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SUMMARY
Before independence, all land in the country was communal land. During the
colonial rule land was apportioned into customary, crown land and freehold land to
cater for the settler’s land needs as well. Over the years both crown land and
freehold were converted to customary land moving from 49% in 1966 to about 72%
now. After independence, crown land was converted into state land slightly
changing the tenure system. Customary land was then allocated by Chiefs until 3
years later (1968) when the mandate was transferred to new more democratic
institutions.
In a situation where people co-exist with cattle, wildlife and lately the environment,
there will be forever land use conflicts requiring effective land management
principles. Botswana was alert to these conflicts on constant basis as demonstrated
by policy interventions later in the discussion. However, as the country developed,
new concepts of land use emerged due to cultural adjustments and change in tastes
and preference. In this context, the emerging issues are rural poverty, land rights
and land use planning.
The issues have been the subject of debate in the last ten years and being addressed
through policy reviews, guidelines and public education programmes. This paper
discusses some of the issues and how they are being resolved.
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INTRODUCTION
The size of the country is approximately 580 000 square kilometers which is
densely populated in the east and traversed by a desert in the west. The land
tenure system comprises of customary (72%), state land (24%) and freehold
being about 4%. At independence (1966), customary land was estimated at
49% and has increased progressively through conversion of state land and
gradual acquisition and tribalisation of freehold farms. Indeed, the majority
of our people in the rural areas survive on this tenure mostly through
subsistence farming.
At about the same time, Botswana was in the lowest band of the poorest
countries in Africa and the dominant economic activity was agriculture with
about 40% contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, as
the country is well endowed with natural resources like minerals, wildlife
and very limited fertile land for cultivation, the agricultural sector
contribution to the GDP declined drastically to about 3% now. The economy
was then propelled first by the mining sector and subsequently by the
tourism industry. Further efforts were made to diversify the economy to
other sectors like manufacturing and there are positive signs in that regard.
Development planning aims to transform the structure and level of economic
and social activities to achieve the goals that the country wants and values.
The interaction of people, agriculture and wildlife brings about the friction
of space which requires optimal decisions about limited resources but also
issues of the environment. It is this friction of space that requires prudent
land management principles and robust land policy is obviously paramount.
There is the natural struggle for space; settlements encroach into fertile
agricultural land, cattle ranching into wildlife management areas. Up until
now, the friction is on communal land which is mistakenly regarded as
reserve for future needs. These constitute real issues for policy consideration
especially against the background of a country blighted by extreme dry
weather conditions.
As the economy progressed, various subordinate land related conflicts
magnified calling for even a greater duty of care. The issues were mainly
rural poverty, land use conflicts, degradation of the range land, individual
land rights, land markets, affordability, transparency etc. The daunting task
is to harmornise the right to space by all things within the limits of what
nature can afford. If we can get the balance right on the conflicting interests,
then the rest of the issues will be less cumbersome and this is the essence
of our land policy.
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MILESTONES IN BOTSWANA LAND POLICY
2.1.0
The management of land has been a priority for Botswana since
independence as demonstrated by the legal, institutional and policy
frameworks that were put in place. There has been a notable economic
progress in this country which brought about new concepts in land
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development, land rights and land management. The economic progress has
inevitably led to the emergence of a number of land management issues that
needed to be addressed. The relevance of some laws and structures became
questionable. Our cultural, economic and social values influenced the
direction of the land management system – it is only best if it serves the
national aspirations. This is the basis of the past and continuing careful
reviews of the land policy, albeit, along sectoral lines. The product of such
an approach is the number of policy and legal documents that are now being
discussed.
2.1.1 Tribal Land Act 1968
There can never have been a better time to relook at the administration of
customary land which was by far the largest tenure. In the beginning, this
land was administered and allocated at the Chiefs’ pleasure. To any society,
the democratization of land management to enhance accountability and
improve transparency to achieve equitable distribution is most desirable.
Much as all people were entitled to land for residence, grazing and
ploughing, some subjects were closer to the master than others and enjoyed
some special favours. The Act, therefore, introduced Land Boards to
manage this important resource and provided for procedures to be followed
in managing such a resource.
2.1.2 White Paper No 2 of 1975: Tribal Grazing Land Policy.
At independence, agriculture posed as the mainstay of the economy but
lacked any strategic guidance. Almost every Motswana kept some lifestock
at the cattle post and grazed communually. Any improvement on lifestock
rearing would have a direct impact on the lifes of rural Botswana. The
policy, therefore, sought to commercialise cattle ranching and, at the same
time, improve management of range land by removing large herds of cattle
from communal grazing.
While it was expected that large cattle owners would relocate to commercial
ranches and ease pressure on communal land, this did not happen. Some big
farmers also had boreholes in communal land and there was no law that
could now preclude them from dual grazing. It also became apparent that
quality grazing land was limited and, therefore, the number of ranches
created was also limited in numbers to address equity issues.
2.1.3 White Paper No.1 of 1985: National Land Tenure Policy
“If it is not broken, why fix it”. In 1983, the nation wanted to be informed if
