lands at local level.This process oftentimes requires repeatedand protracted liaison with local andregional government, and access to fundswith which to carry out the formalboundary survey process. However, ithas become increasingly clear that aCertificate of Village Land, supported bya land-use plan, is insufficient for securingthe land rights of minority groups withina particular community, or even of awhole community in certaincircumstances. This is because villagelands, even when formally registered assuch, can still be appropriated by thestate; or in multi-ethnic communities, theland of a minority group can be

gradually taken over by a locallypolitically powerful or ascendant group.

Further layers of formal and informallegitimacy need to be built up to secure localrights; formal rights can be strengthened bysupporting vulnerable groups to obtaincollective or group titles to specific areas ofland that they can lay legitimate claim to, asostensibly accepted by the widercommunity. At the village level, acommunity may need to pro-activelyanticipate and counter moves by the state ora commercial entity to obtain their land. Thismay require that the community buildsupport with local and national politicalfigures and public officials as well as civilsociety organisations in order to resist theappropriation of their land, includingthrough taking legal action. Or it mayrequire that the community counter-offer theplans of the state or commercial interestswith alternative arrangements that maintaintheir control and ownership over the land.This will also maximise the benefits they arelikely to derive from any arrangements theyenter into with the state or commercialentity, either voluntarily and/or because theyconsider it the wisest course of action tosafeguard their long term interests.

C. Securing and/or restitution of collectiveland rights in relation to their loss tocommercial government-backed interestsIt is not common for local communities inTanzania to win back their village land afterit has been taken over by the state orcommercial sector. The Hanang case study isa rare example of a land restitution process,which albeit still ongoing, has resulted insome success. Of pressing concern however,is the continuing alienation of village landssponsored by the state, often for commercialinterests, and the Sukenya case study servesas such an example. The land should havebeen returned to the community, onceTanzania Breweries Limited (TBL) hadstopped using it, years previously. Instead


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the land was sold by TBL for an estimatedUSD 1.2 million for almost a clear profitsince the company had never paid for theland.

A clear set of options and guidelines need tobe developed with and for communities andthe private sector that promote and result inmore equitable outcomes for localcommunities and sufficient security forpartnering businesses. The guidelines andpractices would help safeguard against themalfeasance that often exists within localcommunity leadership, governmentbureaucracies and private sector transactions.It is easy to take advantage of the lowstandards of practice and weak governanceat all levels, to the detriment of local andnational interest – such as the TBL exampledemonstrates. Yet at the same time theguidelines would also provide useful optionsand support for companies committed toacting ethically with communities in securingaccess to land for their business operations.More often than not, the private sector,communities and even government are notfully aware of the different options possibleand available for developing landarrangements and local partnerships thatprovide sufficient security of access forcommercial operations, yet at the same timesafeguard the interests and rights of localcommunities. Developing such a set ofguidelines, for example for the tourismsector in northern Tanzania, would requirethat government and the private sector as awhole become open to new types of landtenure and possible partnershiparrangements.

D. Building inter-community conflictmanagement and resolution mechanismsthrough customary institutions.Over the last twenty years, there is stronganecdotal evidence that frequency of land-use conflicts between different communitiesacross much of Tanzania has increased.Northern Tanzania is no exception, and the

level of conflict can be expected to escalate,as rural populations continue to grow, tocompete for increasingly scarce landresources, and to contend with new levels ofclimate variability brought on by climatechange. Local communities are likely to needmore support to better manage and resolveconflicts, as part of safeguarding locallivelihoods and local natural resourcemanagement regimes. It is clear that manylocal communities in northern Tanzaniapossess the foundations for developingeffective conflict resolution institutions andprocesses. UCRT has proven as much in itswork to support the development of localconflict management institutions andpractices with the Batemi and Loita inNgorongoro. Substantial opportunity existsfor further developing conflict resolutioncapacity at local level, by building localcommunity institutions, and facilitatingeffective linkages with formal judicial systemsand government administration.

Ideas for action

There are some clear opportunities emergingfor strengthening existing efforts anddeveloping new initiatives to improve theland and natural resource rights of localcommunities as a basis for enhancing theirdevelopment and the conservation of theirnatural resources. These opportunitiesinclude:

1. Working with pastoralist communities todevelop consensus and ways forward forimproving women’s access to land,livelihood and enterprise support, andmeaningful participation in localgovernance processes;


2. Developing an analysis and clear set ofguidelines about the options availablefor securing land both for whole villagesand for different communities or groupsof people within and across villages.Importantly, it would be useful for theguidelines to identify the differentcapacity building and support requiredfor achieving the potential of eachoption, as well as its limits. Linked tothis, it would also be useful to examineways of how the fragmentation andindividualization of common poolresources – particularly rangelands – canbe minimized or prevented, a processthat is often detrimental to the widerinterests of local communities and theintegrity of ecological systems.

3. Developing an analysis and clear set ofguidelines, perhaps as part of acollaborative initiative with otherorganisations, for best practices in

developing public-private partnershipsbetween local communities and theprivate sector that create win-winoutcomes. These guidelines could focuson natural resources, but also havecontinuity with and complement otherefforts to develop similar guidelines, forexample, for commercial agriculturalpartnerships.

4. Examining ways of building the capacityof customary institutions to manage andresolve resource-based conflicts, throughperhaps developing a trainingprogramme that includes providing localgovernment officials with insights andideas for creating hybrid arrangementsbetween customary systems of disputeresolution and formal administrativeapproaches when the need arises.


Grasslands and wild flowers in Ngorongoro District

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LAND RIGHTS CASE STUDIES by

Pastoral Women’s Council


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Ngorongoro is a leading area for Tanzania’stourism industry due to its expansive landscapesand large wildlife populations. This scenicbeauty and imagery of a pastoral ideal belie amuch more complex and conflict-ridden reality.Instead, the history of Maasailand over the pasthundred years has been characterised by one ofmarginalisation and land loss.

Background to the Sukenya farm conflictSoitsambu, Sukenya and Mondorosi villages arelocated in Loliondo Division, NgorongoroDistrict. The villages are predominantly Maasaipastoralist and agro-pastoralist communitiesthat are reliant on livestock keeping. Land ismanaged according to seasonal patterns of

resource availability, which are largelydependent on rainfall and are governed byrotational grazing reserve systems formalized invillage by-laws and land use plans.

In 1984, Tanzania Breweries Ltd (TBL), whichwas then a government parastatal corporationwith a number of barley farms around thecountry, obtained more than 10,000 acres ofland that came to be known as Sukenya farm.The community claims that this land wasobtained in an irregular fashion. The precisecircumstances that surrounded the allocation ofthe disputed Sukenya farm may never bedefinitively known, but it is well documentedthat during this period fraudulent land

Cara Scott &Maanda Ngoitiko

Learning from land lossand conflict in Sukenya

Resolving differences in values andimbalances in knowledge and power


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allocations were widespread throughoutnorthern Tanzania and in Loliondo inparticular. While TBL obtained dispensationfrom the district and regional government touse the land, it did not obtain an official titledeed to the land until 2003, almost twentyyears later.

From the outset, TBL only used a small portion(roughly 700 acres) of the land and in 1989they abandoned their efforts altogether.Between 1989 and 2003, the land layabandoned by TBL. Instead the three residentMaasai sections (or ‘clans’), the Purko (whomake up the residents of Mondorosi), Loita(who are a minority clan in Sukenya) andLaitayok (who are the majority of residents inSukenya but a minority clan in the regionoverall) continued using the property as theyalways had—as seasonal livestock pasture,critical watering points and temporarysettlement during the rainy season.

