President Festus Mogae ~
For resisting the temptation to rule for two more terms although the option existed; for stepping down from office 18 months before the end of your final term; for leading Botswana through a peaceful democratic transition, despite the problems that dogged your rule, you are my hero.
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The National Land Use Policy (inexplicably dated May 2007 althought it was only released last week) is possibly the most unimaginative government strategy I have ever read. It was supposed to be groundbreaking considering it is the first of its kind since independence, but it is generic, simplistic and mind-numbingly boring. While it is a solid strategy, it contains little more than the obvious – harmonize land laws, protect the environment, strengthen land planning, better management of public land, etc.
The National Land Use Policy is based on almost colonial attitudes towards development in Uganda. It’s fixated on agriculture as the mainstay of the economy and even though it recognizes the strain on natural resources caused by Uganda’s wildly growing population, it doesn’t give any novel guidelines on how the country should plan for this. “Promote and encourage the development of adequate and appropriate shelter for all,” it says. “Integrate the provision of basic infrastructure and services in human settlements.”
Look, I’m no a development specialist or resource planning expert and if I listed the things of which I am ignorant, it would take a decade. I am a self-confessed Philistine and my knowledge of the economic is pedestrian at best. But still, I expected more from the much-anticipated National Land Use Policy.
For instance, I hoped the policy would deal with the use of land around the numerous lakes and rivers which cover almost a third of the country. With a considerable percentage of the population living around and dependent on these water bodies, I hoped that the policy would address land use in these areas and the increasing strain on the dilapidated systems. However, this is what it proposed:
Policy Statement 18
To protect and maintain all water sources and catchments in the country.
That’s about it.
The Land Use Policy doesn’t really appear to have any particular links with Uganda’s development strategy. While I don’t want to discount the ‘hours of work’ put into it, it almost appears to be a duplicate of land use policies from around the world that are widely available through a simple search on the internet. Cognizant of the fact that agriculture it is responsible for almost half the GDP and 88 percent of Ugandans are subsistence farmers, there is little to reflect Government’s push to increase industry and manufacturing, mining and tourism.
I was under the assumption that the policy was intended to guide the operation of the development control systems and to facilitate the development decisions. I thought it would help achieve the vision for the development of Uganda in the future. I wanted to hear more about proposed multiple uses of land, deliberate allocation of land for settlement needs, balancing regional land development and so on.
Still, kudos to the Ministry of Lands for the new policy. Now here’s to the hope that it will mean something for Uganda and won’t follow in the steps of the much ignored National ICT Policy, the National Policy for the Conservation and Management of Wetlands, the National Environmental Management Policy for Uganda and the National Water Policy.
