Kirema Land Action Programme: A model for integrated land reform

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OPINION

By Baker Mugaino

Uganda’s land tenure system remains central to the country’s socio‑economic transformation agenda.

Despite a strong legal framework under the Land Act, the practical implementation of tenure security, particularly through the Land Fund, continues to suffer from financial, operational, and structural inefficiencies.

The Kirema Land Action Programme (KLAP) in Nakaseke District, designed around a nucleus outgrower model and anchored on public-private collaboration, demonstrates an effective and scalable alternative for addressing longstanding gaps in Uganda’s land administration landscape.

Introduction

Land remains one of Uganda’s most strategic resources, underpinning livelihoods, investment, and national development, yet the country’s land tenure challenges continue to constrain agricultural productivity, rural transformation, and social stability.

The Land Fund, established to secure tenure for bonafide and lawful occupants, was expected to address historical land injustices and promote equitable land access. However, the Fund’s performance over the past two decades has been mixed.

While it has facilitated the acquisition of over 126,000 hectares and the issuance of thousands of titles, its impact has been undermined by persistent underfunding, an overwhelming backlog of compensation claims, and weak linkages between titling and economic empowerment.

KLAP, implemented in Nakaseke District, offers a compelling case study of how Uganda can rethink land tenure reform by integrating private sector participation, structured land sharing, and a nucleus-outgrower model.

KLAP transformed a potentially volatile land tenure situation into a productive, inclusive, and economically viable agricultural ecosystem. KLAP is a viable template for modernising the Land Fund, improving governance, and embedding proactive dispute prevention mechanisms within the Land Act.

Limitations of Land fund in the Existing Legal Framework

The main aim of the Land Fund is to acquire land for regularising occupancy and safeguarding vulnerable households, which still remains justified.

Section 42 of the Land Act provides clear procedures for purchasing land, compensating those affected and issuing titles to occupants. However, putting these rules into practice has faced practical challenges. The biggest hurdle is insufficient funding: just 29% of the compensation claims assessed have been paid, leaving over a trillion Ugandan shillings still owed.

This financial shortfall complicates efforts to settle tenure disputes, pay landlords, and facilitate the broader titling process.

The Land Act provides measures like certificates of occupancy and purchase rights, but its dispute resolution is mainly reactive. Mediation and negotiation are optional, with few productivity incentives.

As a result, occupants often remain as subsistence farmers because land security alone does not ensure economic progress.

These weaknesses highlight a critical policy gap: Uganda’s land tenure reforms have historically emphasised legal rights and compensation mechanisms, but have not adequately connected land security to productivity, investment, and rural enterprise development. This disconnect is where KLAP offers invaluable insight.

KLAP: A practical demonstration of integrated land reform

KLAP was conceived in response to a potentially contentious situation involving a privately owned 824-acre estate in Semuto sub‑county, Nakaseke District. The estate had long hosted 177 bibanja‑holding families facing uncertainty and risk of eviction.

Through a coordinated partnership led by Namunkekera Agro‑Processing Industries Ltd (NAPIL), Heritage Farm Kirema Ltd, and Land Solutions Uganda Ltd, KLAP adopted a collaborative approach that avoided displacement and instead conceptualised the estate as a nucleus outgrower ecosystem.

In 2015, the Uganda Land Commission purchased 600 acres, representing 73% of the land from NAPIL using Land Fund resources. This portion was allocated to occupants, eventually benefiting 301 individuals through the issuance of freehold titles handed over by the President in 2018.

The remaining 224 acres were retained as a professionally managed nucleus farm responsible for agricultural training, extension services, and market coordination.

KLAP’s strength lies in its ability to simultaneously resolve tenure insecurity and stimulate rural productivity.

With secure titles, beneficiaries began investing in permanent homes and perennial crops, accessing credit, and adopting modern farming practices.

The nucleus farm serves as a practical demonstration centre with over 100 acres of CWD‑resistant coffee, extensive banana intercropping, solar‑powered irrigation systems, livestock, nurseries, and daily extension services.