The ConflictIn 2003, using what Soitsambu Village Councilclaim are fabricated - and therefore illegal -village meeting minutes, TBL acquired the titledeed to the land from Sukenya and MondorosiVillages (which were then legally sub-villages ofSoitsambu village), while also increasing theirtotal acreage to 12,617 acres of land. This newtitle deed gave them control of the land with a99-year lease agreement. In 2006, TBL divestedthe property with the legal sale of theremaining 96-year leasehold to a new tourismoperation known as Tanzania Conservation Ltd(TCL). TCL is owned by Wineland-ThomsonAdventures Inc., which also owns ThompsonSafaris, one of the larger tourism operators inTanzania. Wineland-Thomson Adventures Inc.prides itself on its corporate socialresponsibility, such as supporting localcommunity schools, dispensaries and otherdevelopment projects where the companyoperates. However, the sale was from theoutset controversial, as TBL had abandoned theland for more than twelve years, and therefore,by law, the land should have reverted back tothe government. In fact, the local community’s

even claim that TBL had agreed from the outsetthat the land would be returned to them, asdocumented in village minutes from 1984.

Initially TCL attempted to have exclusive use ofthe newly acquired property, preventing anylocal people from residing in, or seasonallyusing the land. From the company’sperspective, it had paid a substantial sum forthe property, the sale had been sanctioned bythe government, and therefore it had the rightto exclusive and unhindered access to the landwithin the bounds of the law. Its objective wasto develop the property into a private wildlifesanctuary with a high-end tourism facility.

The significance of losing access to the landquickly became apparent to the surroundingcommunities because there are few (and noyear-round) water sources available. With theclosure of access to TCL’s new ‘Enashiva’property (the Sukenya Farm), the community’sherders were now forced to make a 14 hourreturn trip to Kenya in order to access water inthe dry season. In addition they had lost accessto a valuable grazing resource. Prohibitingcommunity access to the land created a majorconflict between the company, localgovernment, and the villagers.

Many of the members of this remotecommunity are not well informed about thecountry’s land laws and the concept ofexclusive rights to land or the ability to transfersuch rights to others. Thus the fact that theyknew TBL had previously used, thenabandoned and subsequently sold the land didnot in their understanding mean that they couldno longer access it. As a result, and also takinginto account the questionable undertaking byTBL in the initial 1984 agreement, the majorityof villagers consider that the land is stillrightfully theirs to use. Thus many feel that themeasures taken to exclude them from the farmare unlawful, unjust and that they are damagingthe overall welfare of their communities.

From the point where TCL took over theproperty and enforced its legal right to


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exclusive access to the property, supported bydistrict officials and the police, the level oftension and conflict has markedly escalated. Asa result there have been numerous arrests andimprisonments, a non-fatal shooting andalleged other mistreatment of local residents byTCL’s employees and the police.

Since the start of the conflict Soitsambu VillageCouncil and community members haverequested the assistance of PWC. PWC hasdocumented the arrests and allegations ofbeatings and liaised with a range of othersupporters. PWC views its role as beingaccountable to and supporting the communitiesto re-secure their rights to Sukenya Farm.

Understanding the failed mediation attempts andincreasing polarisationLocal civil society organizations and concernedindividuals have attempted to help resolve theconflict. But, unfortunately these attempts havefailed thus far and instead of bringing the sidescloser to a settlement, have instead increasedtension and mistrust, compounded by a seriesof events and issues, including the following:

1. Throughout the six years since TCL acquiredthe Sukenya Farm, a number of differentorganizations and local individuals have soughtto address the conflict, either by supporting theaffected communities to take legal and politicalaction to secure their rights, or by trying tomediate a win-win resolution of the conflictdirectly with TCL and communityrepresentatives. As a result, a concerted andcoordinated initiative to resolve the conflict hasnever quite taken off.

2. The Soitsambu Village area has historicallybeen the domain of both the Purko (formingthe majority) and Laitayok clans, andcorrespondingly, the Purko clan has a majorityin the village government. However, with thearrival of TCL, some Laitayok leaders andresidents saw an opportunity to improve theirposition by supporting the company. TCLnaturally allied itself with these Laitayok, hiringcommunity members from this section as

employees on the farm, for example as securityguards paid to keep other village residents fromgrazing livestock on the property. The internaldivision within the community meant that forseveral years there wasn’t a consensus atcommunity level about the Sukenya Farm andtherefore collective action was weaker than itmight have been. This situation enabled TCL toclaim that they had the support of the localcommunity, and that the conflict was more anartifice of a minority within the community,supported by NGOs.

3. The internal division within thecommunities has meant for example, that anattempt by TCL in 2007 to agree grazingpractices on Sukenya Farm was rejected by thewider community. TCL had negotiated onlywith the residents of Sukenya, when in realitythe land was historically grazed by the localcommunities as well as by other communitiesfrom futher afield. Since then, herders havepurposefully flouted TCL’s grazing restrictions inprotest, resulting in more tension and arrests.This has led to further increased tensionsbetween TCL and the wider community, and ahardening of attitudes.

4. In 2011 Soitsambu Village sought legalaction to challenge TCL’s right to the land withthe support of Minority Rights Group, the Legaland Human Rights Centre, and PWC. Whileinitially dismissed on a technicality, an appealwas successful and the case is now proceeding.On the one hand this process can be seen to beadvantageous for the community in that itopens up the opportunity for legal recourse andgives community members renewed hope ofjustice thereby reducing the threat of violentconflict in the future. It has also ledto increasedknowledge and awareness about land rights,dymysitfying the legal system, and reducingfears of the local court system. It hassignificantly reduced the alledged number ofbeatings and arrests for grazing cattle since thecase began. On the other hand the case hasperhaps continued to feed and prolong theconflict given the hardened positions and the


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likely long period it will take to reach itsconclusion.

5. Both sides have promoted their competingnarratives in the media. A social mediacampaign was initially begun by a group oforganizations and individuals sympathetic tothe communities’ plight, which documentedunfolding events on the ground. In additionarticles in the mainstream international presshave further raised the profile of the conflict.However, as the critical social media campaignbegan to hurt Wineland-Thomson Adventures’brands, it mounted a public relations countercampaign, emphasizing the legality of itsoperations, denying the damaging allegationsand showcasing its charitable work with localcommunities in the area.

6. Other informal mediation attempts betweenPWC (in its role of advancing the interests ofthe affected communities) and TCL have alsofailed. These failures are largely due to each sideperceiving the other as being insufficientlyflexible and there remains considerable mistrustbetween the two organisations. For example,TCL has often maintained that PWC does notrepresent the interests of the wider communityand are instead after the land for their owninterests.

Overall, the mediation attempts to date havehelped the communities to come to a moreunified position on what they want and needfrom the land as a resource. Conversely, thefailures of these mediation attempts have led tothe community becoming more entrenched inits position and less open to furthernegotiations. TCL’s owners have also remainedresolute in their position and perspective – thattheir ownership of the land is unquestionable,that they have legitimitately defended theirinterests, while at the same time reaching out tothe surrounding communities in extending theirgood will through charitable works.

Worlds apart: values, knowledge and powerThe Sukenya conflict in many ways could notbe a more apt microcosm and allegory of

Tanzania’s history of land relations and landrights. Both the communities and TCL as aforeign investor, claim legitimate perspectivesand positions, although it is clear that TCLshould have acted with far greater diligencefrom the outset. Nevertheless, both parties havesought to safeguard their interests in the waysthey best know how, yet their values,knowledge and power remain worlds apart.

