Rwandans prove they are landowners

Millions of poor Rwandans will for the first time be given papers to prove they own their land under a pioneering British-funded scheme aimed at ending dangerous disputes. Women in particular will get a better deal out of a £20m project to give all Rwanda’s landowners official title deeds.

Launched in the capital, Kigali, yesterday, the UK funded national scheme will for the first time give legal property rights to up to a million Rwandan households that hold land under an informal system. Land tensions in the crowded country Africa’s most densely populated nation are believed to have played an underlying role in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 when an estimated 800,000 people were killed. Women have most to gain from the Department for International Development (DFID) national registration drive after anew law in 2005 granted wives equal land rights to their husbands. And titles will be drawn up in the name of both husband and wife.

The genocide left many widows, who will now be able to prove their land ownership and eventually pass the titles to their children."For the first time, men and women in Rwanda will be able to defend their land rights through the law courts, giving them the peace of mind to invest in their farms and build their businesses," said Mike Foster, international development minister. For the past three years DFID has funded a trial land registration programme, and it is hoped that a national rollout will allow people to safely buy and sell property and raise loans using the title deeds as collateral. As part of the new programme, staff from Rwanda's National Land Centre will travel to every village in the country over the next two years to set up volunteer committees and catalogue land claims. After speaking to landowners, a land ownership map of the whole country will be drawn up using satellite imagery.When the maps are published, local people will have a month to lodge any complaints in public hearings. In the trial programme, only five per cent of the land rights were disputed, said DFID.

The UK has pledged £460m over the next decade to help reduce the 60% poverty level. The country experienced Africa's worst genocide in modern times, and its recovery was marred when it intervened in the conflict in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.But now it is trying to shake off its image associated with the 1994 state-sponsored genocide; the government argues the country is now stable. When Rwanda became independent it kept Belgian land rules under which unoccupied land belonged to the state. Land sales had to be approved by the government.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children