A Narrative on Land Law Reform in Uganda

This paper was written for and presented at a Lincoln Institute course titled, “Comparative Policy Perspectives on Urban Land Market Reform in Eastern Europe, Southern Africa and Latin America,” held July 7-9, 1998.

In 1998, the Uganda government enacted the Land Act of Uganda, an important piece of legislation that launched a land reform aid project that same year. The project in question was entitled Securing Sustainable Livelihoods through Land Tenure Reform (generally referred to as the Land Act Implementation Project). It was a 15-month exercise, funded by the Department for International Development (DfID) of the British government and designed to assist the government of Uganda to begin the process of implementing its Land Act. The author had assisted in drafting the act in 1998 and was invited to become the senior technical adviser to the project in 1999. He worked with the project for one year, from April 1999 to late March 2000. This chapter is based on the author’s experiences in his advisory role.