Power: From the outset, the ambiguity of theoriginal transfer of land from communityownership to TBL, followed by the subsequentnon-consensual enlargement of the land parcelto incorporate more village land, demonstratesthe ease with which the community was outmanoeuvred. This is further exemplified by thefact that a delegation of villagers, includingthree PWC Board members, met with the PrimeMinister in 2008 to discuss Sukenya. Thisresulted in a formal government inquiry intothe status of the farm and the nature of theconflict with the villagers. In 2010 the ad-hoccommittee released their findings to TCL but todate not to community members or membersof the district council. In effect, whatever thefindings of the inquiry, it was clear to membersof the community and district council that thegovernment was more concerned with theinterests of a private investor than it was of itsown citizens in relation to Sukenya. Thisdemonstrated that PWC’s and the communities’limited linkages to the national political elitegive them little influence beyond local districtcouncil members and the local Member ofParliament.

Knowledge: PWC has a deep understandingand experience of the conflict on the groundbut less experience of conflict resolutionprocesses in a broader context. Much of PWC’sapproach throughout has been reactive ratherthan proactively leading the way to a win-winresolution. This is mostly due to PWC being asmall community-based NGO with limitedhuman and financial resources. TCL’smanagement has also lacked the willingness,vision and knowledge required for creating awin-win solution. A wide range of business


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models and supporting case studies abound inthe tourism and other – for example agricultural– sectors demonstrating that profitable andequitable business partnerships can bedeveloped with local communities. It isunfortunate that TCL chose to pursue anarrowly defined business model and a weakdue-diligence process when it first acquired theland.

Values: as discussed at the outset, it is clear thatTCL and the communities hold very different

values about what it is to be neighbours and toshare grazing and water resources. Thecommunities’ resource use practices and valuesare based on reciprocity and adaptivenegotiation, while TCL’s values are based onexclusive rights and control. This clash betweencustomary practices and contemporary westernconcepts of property rights forms part of thecontinuing land debate across Africa: both havetheir advantages and disadvantages.


Village Forest Reserve in Loliondo, Ngorongoro District

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In pastoralist societies in East Africa, womenmay often suffer from discriminatory propertyrelations. This can be due to historicallysituated customary practices that have longbeen inequitable, or because contemporarypractices have undermined women’s long heldrights and entitlements. But there are efforts tochange this, and the following case studyprovides insight into one such initiative.

The Story of Sakala VillageIn 2010 the land rights of Sakala Village inNgorongoro District were threatened whentheir village was designated a municipality by

the local council. Sakala lies in between twoexpanding settlements of Loliondo and Wasso,which form the main District centre: thegovernment re-designated this larger area as amunicipality due to the increasing rate of urbanand peri-urban growth. The significance forSakala Village was that this meant its landadministration would be changed from a systemof customary rights of occupancy to one ofgranted rights of occupancy. This wouldeffectively extinguish any customary claims tothe land that were not already documented, asthe land would now be managed under amunicipal council, with the powers to grant

Joseph Melau &Jill Nicholson

Securing land titles forpastoralist women

Piloting new practices and identifying theneed for debate about property norms

The Women’s Rights Committee of Sakala Village


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land. The district authorities had surveyedSakala and were planning to delineate plots forallocation for private and public purposes aspart of the municipality’s expansion process.The local government authority had alsoplanned for the necessary infrastructureimprovements, which included the constructionof a new health centre to be built in Sakalavillage.

While these developments were taking place,the great majority of the members of SakalaVillage were unaware of these plans.Fortunately, the Pastoralist Women’s Council(PWC), which happens to have its main officein the village, brought the significance of thesedevelopments to their attention. This began apilot initiative spearheaded by PWC tosafeguard the communities’ overall land rights.At the same time, PWC used the opportunity tofurther its programme of addressing genderinequalities in relation to property rights inMaasai society, by encouraging the communityin Sakala to allocate land to women.

How were the issues approached?There are three institutions at village level thatwere key for providing the entry points forPWC to work with the village to address boththe imminent loss of their land and theopportunity for improving women’s access tovillage land. These are the Village Council (ademocratically elected body of men andwomen), the Village Land Committee (part ofthe village council), and the Village General

Assembly (all members of the village 18 years ofage and above that elect the village council). Inaddition, PWC also worked with the village’sWomen’s Rights Committee, which is aninformal committee comprised of twentyelected women members and five men.

PWC worked with these institutions to buildawareness about the need for the village to acttogether in safeguarding its land. In addition tobringing attention to community land rights,PWC also used the opportunity to raiseawareness about improving women’s access toland. Starting at the sub-village level, PWCinitiated discussions about women’s access toland, particularly in the context of enablingwomen to farm and earn a livelihood, whichcontributes to their welfare and to theirchildren’s. These discussions led to a strongagreement by the village to support theallocation of property rights to women. Thewomen’s rights committee initially identified 50women beneficiaries at the request of PWC;however the village council identified anadditional 72 women needing plots, for whichit would pay the costs itself. With theagreement of the village council, PWC wrote aletter to the district council requesting that thedistrict cooperate with the village council tohelp them re-delineate and survey their villageland. After the initial survey was completed,Sakala awaited the arrival of the cadastre sothat individual plots could be demarcated andtitles issued. This second step is still in theprocess, but it has the full backing of theRegional Surveyor, and so is expected to becompleted in the near future.

Was the approach successful?Although the land titling process is still ongoing,the project to date has been successful in that ithas raised a local community’s awareness aboutthe importance of taking measures to safeguardtheir ownership of land. The pilot projectprovided the opportunity not only for womento be allocated land in their own right, but forthe community to support and voluntarilycontribute to this process, in recognition of itsimportance for the overall well being of the

Women’s Rights Committees

Women’s rights committees have been created in30 out of 37 villages in Ngorongoro District. Theyplay a crucial role in addressing issues ofstopping domestic violence, improving girls’education and achieving stronger land rights.Representatives from each women’s rightscommittee are nominated to attend the districtwomen’s leadership forum, which represents andadvocates for women’s rights and interests at thedistrict level, including meeting with the men’scustomary leadership forum.


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community and particularly for vulnerablewomen, such as widows. It also gave thecommunity the resources and confidence toseek compensation for land that was taken for apublic project, underlining the need for thegovernment to respect people’s land rights andcompensation procedures as set out in law.

Emerging challenges and questionsWhile the pilot project has met with initialsuccess, it raises several interrelated questionsaround how best to improve the equitability ofproperty relations in a way that leads tosustainable outcomes. For example, whilewomen have benefited from being allocatedland, it is not clear whether they have full rightsover their land. Do they have the right to sellor mortgage their land, regardless of whetherthis is desirable or not? Can they decide who isto inherit it? Furthermore, how can this modelbe scaled up and generate support fromadditional communities from the area as amodel for women’s land rights? PWC iscurrently working to address these questions inits next phase of work.

Despite these unanswered questions, it is clearthat the women who had been allocated landhave been profoundly affected for the better.Many of them have described feeling a greatersense of dignity, self-value and standing in thecommunity now that they can own their ownland. However, it is less clear how the womenplanned to use the land for improved benefits,and this was an issue PWC had recognised andwanted to help address. Finally, the project wasable to capitalize on carefully laid foundationsand good relations with the community: grass-roots awareness-raising and building consensusat all levels within the village led to peopleworking together and contributing to a greateroutcome.