the growing economy was being bottled by the tenure system and if any
adjustments were necessary. The President appointed a Commission to look
into the matter and in their wisdom, the Commissioners advised a careful
change responding to particular needs with specific tenure innovations.
Accordingly, the Policy provided for the amendment of the Tribal Land Act,
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introduced common law leases to specific land use types, endorsed the
operation of a transparent land allocation system together with issues of land
accessibility and affordability especially to targeted groups of people.
2.1.4 White Paper No.1 of 1986: Wildlife Conservation Policy
Tourism started haphazardly in the formative stage in the absence of
regulatory mechanism which resulted mostly in over-utilisation. The
objective of the policy was, therefore to encourage sustainable use and
provide economic opportunities. It advocated for the recognition of the
potential wildlife contribution to the wider economy in terms of its heritage
and aesthetics value and hence calling for preparation of the tourism master
plan to guide exploitation.
2.1.5 White Paper No.1 of 1990: Natural Conservation Policy
The strategy was brought to sensitise the nation to the importance of
conservation of the environment and to integrate environmental value with
economic development.
2.1.6 White Paper No.2 of 1990: Tourism Policy.
The policy was formulated to underscore the contribution of the tourism
industry in the wider economy and encourage sustainable use and
designation of commercial tourism activities as well as regulate such
activities. The policy provided for the Community Based Natural Resources
Management which is described as a major economic empowerment of the
rural communities in poverty alleviation and employment creation. The
programme stresses local ownership and capacity building through ecotourism so that local people have a stake in using the resources in a
sustainable way.
Further, the programme acknowledges that local
communities living with wildlife, veld and forest resources are important
custodians of their environment and those resources. Alongside this
programme, the community based strategy for rural development and the
national eco-tourism strategy were adopted. We are currently pushing the
CBNRM Policy through Parliament.
2.1.7 White Paper No.1 of 1991: National Policy on Agricultural Development.
The policy sought to improve agricultural production through provision of
secure and productive environment for farmers. It provided for fencing
boreholes in production zones and allocation of ranches to borehole owners.
This was somewhat an extension of the Tribal Grazing Land Policy
discussed above.
2.1.8 White Paper No.1 of 2000: National Housing Policy
The policy sets the framework for the provision of housing to both the
working population and the nation at large. Resources would be more
directed towards the targeted groups to achieve the basic housing needs.
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Provision of housing is considered as an instrument of economic
empowerment and poverty alleviation.
2.1.9 White Paper No.1 of 2002: National Master Plan for Arable Agricultural and
Dairy Development.
The emphasis is on securing and preserving scarce agricultural land
resources. Further, potential farmers would be identified and assisted with
basic facilities to prop up agricultural development.
2.1.10 White Paper No.3 of 2002: Revised National Policy for Rural Development
These policies sought to reduce poverty through the provision of
opportunities for income generation and involvement of Batswana in
economic development. Further, advocated for popular participation by
citizens in the development planning and project implementation as a broad
based strategy for rural development. These, together with others not
discussed here, have served the nation well over a period of time. It is
apparent, nevertheless, that some policies are bending to pressure and need
to be adapted and made more relevant to the changing economic situation.
There is currently a review of these policies with more emphasis on
harmonization, modernization and consolidation. The overall objectives of
the review are to:
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(a)
To ensure the protection and promotion of land rights. Factors that
may compromise access to land rights such as market forces, gender,
age, poverty or any that may hamper efforts towards such a
protection would be addressed.
(b)
Improve the land allocation system of all land and make it
predictable, transparent, reliable and consistent and timeous.
(c)
establish an up to date efficient and accessible land information
management system and
(d)
Promote compatible and best use of land and sustainable use of other
land related resources.
EMERGING TRENDS
With the passage of time, new issues emerged and could not adequately be
addressed by the existing policy framework. The issues included illicit land
dealings, equity in land distribution, land use conflicts, transfer of land rights
and land degradation. It is on this basis that a comprehensive review of the
land management framework was considered necessary. The selected
recommendations cover five broad categories being land allocation, land
rights and transfers, land management, communal land and land information
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system. There is no decision on the recommendations as yet and only
referenced as preferred policy principles.
3.1
Land Allocation
Land is a fountain of life for all living species and the good management
principle will facilitate access to land but limit the impact of cultural,
economic and physical activities that sustain life. In rationing land according
to demand, there is a greater call for a distributive mechanism that is fair,
equitable and transparent. The system of first come first serve is espoused as
most appropriate for residential land while all other non-residential uses are
disposed of through a tendering system. The approach complies strictly with
the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act which demands more
transparency in disposal of public land.
3.1.1
Residential land
Shelter is a basic human need and the government is committed to ensuring
that each citizen is guaranted a house. This is achieved through different
policy interventions but principally that the land cost is cushioned to be
more affordable to all citizens. As it is, the Government is in control of the
land delivery system and operates a graduated land pricing system such that
the low income target group acquires land at subsidised prices whilst
everybody else pays cost recovery at considerably less the market price.
Other policy considerations are:

