‘We Owned the Land Before the State Was Established’: The State, Traditional Authorities, and Land Policy in Africa

Abstract This chapter looks at the land policy reform challenges in Africa, focusing on the struggle between the state and traditional leaders over the control of customary land. The governance of customary land is one of the most contentious land issues in Africa. As many African governments seek to reform land policies in order to respond to the challenges of population growth and urbanisation leading to the increasing demand for land, the proposed reforms are often challenged by traditional leaders who see the reforms as a ploy to undermine their authority over customary land. It is argued in this chapter that, while the state sometimes attempts to co-opt traditional leaders into cooperating with it, this alliance often does not hold for long, especially when traditional leaders sense that their interests are being undermined by proposed land policy reforms. Drawing from the Zambian experience, the chapter shows that although the state, as a sovereign entity, has the authority over all land under its territory, the situation is complicated by the fact that traditional leaders also assert authority over customary land. This situation sometimes leads to contestations that often frustrate the formulation and implementation of land policy reforms.