Emerging insightsIt is clear that this pilot project is only the firstin several steps towards improving theequitability of property relations between menand women in the pastoralist communitieswhere PWC works. The mobilization of a

community to allocate land to women as partof safeguarding its overall access to land is aninspirational example of what can be achieved.But it does not address prevailing norms withinlocal Maasai society in regards to women’sproperty rights. Rather, it seems the Sakalaexample stands as a point of departure wherelocal communities, women’s rights committeesand customary leaders debated and foundconsensus on how property rights can be madefairer and used to safeguard the vulnerable. Nodoubt there will be those who will activelydisagree with or not value the importance ofwomen’s property rights, while equally therewill be others who will be strong proponentsfor equality, regardless of prevailing norms orunintended societal impacts.

While sustained activism and leading byexample are indeed important, securing changethrough consensus may be equally key. Inremote rural areas where customary laws andpractices tend to prevail over poorlyunderstood formal laws, fostering participatorydebate about property rights and encouragingthe prioritisation of safeguards for the mostvulnerable in society, would seem to be sensiblesteps forward in building better futures forwomen and empowering them.

Lastly, the advocacy role of women’s right’scommittees could grow to fufil a useful role inlocal communities and wider society inencouraging consensus-led and newly emergentproperty relations and practices become morewidely accepted.

SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RI GHTS

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LAND RIGHTS CASE STUDIES by

Ujamaa Community Resource Team


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The conflict over natural resource use betweenthe Batemi (Sonjo) and Loita (Maasai) groups inSale and Loliondo Divisions in northernTanzania has been going on for possibly 200years, with major clashes in the 1970s and againmore recently. The Batemi, mainly agro-pastoralists, believe that the Loita, mainlypastoralists, are immigrants from Kenya andtherefore have no right to occupy theirterritory; but the Loita have resided in the areafor decades.

Due to increased population, climate variabilityand the pressure of limited natural resources,the conflict between the two communities hasintensified, and feuds are long standing andrepetitive. Over the years, the conflict has been

addressed by a series of different interventionsand initiatives by government authorities andother organisations, yet tensions continue tolinger.

How were the issues approached?In 2008 UCRT began working with thetraditional leadership of the two communities(Sonjo: Wanamijie and Maasai: Ilaigwanak) inan effort to bring about resolution. Morerecently UCRT facilitated a workshop for thecouncil of elders from the two communities todiscuss and reflected upon the differentmethods that had been used in the past to tryto resolve their conflict, and the successes andfailures of each. They came up with a new

Conflict resolution atlast between the Loitaand Batemi peoples?

Laurence Kondei &Jamboi Baramayegu

Supporting cross-cultural communityinstitutions to achieve and sustain peace

Supporting cross-cultural communityinstitutions to achieve (what?) andsustain peace

A community conflict resolution meeting Naan and Kisangiro villages in Sale Division, Ngorongoro District


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Oath taking was one of the strategies to end conflict andcreate peace

strategy for intervention - one that had not yetbeen tested – which was to form a joint councilof elders for conflict resolution. This would helpsolve and de-escalate smaller conflicts over landthat continued to break out, and that tended toescalate into heightened protracted violentconflict. It was agreed that in order to resolveany arising boundary or other localized conflict,two representatives from each village in thelarger area - whether Batemi or Loita - wouldbe chosen to mediate and makerecommendations for its resolution. Norepresentatives would be drawn from thevillages involved in the dispute. The appointedconflict mediators would then be much freer toact fairly in their resolution of the conflict.

The joint council of elders made a commitmentto solve all the issues causing the recurringconflicts and set out a number of principleswhich they agreed upon:

Utilizing their standing and powerbestowed on them by the communities tomediate over boundary conflicts and toprovide lasting solutions;

Speaking as one voice over all issuesaffecting their communities;

Vowing to protect and utilize their naturalresources for the benefit of futuregenerations;

Prohibiting revenge attacks by onecommunity on another;

Building better links between customaryleadership and the various village

government authorities holding an officialmandate to resolve village land conflicts –for example, the land adjudication courts.

Was the approach successful?Engaging with traditional leadership tospearhead the conflict resolution efforts hasresulted in strengthened trust as well as arealization that the conflict was achieving littlefor either community. This has led to improvedeconomic stability in the two communities, withpreviously closed footpaths being re-openedand access to Wasso’s market (an importanttrading and livestock sales centre) andhealthcare services possible again. Neighboursfrom different communities have started sharingresources and are farming together again, andoutbreaks of localised conflict have greatlyreduced.

Now, when there is a dispute between twovillages the other villages stay out of thedispute, and instead work together throughchosen representatives to mediate its resolution.Previously conflicts would escalate rapidly, asvillages tended to side with their ethnic group;however, today this no longer happens.Boundary conflicts have been solved or nearlysolved between six villages.

Batemi youth on the reopened road to Wasso market

What are the key lessons so far?Working with traditional leaders to solve long-term conflicts between the communities hasbeen instrumental for success because theseleaders are very well respected by theircommunities. Despite the fact that some of thetraditional leaders have been part of the


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problem, when they came together they actedas a group of leaders instead of as individualswith their own agendas. The government hasgratefully acknowledged UCRT’s and thecommunities’ achievements, particularly sinceprevious interventions had failed. In fact, theDistrict Commissioner has recently written toUCRT asking them to continue with this work.

ChallengesUCRT faced a number of challenges during theconflict resolution process: Local political conflicts of interest in the

area were difficult to overcome; There was initially a lack of commitment

from the government to support UCRT’sinitiative – perhaps linked to adisenchantment with a history of failedmediation attempts;

Politicians with their own motivesattempted to get votes from onecommunity by making promises to alienatethe other community if they came topower;

A lack of funds available for the traditionalleaders to work on the conflict resolutionslowed progress;

The council of elders lacked statutorypowers to make final decisions onboundary disputes, which meant that theirrecommendations had to be referred tolocal government for approval. (This wasnot entirely disadvantageous, although theinvolvement of local government sloweddown the process);

There was a general lack of support fromthe local police as they had previouslybenefited from exploitative rent-seekingopportunities created by the recurringoutbreaks of conflict;

A need to reach out to other organizationswhich had previously been involved inattempting resolution of the conflict, butwhich had since been somewhat eclipsed.

The next stepsThe recently resolved village boundaries needto be demarcated immediately in order to

prevent any changes of understanding or a lossof consensus from this not occurring.

In addition to establishing clear boundaries,capacity building on natural resourcemanagement and good agricultural practicesneeds to be carried out within the twocommunities to help them be better stewards oftheir limited resources.

A related but altogether larger issue is the needto advocate for a new approach totransboundary management for pastoralistsbetween Kenya and Tanzania. Currentlypastoralist communities frequently move acrossthe international boundary as part of their longestablished grazing and trading practices.However this movement is illegal, and is oftendissuaded. UCRT plans to work for atransboundary agreement that allows the freebut locally agreed movement of people andcattle across the boundary, without risk ofprosecution. This would help communities oneither side of the border better manage theirgrazing resources.

SECURING COMMUNITY LAND RIG HTS

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Comparison of DNA from people all over theworld indicates that the Hadzabe are one of theoriginal peoples, who likely lived in northernTanzania’s Lake Eyasi basin for 40,000 years ormore. Yet despite their long history, theHadzabe have gradually been displaced fromtheir land, and have been marginalized as hunter-gatherers since Tanzania gained its independence.Within the last 50 years, the Hadzabe have lostmore than 90% of their land to outsiders seekingland for grazing and farming.

To ensure their survival, the Hadzabe must havesecure rights to their land in order to protect theirlivelihoods. In light of these challenges, UCRThas been working to support the Hadzabecommunity of the Yaeda Valley, which is a

uniquely diverse ethno-linguistic area whereBantu, Cushitic, Southern-Nilotic and the isolateHadzabe language groups all co-exist in the samelandscape.