to maintain the waiting list for residential and allocated on first come
first serve basis

To allocate a free customary grant to all citizens, charge subsidised
prices for urban land to low income and only costs to other groups.

Limit one customary grant to each eligible citizen and one state grant
in urban centres but except on very special circumstances.

All other additional land requirements would be obtained from the
private market.
3.1.2 Non-Residential land
Unlike residential land, businesses (trade, tourism or agriculture) denote
ability to pay as it is resource intensive. There will be no harm, therefore, to
ration the land through competition as a good proxy for demand. One of the
hallmarks of competition is that the disposal mode should be transparent.
The policy principle is, therefore, that there be:

Competitive bidding as a measure of commitment but priority will be
given to citizens.
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
As a diversification drive, some land be reserved for direct foreign
investment and allocated on direct grant.

Investment can either be direct or embrace local participation.

The land so allocated cannot be converted to other uses with out first
obtaining approval which may not be unreasonably withheld.
The highlights of the land allocation system are that there is price reduction
for residential land to all citizens and emphasis on citizen participation in
business ventures. What needs to be addressed is uncontrolled land
speculation by the very citizens being targeted for subsidies due to price
arbitrage and may lead to landlessness.
3.2
Land Rights
It is recognized and acknowledged that special segments of the society are
marginalized on property rights. The policy advocates that such groups are
provided with opportunities to ensure their inclusion in the economic
development of their country through allocation of land. Such groups
include women, ethic minorities, youth, orphans and the unemployed.
3.2.1 Women
They constitute the majority of the rural population and the strength of the
rural economy but their rights to land have been customarily subjected to
male dominance. The current HIV/AIDs phenomenon has greatly increased
the number of widows and orphans in the country. Some of these are
compelled to lead households and yet access to their deceased husbands and
parents properly has become a nightmare.
Generally, women have been regarded as second class citizens to their
husbands with regard to land rights. They have been precluded by custom to
register their land rights when married. Often financial institutions demand
authorization by husband when applying for loans. For a long time, land
rights will be registered in the name of the husband even if such rights
belong to a woman. However, there is now progress but much more needs
to be done to restore optimality.
3.2.2 Youth
The age of majority in this country is 21 years and it has been practice not to
allocate land rights to people under the age of majority. The contradiction is
that people can work and vote at elections below this age. When quizzed,
some land authorities acknowledged that they have been allocating land
below this age when the request was fully justified. The problem is that
there is no consistency as other land authorities were not bending at all.
The resolve is that land rights must be allocated below this age if it can be
shown that the applicant would have the means to develop the land.
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3.2.3 Ethnic Groups
Some of our communities have lived wild for time in memorial mainly as
hunters and gatherers but also in temporary small settlements. These people
have lost out on economic opportunities particularly land rights. As such,
they settle in communal land, and will forever have communal land rights
while the rest of the people acquire exclusive rights. Much as controlled
hunting and gathering may be sustainable, it is imperative that these people
acquire title to land and are not squeezed at will by cattle ranching, wildlife
management programmes and other economic activities.
3.2.4 Vulnerable groups
The Government has long acknowledged the plight of the low income
groups and established the Self Help Housing Agency (SHHA) to address
the concerns of this target group. The programme started in urban centres
by cushioning the cost of land and providing the building material loans.
