5
policies changed
3
practices changed
40%
Women in steering committee
Land Rights in DR Congo
Land is both an essential component of Congolese communities' identities and necessary for survival. In the DRC, the current land tenure system stems from a 1973 law that gives all power to the Congolese state as the land's owner. Under it, the state can allocate land for conservation, real estate development, construction in urbanisation programmes, or make land available to public or private investors. However, the law does not establish the state's role in managing rural land, which continues to be governed by local customs and managed by customary authorities.
The absence of legal mechanisms jeopardises both the security of clans' (which have traditionally controlled the land) land rights and the land usage rights of farmers seeking to harvest clan-controlled land. In East DRC, armed conflicts exacerbate the insecurity of land tenure. The land still available in that region is an extremely coveted resource as vast swathes of it are delimited as national parks or belong to large landowners.