The distribution of over 16,000 improved seedlings significantly boosted the adoption of commercial agriculture.

The model also aligned naturally with national initiatives, including Operation Wealth Creation (OWC), for input distribution, the Parish Development Model (PDM) for financing and community mobilisation, and NDP IV’s focus on agro‑industrialisation.

Furthermore, KLAP established robust governance mechanisms. An eight‑member land use committee provided oversight and monitoring, while a re‑survey in 2025 ensured boundary integrity and minimised disputes. This governance structure helped maintain community trust and accountability, which is often a missing element in land reform initiatives.

KLAP’s outcomes and its distinctive value proposition

By 2025, the impact of KLAP was evident. Beneficiaries had transitioned from subsistence to commercial farming, with expanded coffee and banana acreage, diversified incomes, and improved household food security.

Youth involvement in agricultural enterprises increased, reducing idleness and supporting broader rural rejuvenation. Cultural and historical sites within the area were preserved and upgraded, contributing to a nascent agro‑tourism sector.

KLAP is defined by its integration of a private sector driven nucleus farm. This structure ensures continuous technical support, dependable market access, and robust professional farm management.

Additionally, it creates a revenue-generating hub that has the potential to sustain the Land Fund, particularly if a loan-based method was implemented.

Consequently, this model combines equity, economic feasibility, and administrative effectiveness, offering a solution well-suited to Uganda’s socio-economic environment.

Reforming the Land Fund: Lessons from the Kirema experience

A key lesson from KLAP is that the Land Fund must evolve beyond a compensation driven mechanism. A modernised Land Fund should operate as a strategic investment tool that enhances tenure security with productivity, integrates private sector financing, and supports long-term economic transformation.

By using a nucleus outgrower model for future acquisitions, each project could have its own built-in productivity driver rather than simply distributing titles.

Collaborating with private sector partners could ease initial financial pressures and strengthen technical expertise.

Connecting land titles to inputs, training opportunities, and assured markets would help beneficiaries achieve economic stability. Additionally, sustainable cost recovery options such as low-interest revolving loans or structured contributions from beneficiaries once their ventures become commercially viable could help transform the Fund from an ongoing cost centre into a partly self-supporting institution. Moreover, systematic monitoring, post‑acquisition verification, and digitisation of land records would strengthen accountability and institutional efficiency. Establishing land banks for agro‑processing and industrial development would also enhance economic returns and support Uganda’s broader industrialisation agenda.

Enhancing the Land Act through embedding structured negotiation and land pooling arrangements

While operational reforms are necessary, the sustainability of land reform ultimately depends on strengthening the legal framework.

The Land Act should be revised to institutionalise the collaborative approach seen in KLAP. Adding a section on creative solutions like land sharing, partial buyouts, and joint ventures with lawful occupants, which could expand options for land use re-planning, organised living, and collective farming.

Amending Section 36 to explicitly allow flexibility for loans to enable nucleus outgrower structures, while establishing a new provision for voluntary land pooling that would support consolidation of fragmented holdings for collective agricultural or infrastructural development, if there is majority approval and transparent benefit‑sharing plans with the lawful occupants. This would align public expenditure with productivity and conflict prevention goals.

Conclusion

The KLAP stands as a compelling illustration of how Uganda can rethink land reform to achieve both social equity and economic transformation. KLAP demonstrates that secure tenure is most effective when coupled with structured negotiation, private-sector collaboration, and strong productivity incentives.

It reveals that land reform must move beyond compensatory frameworks toward integrated models that foster enterprise, investment, and community development.

By modernising the Land Fund, strengthening the Land Act, and institutionalising the principles underpinning KLAP, Uganda can translate isolated successes into a scalable national strategy.

Such reforms would advance the objectives of NDP IV, contribute to Vision 2040’s aspirations for a transformed society, and unlock the full potential of Uganda’s land resources for inclusive and sustainable development.

The writer is the Commissioner for Land Registration in the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development