The programme has been rolled -out to the districts but because land is free
there, it is more about building materials loan. The Government is
reviewing the programme with the view to increasing the loan amount,
repayment period and reducing the interest rate.
The poverty alleviation programme was recently launched to address
the concerns of the group below the SHHA threshold – unemployed. This
involves providing logistical support – funding, equipment and supervision
to identified groups who then manufacture building materials and generates
income for the group. The income is then used to start-up housing projects
by individual members.
3.3.0 Land Management
Rapid economic and population growth creates land use conflicts like
encroachment into arable land, arable into grazing and grazing into wildlife.
The ultimate effect is unsustainable resource utilisation and environmental
degradation. The principle would, therefore, be to put in place a
management framework that strengthens the control without necessarily
limiting the growth potential. The land management policy objectives would
necessarily guide, particularly, rural development through land use planning,
drive empowerment through decentralization, identify economic
opportunities, define property rights and provide land information for
decision making. The issues are being discussed though not in specific terms
and it is believed that, if they are orderly harmonized, they can mitigate the
impact of rural poverty in terms of job creation and income generation.
3.3.1 Land Use Planning
There is continued rural urban migration in search of economic opportunities
that put pressure on land and services. This is occasioned by development
bias towards urban enclaves and, if you like, neglect of the rural land
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especially infrastructure development. Planning, as a tool, can play an
important role in directing rural development especially in building investor
confidence. In order to enhance exploitation of natural resources, regional
plans will be prepared to inventorise resources and suggest policies and
strategies for their utilization. There is therefore a commitment to declare
more villages as planning areas and bring developments under statutory
control.
3.3.2 Agriculture
Agriculture has been the baseline of the economy since independence which
anchored subsistence living of the rural Batswana. The sector progressed
from subsistence to commercial and there was need for a policy change to
support the initiative. All citizens are entitled to a piece of land for
cultivation and communal rights to grazing. There is, however, a
widespread concern that good arable land is slowly taken away by
settlements and some controls are now necessary. Commercial ranching on
the other hand, started since the Tribal Grazing Land Policy in 1975 and
more land is being identified to demarcate ranches under the new National
Policy on Agricultural Development (NPAD). The concern on commercial
ranching is lack of proper management capacity and the incidence of dual
grazing. The recent agricultural policy is encouraging Batswana out in the
districts to consider leasing their land/fields as a source of revenue or
pooling their land together to attract government assistance and create
production zones. These are inexpensive programmes that can improve the
lives of the rural population. To give support to these initiatives, the
government provided policy guidelines as:

Presidential Directive CAB 1/1991 Fencing Policy

Presidential Directive CAB 18/2001 Agricultural Infrastructure
Development Initiative

Presidential Directive CAB 1/2002 Protection of fertile agricultural
land

As good agricultural land is limited guidelines will be developed to
guide on integrated farming and provide clarity in livestock, game
and cultivation
3.3.3 Wildlife Management
Wildlife Conservation Programmes currently occupy about 38% of the total
land mass in the form of national parks, game reserves and wildlife
management areas. Further, following the tourism master plan, concession
areas were designated and allocated to investors and communities. These
are important for conservation, empowerment and income generation. The
policy intervention is that:
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
All tourism concession areas will be advertised to enhance
transparency in land allocation.

