Accra, Dec.10, GNA – Participants at the just-ended 2022 National Land Conference have affirmed to establish a multi-stakeholder platform, involving key players in the land and natural resources sectors, to monitor the implementation of the recommendations.
In a communique issued at the end of the four-day conference in Accra on Friday, the participants called on the Government to help address the challenges in the land administration sector.
Read by Dr Wordsworth Odame Larbi, a Member of the Steering Committee, the communique called for the prioritisation of the systematic surveying and mapping of customary, state land, and boundaries of metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to reduce the land ownership disputes in the country.
It pledged to support the government’s transformation agenda of the land sector and its efforts to implement the provisions in the Land Act, 2020, (Act 1036) and the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, 2016, (Act 925).
The communique called on the government to ensure a comprehensive programme for the registration of land titles as mandated by the 1992 Constitution and the Land Act, 2020 (Act 1036).
There was the need for large, medium and small-scale mapping to facilitate land use planning and spatial development for rapid economic development.
There should be seamless collaboration between landowners and metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies, who should commit more funds from their internally generated funds towards spatial planning and development.
The government should facilitate prompt action towards the development of regulations of the Land Act and a Land Act implementation strategy, it said.
Adequate resources must be provided for the implementation/enforcement of the land laws, land use planning laws and spatial development laws.
The communique said efforts should be geared towards the completion of the land administration system’s digitalisation as well as the establishment and strengthening of customary land secretariats to effectively support customary land administration.
It called on the government to review the formula for disbursing customary land revenue to provide more resources to landowners to sustain customary land administration.
Stakeholders in the land sector (public, customary, private, academia, NGOs) must be supported to actively educate the citizenry on land related issues.
The communique urged the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to recognise the existence and operations of the Customary Land Secretariates as an extension of the land administration infrastructure and work with them to improve land administration in their various assemblies.
The government should convene a national land conference every two years for effective assessment of the work done by the multi-stakeholder platform and provide opportunity for national level dialogue to improve the functioning of the land and other natural resources sectors.
The 1999 National Land Policy must also be reviewed to take on board the new challenges and emerging issues of the sector, the communique said.
Mr Benito Owusu-Bio, a Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources in charge of Lands and Forestry, received the communique on behalf of the government.
He pledged to work collaboratively with all relevant stakeholders to ensure prompt and effective implementation of the recommendations.
Participants included land professionals, representatives of the land sector agencies, academia, Parliamentary Select Committee on Lands and Forestry, traditional authorities, development partners and civil society organisations.
GNA