Prior to UCRT’s involvement, the Hadzabe andother communities in the area had littleknowledge about their rights in terms of the lawand the land, and also had few resourcesavailable to carry out the complicated and longprocess for securing village and other landcertificates (titles) themselves.

How were the issues approached?With initial funding from the Dorobo Fund forTanzania, later augmented by NorwegianPeople’s Aid (NPA) and more recently supported

Pioneering collectiveland titles for Hadzabehunter-gatherers

Partalala MeitayaLegally and economically securing a lastremaining domain of an ancient people

Celebrating the awarding of Group Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy


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by The Nature Conservancy, UCRT startedbuilding the capacity of the Hadzabecommunity, as well as the other surroundingfarming and pastoralist communities in the area.Trainings were held on good governance andalso on the relevant policies and laws of localgovernment, land and wildlife. UCRT alsofacilitated the villages to obtain village landcertificates, which included their developingsimple sketch maps on how people used theirlands for hunter-gathering, grazing, farming andsettlements. After the initial land use planningwas carried out a more formal plan wasproduced and village by-laws to complimentthese were written and passed.

A community Customary Right of Occupancy Certificate

With all the necessary requirements in place,UCRT was able to assist the Hadzabe inapplying for Group Certificates of CustomaryRight of Occupancy (CCROs), which allows thecommunity to control, manage and have theright to sell or lease the land. UCRT assistedwith this in each of the modern villages that cutacross the Hadzabe’s ancient domain.

Hadzabe community welcoming the AssistantCommissioner of Lands when she came to award the

Hadzabe their Certificates of Customary Rights ofOccupancy.

How successful has the approach been?

UCRT’s work with the Hadzabe has beenextremely successful, culminating in obtainingthe title deeds for the customary rights ofoccupancy for approximately 20,000 hectaresof land.

As a result of securing rights to their land thefuture food security of the Hadzabe hasimproved, as now there is much greater respectby other communities towards their land, andstaple food such as wild fruits, tubers, honey,meat and other resources are no longerthreatened

UCRT has also worked with pastoralists in thearea to secure access to and protection of theircommunal lands through obtaining a GroupCertificate of Customary Rights of Occupancyfor their grazing lands. As a consequence of thenow clearly demarcated and titled land, overtconflicts between agriculturalists and pastoralistshave declined.

With the land now legally certified, anopportunity has opened up for the Hadzabecommunity to additionally benefit from carbonpayments for conserving their woodlands incollaboration with a carbon offset developer,Carbon Tanzania. Great care has been taken towork closely with the local Hadzabecommunity to ensure their free, prior and


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Old markers on trees and new metal signs protecting thearea for the Hadzabe: a game of cat and mouse had

started with some opportunistic individuals from a farmingcommunity cutting down marker trees, and marking new

trees to shift the agreed boundary.

informed consent. The certification process isnow close to completion through a rigorousstandards system, known as Plan Vivo scheme.Community guards have been elected by theHadzabe community to protect their area, andthey are paid out of funds made available byCarbon Tanzania that will be deducted fromthe eventual carbon payments. This has enabledthe Hadzabe to protect their boundaries fromother communities, so that when other resourceusers want to use Hadzabe resources, they doso consensually and sustainably. The partnershipbetween the Hadzabe and Carbon Tanzania,which was facilitated by UCRT, is workingbecause the interests of each party are closelyaligned. Carbon Tanzania’s mission is topromote community-based conservationthrough incentives generated from the carbonmarket, and the Hadzabe are seeking ways thatallow them to live in their last remaining wildlands indefinitely.

What are the key lessons learnt so far?

The Certificate of Customary Rights ofOccupancy is the first of its kind to be issued inTanzania for protecting community lands.There is exciting potential to replicate its use toenable other vulnerable communities – such asthe last remaining Akie hunter-gatherers as wellas pastoralist and other rural communities – toprotect their communal lands and naturalresources. Scaling up the use of Group CCROswill be particularly important for marginalized

and vulnerable minority communities living inincreasingly multi-ethnic villages where land-useplanning is too weak an instrument for ensuringthat they are able to protect and maintainaccess to their customary lands.

One of the most important lessons that UCRThas learnt throughout this process is theimportance of building relationships withleaders from the villages all the way up to thedistrict level in order to work successfully onland issues in any area.

An emerging insight

Often the best approach for securing land andnatural resource rights for communities involvesa painstaking, grassroots, bottom-up process ofcapacity building, legal empowerment andnegotiation with other interests and partnershipbuilding. A community-led, adaptive andlearning-orientated approach is critical forachieving sustained results and outcomes. InTanzania today, there is a large programme ofdeveloping Wildlife Management Areas(WMAs) that communities are ostensibly meantto control, manage and benefit from: howeverthe WMA approach is rigidly top down,institutionally inflexible and often theorganizations facilitating the WMA process havelittle understanding of or sensitivity towardstruly empowering local communities to managetheir internal conflicts and achieve an effectiveand equitable natural resource governanceregime. In the past these large organizations,funded by an external donor, have arrived inarea and hurriedly carried out short-termprojects in a supply driven manner, frequentlywithout consulting other organizations thathave a long-term history of support to thecommunity, They then leave when their fundshave run out without an exit strategy, leavingbehind paper institutions, and new elites inplace with little accountability to thecommunity, and no perceptible improvementto how the larger community (not a limitedelite) is managing and benefiting from theirresources.

Hadzabe men from Mongo wa Mono Village looking out over their land


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An emerging insight




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An emerging insight




This is now a very real prospect for the YaedaValley where UCRT has been working with theHadzabe, pastoralist and farming communitiesfor many years now to build an equitable naturalresource management regime.

The next steps

Although a large tract of land has been securedfor the hunter-gathering community, land securityfor the Hadzabe still needs to be increased bynegotiating with neighbouring villages to connecttheir land across into other districts. This will alsohelp to build unity and cultural identity betweenthe scattered Hadzabe communities.

There is a great opportunity to share theexperiences of empowering the hunter-gathererand pastoralist communities in Yaeda: in order todo this UCRT would like to hold a large meetingwith all three districts to share the successes of thework that has been done and to encourage othercommunities to do the same. Now that the landhas protective boundaries more capacity buildingis needed for the Hadzabe communities and fortheir neighbours to ensure that everyoneunderstands the area’s boundaries and themeaning of the title. UCRT will continue tosupport the hunter-gathering, herding andfarming communities of the Yaeda Valley toimprove their collective management of their

natural resources so that the land is trulyconserved and their livelihoods enriched.



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At the beginning of Tanzania’s villagizationprocess in the late 1960s, approximately100,000 acres of land on the Basotu Plains inHanang District were taken by the Governmentof Tanzania from Barabaig pastoralists. Thisland was allocated to the National FarmingCorporation for the Tanzania Canada WheatProject (TCWP) with seven farms subsequentlyestablished on this land. Many local peoplewere evicted and migrated to other areas in thecountry, such as Morogoro in central Tanzania.Others were able to stay in the area on the landthat remained. The wheat farms were initiallysupported by Canadian Government Aid, butwhen funding was finally phased out in theearly 1990s, the farms began to collapse.

At first the government looked for foreigninvestors to take over the farms, but when theyfailed, they decided to return 23,000 acres ofthe land back to the local communities.

However, instead of returning the land to itsprevious owners, the Barabaig community, theHanang District Council gave the land tofarming communities on the slopes of MtHanang. The Barabaig refused to accept thisdecision but they did not have the resources orthe ability to fight their case without help.UCRT, together with its partners2 has been ableto provide the Barabaig with this support, andas a result the Barabaig have been able to makeprogress in their struggle to regain their land.

