Somalia - Land Governance Country Profile

7. Summary of Challenges, Gaps, Conflicts and Duplications

There are a number of challenges and gaps that affect land governance in Somalia. The major ones are as follows:

• Land and property relations are governed by three different sets of legal regimes. Western law, customary law and Sharia/Islamic law. These legal regimes have been a source of confusion when operating alongside other types of tenures;

• There is no national institution to manage land;

• There is insecurity of tenure smallholders because the granting of titles to outsiders has undermined security of tenure of most of the smallholders in the irrigated schemes;

• Eradicating of the legitimacy of customary land tenure and making state leasehold title the only legal means of claiming land rights has tipped the balance of tenure claims in favor of those with privileged access to the mechanisms of registration. Under the statutory tenure system the rights of individual farmers and pastoralists were diminished.

• The appropriation of all land to the state has led to consolidation of governmental power over individual interests. As a result, Somali farmers and pastoralists have lost control over their land to the government-created village council, which replaced the community leaders;

• There are clan conflicts over natural resources which is a most serious obstacle to democratization and establishment of stable governance;

• Although women are not prohibited from inheriting, purchasing and otherwise acquiring land independent of their husbands under the community-based tenure system, most women especially in the Bay Region of Southern Somalia) do not hold title to their own land since they are guaranteed access rights to the land of their husbands or brothers.

• The legal system tenure jeopardizes the rights of women by allowing only one concession holder per household, since titles were almost always issued in the husband’s name;

• Most women register their lands in the names of brothers or sons due to cultural factors that restrict their involvement.