By STANSLOUS NGOSA –
THE Zambia Land Alliance (ZLA) has urged citizens to submit to the ongoing District Land Policy consultative meetings on what should be contained in the document that is currently under formulation.
The district consultative meetings, are in Eastern Province before moving to other parts of the country, where the citizenry should make submissions to the formulation of the land policy.
ZLA executive director Nsama Chikolwa said in an interview yesterday that people should participate in developing a comprehensive land policy framework to promote sustainable land management and national growth.
“The lack of a clearly defined land policy framework has posed challenges in land administration, hence the need for citizens to ensure they participate in the process so that a good document can be formulated,” Ms Chikolwa said.
Her organisation, which is spearheading the consultative process, desired to see that the new land policy promoted security of tenure for customary land and prevented displacement of local communities in rural areas.
ZLA is a local network of Civil Society Organisations involved in the advocacy of appropriate land governance in the country. The organisation promotes secure access, ownership and control over land through lobbying and advocacy, research and community participation.
Ms Chikolwa said the policy should address concerns such as conflicts over chiefdom boundaries that had continued as this could negatively impact on the economic growth of the country.
She said there was need to ensure compliance by land developers and all land users for human settlement and agriculture.
Ms Chikolwa said the formulation of a land policy would remove red tape in the land acquisition process to enable vulnerable groups, especially women and youths have access to land.
“ZLA believes that customary land tenure should continue to exist.  As such there is need to clearly define how customary land should be administered, create checks and balances in the whole system and provide opportunities for people who own land under customary tenure to be able to get affordable legally recognised documentation at the local level,” she said.