How were the issues approached?Supported by Oxfam, UCRT started working in2005 with the Barabaig. UCRT worked withfive villages to address these land issues, and set

2 UCRT has collaborated with the Pastoralist Women’sCouncil and Tanzania Natural Resource Forum in developingthe Community Forums and Women’s Rights Committees.

Land restitution for theBarabaig in Hanang

Elikarimu Gayewi

Righting historical injustices andexpanding community solidarity


A customary leadership meeting of Barabaig Elders in Hanang

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Elikarimu Gayewi




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Elikarimu Gayewi




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up community forums that would stand unitedas a strong representative body for thesevillages. To date 50 men and 20 women areactive members of the forum. Once thecommunity forum was established, training wasprovided by UCRT on land policies and laws,to ensure that the communities were awareabout the legal rights and options available.

The Barabaig community felt that they werenot being listened to by government, and thatthe 23,000 acres of land they wanted returnedto them was imminently to be given toagricultural communities looking for new land.So six people were elected to travel to Dar esSalaam to present their case to the Office of thePresident. Although the group did not manageto meet with the President (he was travelling),they were able to return to their communitieswith a letter from the State House addressed tothe Regional Commissioner in Babati asking himto meet with the Barabaig community andlisten to their point of view.

Elikarimu Gayewi facilitating a leadership forum

The meeting was held and as a collective voicethe Barabaig insisted that they needed the landfor grazing and that it should not be given toothers. The land that the Barabaig communitieswanted returned, and that fell within thevillages’ administrative boundaries, waseventually returned to the Barabaig community.However, the remaining land that falls outsidethe village boundaries and which was excisedbefore villagization has still not yet beenofficially returned and re-demarcated as part ofthe villages. Despite this ongoing controversey,UCRT continues to work with the villages to

secure grazing land for the Barabaig communitythrough land use plans and by laws.

Was the approach successful?Community forums, often comprised ofcustomary leaders and others, are a verysustainable approach for addressing land issues.They allow for open discussions, build capacityand empower communities to better addressland and natural resource issues themselves.

Thus the approach used by UCRT ofestablishing a community forum enabled theBarabaig community to have the power tomake the key decisions and take the actionsthey needed to, while UCRT remained in thebackground in a support role.

Key lessons

Through working with the Barabaig communityforum, UCRT learned three main lessons:1. Community forums are a good platform for

addressing major community issues andcatalysing collective action.

2. Community forums are quite easilyreplicable and scalable in pastoralist society.In the case of the Barabaig the communityforum has extended its network to includethe Barabaig diaspora in Morogoro incentral Tanzania, demonstrating theeffectiveness of the institution.

3. New traditions grounded within thecommunity can be initiated to help buildcommunity solidarity and identity: a largejoint community forum meeting is now heldevery year with Barabaig membersattending from different parts the country,which demonstrates a new strength andcontinuity within the community.

What could have been done better?Due to cultural norms, the community forumswere initially heavily male dominated. This canbe seen as having been a mistake, as it wouldhave been desirable to have encouraged greaterparticipation by women from the outset.

A Barabaig warrior herding donkeys


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Key lessons








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Key lessons








However, over time, more women wereelected into the forums in recognition of theimportance of ensuring women are activeparticipants, also able to raise their concerns. Atthe outset, UCRT began working with theBarabaig who were still residents in Hanang,and did not include others who had beenevicted many years ago and moved far fromtheir homes. Arguably these families were evenmore marginalized than those they had leftbehind in Hanang. However, more recentlyUCRT has managed to include some of thediaspora in its program of support for landrights and community-based collective action.

The next stepsAlthough UCRT’s work has been generallysuccessful in helping the Barabaig reclaim theirland, the process remains incomplete. UCRT hasidentified the following tasks that they wouldlike to carry out in conjunction with theBarabaig community forum:

Secure and re-demarcate all the reclaimedland under existing village boundaries;

Finalise village land use plans and by-lawsfor many of the villages on the BasotuPlains;

Strengthen the advocacy skills of communityleaders;

Further investigate Basotu Plantation, oneof the remaining unreturned farms, whichcurrently has no investors. Instead its 14,000acres are farmed by individuals who havesecured access to the land in what is thoughtto be an irregular manner, and so the landshould be given back to the Barabaig;

Further investigate some of the other farmswhich are also under-utilized by investorsand could also be returned to the Barabaig.There are also ongoing conflicts betweenthese investors and the Barabaig on theseproperties.

In conclusionThe historical loss of land, together withincreasing pressure from population growthwithin the Barabaig community and fromimmigration, together with competition overland between pastoralists and agriculturalists alladd to the ongoing land and boundary conflictsin the area. UCRT has played an important rolein enabling the Barabaig to reclaim some oftheir grazing lands. Yet despite some success,there remain unresolved issues and conflicts,and the returned land has yet to be fullydemarcated, with more land still needing to bereturned.


A Datoga herdsman and donkeys

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The Akie is a minority group of hunter-gatherers who live in the Maasai Steppe, inKiteto District, northern Tanzania. Asneighbouring agricultural communities havegrown, they have increasingly expanded ontoland formally occupied by the Akie. Today theAkie are faced with a total loss of their land,which threatens their culture and livelihood.

The Akie, now living scattered across a fewvillage areas that were once their domain, havelittle rights or control over the land theydepend on. For example, in Napilukunyavillage, they have no power to control whogains access to their land or how it is used, as allmajor decisions are made by the villagegovernment, now dominated by farmers.Unfortunately, even if the Akie had strong

representatives in village government, as aminority they would struggle to safeguard theirinterests against more popular interests, such asland uses for agriculture. To ensure that Akiecan continue with their culture, traditions andway of life it is essential that they have access toand jurisdiction over the resources that theyneed, and that they are able to protect theirland.

In addition to the threat to the Akie, thepastoralists in the area are also at risk from theexpansion of agricultural communities attractedby the area’s fertile land and close proximity tothe district capital of Kibaya. The incomingagricultural communities have been encouragedto move into these frontier areas by the district

Securing land for Akiehunter-gatherers

Edward Lekaita

Building local support and creating newoptions for protecting minority rights

An Akie woman picking berries in Napilukunya in Kiteto District


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Edward Lekaita




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Edward Lekaita




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authorities as they seek to promote the district’scommercial and financial interests – even if itcomes at the expense of existing communities inthe area.

How were the issues approached?UCRT recognizes the importance ofcollaboration. Therefore, it established linkswith two like-minded organisations alreadyworking in the area - Community Research andDevelopment Services (CORDS) and KINNAPA(an acronym for six pastoralist villages inKiteto). UCRT began holding joint meetingswith these pastoralist land rights NGOs so theycould identify and agree upon the best way towork together to support the Akie.

The first step identified was to carry out atraining with the Akie community so they couldbetter understand their rights as set out in thenational land policies and laws. The aim of thistraining was to build their knowledge andconfidence about their choices and rights indefending their interests under Tanzanian law.

Following the training, the Akie decided toapply for full village status. UCRT facilitated thisprocess by writing a letter on behalf of the AkieCommunity requesting its separation from themain village as a full village. The support of thearea councillor was obtained by UCRT, and hesubmitted a motion in the full council meetingto approve the idea of a full village for theAkie. Approval for the full village for the Akiehas now been obtained at the ward level.

Was the approach successful?While the Akie have yet to officially secure theirremaining land in perpetuity, there is stronghope they will.

The paperwork for their application for fullvillage status is complete, and the group iswaiting on final approval by the district council.However, there are some concerns aboutwhether Napilukunya Village Council and thedistrict council will approve the Akie’sapplication.

