This report is a summary of the proceedings of the Zambia Customary Land Management Research Symposium that was held at Mulungushi Conference Center on April 6 and 7, 2016. The meeting aimed to share research activities and outputs that were being undertaken in Zambia in support of improving customary land tenure, administration, and management.
The meeting was attended by participants drawn from various academic institutions, local authorities, representatives of traditional leaders, civil society organizations (CSOs), and development actors in Zambia. Specifically, the symposium served as a check-in for the Tenure Governance and Climate Change (TGCC) program’s work in Zambia supporting government, civil society, traditional authorities, and communities to communicate on land administration and governance.
Since July 2014, TGCC has supported systematic documentation of customary land in Eastern Province through the use of mobile technologies in coordination with traditional authorities and local CSOs. The program has also supported national land policy development through support to national consultations, as well as CSO consultations aimed at improving land tenure governance and administration.
The Zambia Customary Land Management Research Symposium was held in support of increasing understanding of customary land issues in a holistic fashion through empirical research. The platform served to promote communication among researchers, implementers and government representatives working to use data to inform policy on land tenure governance and administration in Zambia. In particular, it provided an opportunity to hear presentations on Zambia that had been shared at the World Bank’s Annual Land and Poverty Conference in March 2016.
The symposium was informed by presentations on technical research by researchers from various institutions on land tenure, governance, and administration. Technical presentations were complemented with plenary discussions to provide participants the opportunity to seek clarification and contribute to enriched understanding.