Reform land administration systems — Inusah Fuseini
Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, has called on African countries to reform their land administration systems through the adoption of appropriate technologies and techniques.
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He said they must gradually do away with the outdated cultural practices which impacted negatively on land administration.
He described as unfortunate and unacceptable the fact that only 10 per cent of Africa’s rural land was registered, with the remaining 90 per cent undocumented.
The situation, he explained, had contributed largely to the low agricultural production levels in Africa, in spite of the fact that the continent had over 202 million hectares of land, constituting half of the world’s total holdings of uncultivated fertile land.
Alhaji Fuseini was speaking at the opening of a joint World Bank -CIDA and Government of Ghana implementation support mission of the second Land Adminstration Project in Accra.
Alhaji Fuseini said that reality had given rise to land grabbing, expropriation without fair compensation and corruption, with women farmers, major breadwinners of families, as the hardest hit.
The minister highlighted the strong commitment of the government towards eradicating racial, gender and geographic inequalities as it strived for the achievement of sustained and shared economic growth and opportunities through affirmative actions.
He expressed delight that the Land Administration Project (LAP-2) had also been extended to play a major role in the Ghana Commercial Agricultural Project (G-CAP), whose objectives included poverty reduction and food security.
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In his remarks, Mr Tchale Hardwick, the World Bank’s Task Team Leader for LAP-2 and leader of the World Bank/CIDA team, expressed the hope that the National spatial development infrastructure (NDSI) Policy and the land information system (LIS), being pursued by the government under LAP-2, would provide the required infrastructure for the adoption of the appropriate technologies in natural resource management in Ghana.
He said the land administration reform in Africa was high on the agenda of the World Bank because the continent continued to grapple with the challenges of inequality of land ownership amidst disputes and rising tensions which did not augur well for socio-economic development.
In his introductory remarks, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Prof. Bruce Banoeng-Yakubo, commended the World Bank and the Canadian International Development Agency for funding Ghana’s land administration project.