When UCRT first met with its collaboratingpartners, it thought that the best way for theAkie to secure their rights would be throughsecuring a Group Certificate of Customary Rightof Occupancy (CCRO). A Group CCROprovides a specific group or community withcollective and exclusive title to a piece of land,which they can defend in law. This is a muchstronger way of enabling minority communitiesto secure and manage specific areas of land thanland use planning. It means that a minoritycommunity can secure their place and rightswithin a larger multi-ethnic village setting.However because UCRT was joining an alreadyexisting initiative of village land titling and landuse planning for pastoralist villages throughoutKiteto District, it thought it appropriate to workwithin this existing collaborative approach first,to see if a successful outcome could be achievedfor the Akie.

UCRT have worked with the Hadzabe in theYaeda Valley to successfully secure their landthrough obtaining the first ever Group CCRO inTanzania. UCRT are keen to build on andreplicate this process. They therefore would liketo hold a meeting with the Akie and theirpartners to share experiences on the GroupCCRO approach. Due to the large traveldistances and a shortage of time, UCRT has notyet managed to do this. However, UCRT areconfident that if the Akie hear about theexperiences of the Hadzabe hunter-gatherersand how they came to protect their land, theymight well decide to prioritize obtaining aGroup CCRO instead. This is still possible, andmight become a necessary and perhaps moredesirable outcome if the Akie are denied theirfull village status by the authorities. Pursuing aGroup CCRO would avoid, in so far as ispossible, an outright conflict of interest betweenthe Akie wanting to leave Napilukunya Village,and the village government not wanting to loseaccess and control over Akie land. UCRT wouldalso like to hold a workshop at district levelinvolving local government authority staff towin the overall support of the district


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administration for deploying Group CCROs tosafeguard the land rights of Akie hunter-gatherers and pastoralists facing a similarchallenge.


One clear lesson is that it is important to buildstrong constituencies of support andunderstanding for the need to safeguard theland, natural resource and development rightsof marginalized people – and this is particularlytrue for the two remaining hunter-gatherersocieties in Tanzania. UCRT’s experience fromworking to strengthen the Hadzabe’s rights hasdemonstrated that it is possible to persuadepreviously unsupportive interests to cooperateand to become part of a solution. Additionally,when working as part of a coalition, it isimportant not to overlook the need to clarifypartner roles and responsibilities, throughdeveloping straight-forward Memorandums ofUnderstanding (MOUs).

Finally working with politicians needs a degreeof patience and a certain level of flexibility –even when they are considered to be firmsupporters!

The next steps….

Securing rights for marginalized communities isoften a more complex and long drawn outprocess than may be initially anticipated. Forexample, it is important to ensure that in

establishing rights to their land and naturalresources, communities receive the continuedsupport of government and surroundingcommunities through constituency building. Inlight of these needs, UCRT and its partnerswould like to: Facilitate a workshop on Group CCROs for

the district and take key district officers tovisit Yaeda as a learning experience;

Continue to work with the Akiecommunity to make a final and informeddecision about whether to continue toapply for full village status or instead applyfor a Group CCRO;

Build the Akie’s capacity enabling them toelect their own committee to protect theirland;

Once their land is protected, facilitate landuse planning with the Akie.


A village meeting in Napilukunya Village

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Maasai culture is strongly patriarchal, withwomen often left marginalised, with little or novoice in decision making processes. The UjamaaCommunity Resource Team (UCRT), which ismostly comprised of pastoralist staff, recognisesthat women and men are equal and that thehistorical, patriarchal traditions need to change.

In many rural pastoralist communities, womenare not involved in any of the decision makingprocesses, from the family to the villagegovernment level. Although national lawstipulates that women must participate invillage government, in many cases they are notrepresented at all and if they are present, theiractive involvement is weak.

According to Maasai culture, women are notallowed to inherit property, and may stand tolose land and livestock if their husband dies andthey don’t have any male children.

Girls are often not sent to school because whengirls typically get married, they move to theirhusband’s home and village, which is whyfamilies often prioritize investing in their son’seducation.

In addition, the inequality between men andwomen leads to other problems such as the saleof land without the consultation of women. Asa result, land that once provided access to

Initiating Women’sLeadership Forums inMaasai communities

Eddah Saileni, FredLoure & Paine Makko

Enhancing the rights and roles ofwomen to safeguard society and family

Making a well received point at a Women’s Leadership Forum meeting


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important natural resources, such as firewoodand water, has been sold and lost. Thesenatural resources are particularly important forMaasai women as farming, cooking and houseconstruction continue to be primarily their taskin the home. In addition, the sale of land hasoften undermined the livestock economy, askey grazing lands are lost and converted toother uses.

Maasai girls who are educated often choose notto return to their societies, preferring to marryinto other ethnic groups where they have amore equal partnership. Unless there is change,there is a threat that the Maasai family structurewill break down as Maasai women search for alife and a culture where they are betterrecognized and where they have the same rightsas their male counterparts.

Over the years of working in pastoralistcommunities, UCRT has recognised the threatthat certain Maasai traditions pose for modernlife, not least in relation to the vulnerability ofMaasai girls and women. Therefore, UCRTdecided to take steps to address thesechallenges.

Initiating Women’s Leadership Forums

The idea of the Women’s Leadership Forums(WLFs) was developed as a means for includingwomen in the decision-making processes ofMaasai communities. Each WLF has come to berecognised by their village government as ameans for giving women a voice with which toraise their issues and perspectives.

UCRT and the Pastoralist Women’s Council(PWC) have both initiated a system ofWomen’s Leadership Forums in several Maasaicommunities in Northern Tanzania. UCRT hasworked to start the forums in Simanjiro andKiteto Districts, while it has collaborated withPWC in Loliondo Division, where they areknown as Women’s Rights Committees. InLoliondo, PWC has made substantial progress indeveloping these committees, raising women’sawareness about their rights. PWC’s progresshas provided a good example for UCRT in itsexpansion of the WLFs in Simanjiro and Kiteto

Districts. PWC has shared their experiences withUCRT and has collaborated to solve issues withUCRT as they arise. Through this collaboration,the impact of the forums on women has grownand continues to flourish.

Starting up WLFs in Simanjiro and KitetoDistricts

A team of five UCRT staff, consisting of fieldofficers and the gender officer have started towork with six villages in Simanjiro District andwith four villages in Kiteto District.

The field team initially presents the concept ofthe WLF to the village government and oncethey agree to the idea, including the practicethat the WLF should be present as observers atall village meetings, an agreement is signedbetween the village leaders and UCRT. Thewomen in the village government are thenasked to call a general meeting for the womenfrom all the sub-villages.

An introductory training is given by the fieldteam about the overall purpose of the WLFinitiative, and at the end of the training thewomen in the community are asked whether ornot they are would like to participate in theinitiative. If they agree to the process, then theyare asked to select 24 representatives, dividedequally between their sub-villages, who willthen comprise the WLF.

The 24 elected women are trained for two dayson land laws, categories of land, landadministration at village level, land disputeresolution and their general rights as women.Inheritance and marriage laws and the newconstitution currently being drafted forTanzania are also discussed in the training. Atthe end of the training, an hour is given to anopen discussion on all the women’s problems,from traditional problems to villagegovernment issues and the group tries to findsolutions to them.

Results

In the initial stages of the project in Simanjiroand Kiteto, there have been very positive


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responses from participating women whowelcome the WLF as a way to give them avoice within their communities. The project hasenabled UCRT to reach out to a large numberof pastoralist women, and empower them torecognise their rights in relation to land andpolitics.