Communities around the concession areas will be mobilized and
allocated under the Community Based Natural Resources
Management Programme (CBNRM)

Guidelines will be developed to guide the communities on the best
resource conservation and utilization.
3.3.4 Communal Land
This land is generally regarded as free for all causing a lot of congestion and
rangeland degradation. The situation is worsened by the management
vacuum which gives some people an advantage over the others. Communal
land is, nevertheless, a survival platform for grazing, timber, firewood,
thatching grass, herbs, hunting, gathering, and sand extraction etc to the
majority of Batswana. Some effort was dedicated to creating structures that
would ideally close on the management vacuum like:

Indigenous Vegetation Project is currently studying a management
structure to bring ownership of rangeland and its natural resources to
communities in the area. This is more like the CBNRM programme
discussed earlier except that this is management of indigenous
vegetation for the rehabilitation of degraded rangelands.
Communities will be given control for resource management and
exploitation over the designated areas.

There is a call for Community Based Property Rights to empower
local communities to take control of the areas around them. This is a
very old concept which worked quite well but abandoned where
Land Boards were created. The advantage would be in policing the
localities against unfair dealing especially dual grazing.
3.3.5 Land Information System
A systematic reorganization of land parcels throughout the country is good
for land management and a prerequisite for economic growth. For a long
time, urban land records were satisfactorily organized albeit in a manual
form because of robust cadastral system. Even then, information was based
at source like cadastre will be available at Department of Surveys and
Mapping, planning records at Department of Town and Regional Planning
whilst ownership registers are vested with the Deeds Registry. There is ever
greater demand for integration. The greatest deficit is the failure to record
and capture the existing customary land rights in any systematic form.
However, the Government is currently developing integrated land
management systems for both tribal land (TLIMS) and state land (SLIMS)
for the whole country. It is hoped that once the systems are developed, there
will be easier integration through creating interfaces with cadastral and
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mapping, planning, building controls, deeds registration and civil
registration.
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CONCLUSION
The discussion paper highlighted the main issues that needed policy
intervention. However, some remained and others are emerging in response
to change in tastes and preferences. It will be observed that gender, youth
and ethnicity arise due to cultural practice over a period of time and,
therefore, the concerned groups can be redressed without any difficulty.
Poverty reduction requires multi-pronged approach as it touches on
deprivation, denial, economics and the regulatory framework. Some policy
adjustments and programmes that were put in place by the Rural
Development Policy, the National Agricultural Policy, the Community
Based Resource Management Programmes and the Housing Policy are but
some of the commendable components of good governance in respect to
citizen empowerment.
It is a sound economic theory that local resource endowment needs to be
exploited in the local context to create growth poles with trickle down
neighbourhood effects. It will be sad to allow exploitation of wildlife from
elsewhere without meaningful local participation resulting in capital flight
and reducing local communities to mere economic spectators. The
regulatory framework should, nevertheless, be strengthened as otherwise
uncontrolled exploitation does not lead to sustainable and optimal use.
There is the propensity to consume more of one thing to extinction whilst all
other resources are under-utilised. The best land management practice
provide for aggressive local participation by strengthening individual land
rights and match with the capital base for joint venture developments. This
will assist in both skills and technology transfers to the local communities.
References
Tribal Land Act (1968)
Botswana Government (1975): Tribal Grazing Land Policy
Botswana Government (1985): Land Tenure Policy
Botswana Government (1986): Wildlife Conservation Policy
Botswana Government (1990): Natural Conservation Policy
Botswana Government (1990): Tourism Policy
Botswana Government (1991): National Policy on Agricultural Development
Botswana Government (2000): National Housing Policy
Botswana Government (2002): National Master Plan for Arable Agriculture and
Dairy Development
Botswana Government (2002): Revised National Policy for Rural Development
Botswana Government (2003): Report on the Review of Botswana Land Policy
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