US embassy cable - 05LILONGWE1018

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 LILONGWE 001018 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/S JEANNE MALONEY 
PARIS FOR D'ELIA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAGR, ECON, EINV, MI 
SUBJECT: MALAWI LAND REFORM STALLED 
 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  Malawi's informal system of land administration 
continues to hinder economic development.  A land reform 
program adopted last year proposes across-the-board 
reforms, but resistance from local chiefs is stiff. 
There has been some progress putting a land bureaucracy 
in place, but the current GOM has shown little enthusiasm 
for pushing the reforms.  The Mutharika administration's 
manifest political weakness makes land reform look very 
unlikely in the near future, despite some recognition of 
its potential economic benefits.  End summary. 
 
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Land Use: Locked in the Basement 
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2.  As Malawi watches yet another food crisis unfold, 
both the government and its development partners are 
asking why this keeps happening, and why Malawi's economy 
remains stalled.  One of the many answers to this 
complicated question is the absence of a modern land 
policy.  Malawi's failure to push through a land reform 
program has kept the land and the people who work it 
locked in the world's economic basement.  A legacy system 
of traditional and colonial land use has kept land from 
being used productively because it has forestalled 
agricultural reform, land consolidation, and economic 
specialization.  As in other parts of Africa, the 
traditional land system has also kept out a formal land 
registry, which, by allowing landowners to leverage their 
real property, would inject badly needed capital into the 
economy. 
 
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Colonial and Traditional Legacies 
--------------------------------- 
 
3. The land problem in Malawi has two principal 
dimensions.  The first, higher-profile dimension, is a 
legacy of the colonial era.  In common with other 
southern African countries, Malawi inherited a rural 
settlement structure in which foreign farmers held some 
of the most fertile and well-watered lands. The 
concentration of these large freehold estates in the 
Southern Region, and subsequent expansion of estate 
agriculture after independence, skewed the distribution 
of freeholds, particularly in the heavily populated 
south.  This disproportionate ownership (16 percent of 
Malawi's arable land is under tea, tobacco, and sugar 
estates) has been a source of increasing friction between 
the estates and the local population because of 
population pressure on the non-estate lands.  The 
scattered instances of land encroachment in Malawi have 
occurred mostly in the southern districts. 
 
4. The second dimension is both subtler and more 
damaging: the persistent role of traditional chiefs in 
administering "customary" land has prevented a formal 
system of titles and land tenure.  While the public 
technically owns all except freehold land, local village 
headmen and chiefs control the land in their areas.  They 
award use of the lands according to custom and whim.  The 
system is not backed by any formal registry, and tenure 
rights are a continuing problem, particularly for widowed 
and divorced women and their families.  The chiefs' 
control over land is their main source of income and 
authority, which they are loathe to relinquish; its 
informal nature prevents consolidation through sale, 
financial leveraging (borrowing against the land for 
improvements), and agricultural innovation (owing to the 
small size of individual holdings). 
 
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Malawi's Land Reform Program 
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5. Malawi has operated without a comprehensive land 
policy since independence. A land reform process started 
with a presidential Commission in 1996, and the 
government drafted and approved a national land policy 
(NLP) in January 2002.  The NLP's goal is to provide a 
framework for land administration that will ensure tenure 
security and equitable access to land.  Shortly after 
approving the NLP, the government undertook a land reform 
 
LILONGWE 00001018  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
program, based on the NLP.  Implementation of the land 
reform program has depended on the fleeting availability 
of outside funding.  The initial efforts over the past 
three years have focused on a few thematic areas: public 
awareness; land access, tenure security and productivity; 
customary land reform; capacity building; and land law 
reform. 
 
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Public Awareness 
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6. The public awareness strategy seeks to create 
grassroots awareness about the National Land Policy and 
its implications for people's livelihoods. Completed work 
includes stakeholder meetings with civil society, 
traditional authorities, and news media.  Yet to be done 
are production of marketing materials, capacity building 
at district and regional levels, and formulation of 
participatory drama and radio listening clubs. In the 
absence of further DFID financing, no money is available 
to complete this work. 
 
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Land Access, Tenure Security and Productivity 
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7. The goal under this theme is to decentralize land 
administration and facilitate land acquisition among the 
landless and land-poor in Mulanje, Thyolo, Mangochi and 
Machinga Districts (i.e., in the midst of the large 
southern estates). Funded mainly by the World Bank, the 
strategy seeks to set up a "willing buyer/willing seller" 
market to buy idle estate lands, as well as provide a 
local point of presence for land administration 
authorities.  Ultimately, this project aims to improve 
access to land for about 15,000 rural poor in the pilot 
districts.  At this writing, the first few transactions 
have taken place, and resettlement is in process.  Other 
land buys are awaiting successful resettlement of the 
first groups. 
 
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Customary Land Reform 
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8. This project is to regularize customary land tenure, 
improve access and encourage sustainable use. The African 
Development Bank has provided funding for the project's 
preparatory activities. 
 
9. Customary land rights are closely connected to ethnic 
identity and to traditional authorities. Access to land 
is reached through kinship in a genealogical map, with 
families and individuals being allocated exclusive fee 
simple usufruct in perpetuity subject only to effective 
utilization.  However, the fundamental ownership, though 
technically the public's, in practice remains with 
traditional authorities.  The NLP proposes to consolidate 
customary land rights so that individuals have a private 
legal right to the land under their cultivation. 
 
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Capacity Building 
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10. The capacity building strategy is one of the most 
important components of the reform program. This activity 
seeks to strengthen institutional capacity for 
implementating the program. This activity will establish 
a Technical Land Services Secretariat (TLSS), train 
various cadres of land administration staff, establish a 
measurement and evaluation system, and establish a 
computerised financial management system. Project 
implementation has started with training 14 surveyors and 
60 certified land administrators. 
 
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Land Law Reform 
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11. Land administration and management are governed by 
several key statutes developed before and soon after 
independence (1964).  These laws are now badly out of 
date, and the NLP recommended a review of the legal and 
institutional structures to suit current constitutional 
requirements and democratic principles. The strategy is 
 
LILONGWE 00001018  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
to review the existing land legislation and formulate a 
new legislative framework that aligns with the 
Constitution and with international law.  A Special Law 
Commission on Land Law Reform has prepared a draft land 
law report and begun regional consultations. The 
commission plans to complete consultations and submit a 
final draft to Parliament in February or March 2006. 
 
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Comment: Lack of Enthusiasm and Political Muscle 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
12. Neither the past nor the current administration has 
been enthusiastic about pushing the land reform agenda, 
and the government has inched forward only when an 
outside donor has provided funding.  Technocrats within 
the government, including senior officials in the lands 
ministry, are often well versed in the arguments for land 
reform, and indeed some of them have quoted Hernando de 
Soto to us.  Given the limited resources they have to 
work with, they have set up an admirable program and made 
a good, though small, start.  On the political level, 
though, land reform is entirely problematic. 
 
13. The NLP proposes to consolidate customary land rights 
to give individuals a private legal right to the land 
under their cultivation. Local chiefs continue to resist 
this move, because land is the foundation of their power, 
and they are jealous of prerogatives that will 
necessarily dwindle in the face of progress.  Because 
traditional authorities are the base-level power brokers 
in Malawi, politicians are understandably reluctant to 
force the issue.  A powerful president with strong 
parliamentary support would have a hard time selling land 
reform in Malawi; the current president, who is 
struggling against a hostile parliamentary opposition, is 
unlikely to make a serious effort.  Up to now, he has 
shown no signs of wanting to. 
 
EASTHAM