Women are very happy to have an officialplatform that is recognised by the villagegovernment where they can express their views,and address their issues.

Village from Simanjiro No of participants inintroductory meeting

Kimotorok 123

Narakawo 100

Kitiangare 55

Sukuro 37

LoiborSiret 93

Terrat 78

Total 486

Some discriminating Maasai traditions againstwomen, identified in WLF discussions.

Women are not allowed to go for a medical check-upwithout their husband being present, even if they areseriously sick.

Men are mainly responsible for insisting that girls getmarried rather than attending school.

A married woman with only female children has noinheritance if her husband dies. She is given onecow and one donkey and sent back to her parents.

Compensation for the killing of a man is 49 head ofcattle given to the family, whereas only 9 head ofcattle are given for killing a woman which are givento the traditional leaders.

Men carry out all land transactions without theconsultation of the women.

Challenges

The main challenge with the WLF is that theproject only covers a limited number ofscattered villages and so it is not possible toscale the initiative up beyond the ward level, tothe district level. Even within each ward often

several of its constituent villages have not yetbegun WLFs. More funding is required toinclude all villages and wards, so that theWomen’s Leadership Forums can form arepresentative body at district level.

In addition to this, in one village there maynow be several different ethnic groups withdifferent traditions and customs. However, theproject is designed for pastoralists – in this case,Maasai woman. Focusing on the Maasaiwomen only can be perceived as beingdiscriminatory, and yet at this point it would betoo difficult to include all the other traditionsand issues from other groups. This led UCRT toagree with the WLFs that for now they wouldfocus on largely pastoralist-related issues, butthat all women would be welcomed to allmeetings.

At the ward level (a group of villages within anarea make up a ward), 24 women are againselected, equally from the villages, to make upthe Ward WLF. Another two days of training isprovided by UCRT at a more in-depth level,including teaching women how to address theirissues and where to bring them beyond thevillage government level if they are not beingaddressed satisfactorily.

Another challenge is that for women to actuallyattend the meetings they must first obtainpermission from the men. In Sukuro Village,two women were told not to attend a WLFmeeting because the men believed UCRT wasacting against male interests.

However, the women were confident that theycould solve this problem with time. Thisprecedent has also caused UCRT to think howin the future it can reduce suspicion about WLFsand build greater support among the men folkfor women’s collective action. The meetingswith women are such a new concept for many -including men -that many of the women areafraid to talk in public and especially in front ofvillage leaders. The UCRT Gender Officer, as aMaasai woman,


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managed to convince many of the womenparticipants to talk freely by sharing her ownexperience– that she is an educated womanwho still strongly holds Maasai values. Many ofthe groups wanted to involve their customaryleaders, particularly in the land policy and lawtrainings. In response to this, UCRT invited thecustomary men leaders of Makame Village tothe trainings, but was careful to ensure that thewomen still had their own space and time todebate issues separate from the men.


In starting up these initial WLFs in Simanjiro andKiteto, UCRT has learned that more villagesneed to be included in the process to make itfunctional from the village up to the districtlevel.

UCRT also learned that men should be invitedto join the trainings, to dispel any fears that themeetings are secret or conspiratory in any way.The reaction of the men, who stated thatUCRT‘s trainings would destroy their familystructure, surprised UCRT’s field officers. Inreality the purpose of the project is to empowerwomen within their own Maasai society as partof enhancing their roles and rights in their

families, instead of leaving women little choiceother than to join a different culture to securebetter rights as a woman.

However, UCRT has been encouraged by thefact that the women seem to have embracedthe initiative, and have even gone a step furtherin some villages using the WLF as a way to saveand share funds between themselves to help intimes of trouble as well as to use their WLFs asa means of sourcing new funds for smallbusiness opportunities.

But some serious questions remaining for UCRTare: can WLFs be further scaled up, and will theWLFs be a success and strengthen the role ofwomen in pastoralist society?

Finally, a sustainable monitoring method forthe initiative needs to be developed so thatwomen feel they are achieving their goals andcan track the results of their efforts.

Kimotorok Women’s Leadership Forum


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Selected additional reading

Anseeuw, W., Wily, L.A., Cotula, L. & Taylor, M. 2011. Land Rights and the Rush for Land: Findings ofthe Global Commercial Pressures on Land Research Project. International Land Coalition.http://www.landcoalition.org/cpl/CPL-synthesis-report

Cotula, L. & Mathieu, P. 2008. Legal empowerment in practice. Using legal tools to secure land rightsin Africa. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.http://pubs.iied.org/12552IIED.html

Cotula, L. & Leonard, R. 2008. Alternatives to land acquisitions: Agricultural investment andcollaborative business models. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.http://pubs.iied.org/12567IIED.html

Nelson, F., Sulle, E., & Lekaita, E. 2012. Land Grabbing and Political Transformation in Tanzania. Paperpresented at the International Conference on Global Land Grabbing II, Ithaca.http://www.maliasili.org/library/books-papers/

Scalise, E. 2012. Indigenous women’s land rights: case studies from Africa. In: Walker, B. Ed. State ofthe World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012: Events of 2011. London: Minority Rights GroupInternational. http://www.minorityrights.org/11374/state-of-the-worlds-minorities/state-of-the-worlds-minorities-and-indigenous-peoples-2012.html

Shivji, I. 1998. Not Yet Democracy: Reforming land tenure in Tanzania. London: International Institutefor Environment and Development. http://pubs.iied.org/7383IIED.html

Wily, L.A. 2003. Community-based land tenure: Questions and answers about Tanzania’s new VillageLand Act, 1999. Issue Paper No. 120. London: International Institute for Environment andDevelopment. http://pubs.iied.org/9295IIED.html

Wily, L.A. 2012. Why we must accelerate the security of commons tenure: Opinion piece. InternationalLand Coalition & Rights and Resources Institute: Rome & Washington DC.

Ujamaa Community ResourceTeam works to empowermarginalized people in therangelands of northernTanzania to secure rights totheir land in order to improve

their livelihoods and ability to conserve their naturalresources. UCRT aims to promote more resilient, egalitarianand sustainable communities that are responsible for theirown development, and better able to benefit from andsteward their environment for future generations. UCRTalso works with these communities to expand their ability toensure that national policy and legal processes underpintheir rights and development needs.

The Pastoral Women's Council ofTanzania was founded to conceiveand implement long-term structuralsolutions for ending the poverty andmarginalisation of pastoralist andagro-pastoralist women and children.

PWC is women-led and encourages women to openlydiscuss the positive and negative aspects of their culture, toact on their findings, and to mobilise local efforts andresources. PWC achieves this through improving access tohealth and education, providing economic empowermentopportunities and building rights and leadership skills forgirls and women. Land and property rights are an importantpart of PWC’s work.

Maliasili Initiatives builds the skills and strengthens the capacity of local partnerorganizations in East Africa that are leaders in community based natural resourcemanagement. We connect our partners to a global network of collaborators andsupport, and facilitate and strengthen cutting-edge initiatives that seek toadvance conservation, rural development and social justice issues in Africa.

Ujamaa Community Resource Team,P.O. Box 15111, Arusha. Tanzania

Website: www.ujamaa-crt.orgEmail: [email protected]

Pastoralist Women’s Council,P.O. Box 72, Loliondo. Tanzania

Website: www.pastoralwomenscouncil.orgEmail: [email protected]



















securing community land rights in northern tanzania

Documents

government of tanzania

tanzaniaback cover photo

registered address

pastoral womens councilpwc

local experiences

underhill vt

kimana village

kiteto district