Uganda

Uganda’s formal legal framework contains important protections for women’s land rights. The Constitution prohibits discrimination and protects property rights. The Land Act invalidates customary practices that deny women, children, or persons with disabilities access to ownership, occupation, or use of land. It also provides for consent protections on family land and for women’s representation in land institutions. The Succession (Amendment) Act 2022 modernizes inheritance law and uses gender-inclusive terminology. [Constitution 1995; Land Act 1998 as amended, ss. 27 to 40; Succession (Amendment) Act 2022]

Implementation remains the central issue. Women’s rights are often mediated through marriage, kinship, household bargaining, widowhood, divorce, and customary authority. Where land is undocumented, women may have use rights that are socially recognized but difficult to prove against relatives, buyers, creditors, investors, or administrators. Where land is titled in a husband’s name or family male representative’s name, consent rules may not secure equal ownership or control. The National Land Policy recognizes this gap and calls for stronger protection of women’s ownership, inheritance, and rights before, during, and after marriage. [National Land Policy 2013]

Nationally comparable data on women’s land rights remain uneven. Some older literature and civil-society sources report very low levels of women’s recorded ownership, while more recent perception and documentation sources indicate variation by region, tenure type, marital status, and form of right. There is no single authoritative, recent national measure that fully captures women’s documented and undocumented rights across all tenure systems. This profile therefore treats women’s land-rights data as a knowledge gap and emphasizes the distinction between formal legal protections and effective tenure security. [National Land Policy 2013; PRINDEX; Oxfam and International Land Coalition 2022]

Uganda’s laws and policies do not always use the term Indigenous Peoples in the same way as international human rights institutions and Indigenous organizations, but minority and historically marginalized communities have significant land claims. The Batwa, Benet, Ik, pastoralist communities in Karamoja and elsewhere, and other local communities have experienced land loss or restrictions linked to protected areas, conservation, state projects, settlement schemes, investment, or administrative decisions. The National Land Policy recognizes the need to protect minority and pastoral-community land rights, but implementation remains uneven. [National Land Policy 2013; UOBDU v Attorney General and others 2021; IWGIA; Forest Peoples Programme]

The Batwa case is especially important. In United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda and others v Attorney General and others, the Constitutional Court recognized serious rights implications arising from the Batwa’s eviction from ancestral forest lands and the state’s responsibilities toward them. Available evidence suggests that remedies, restitution, compensation, livelihoods, and participation remain unresolved or only partially addressed. [UOBDU v Attorney General and others 2021; Forest Peoples Programme 2021]

The Benet community has also pursued long-running claims connected to Mount Elgon conservation and eviction. Civil-society and Indigenous-rights sources report that favorable legal recognition has not translated into secure restitution and protection in practice. Because implementation status varies by place and case, each claim should be verified against current court orders, government actions, and community evidence before detailed publication. [IWGIA; Amnesty International 2021; Norgrove and Hulme 2006]

Pastoral and agro-pastoral communities face distinctive tenure challenges because mobility, dry-season grazing, water access, migration routes, and common-property resources are often poorly captured by parcel-based administration. In Karamoja, protected areas, mineral interest, cross-border movement, insecurity, climate stress, and changing livelihood systems have made pastoral land governance particularly contested. [National Land Policy 2013; Niamir-Fuller 2001; Ide et al. 2014]

Land disputes in Uganda arise from multiple sources: inheritance and family disputes; boundary uncertainty; landlord-tenant conflicts on mailo and registered land; post-conflict return; refugee settlement and host-community pressure; pastoral mobility; protected-area restrictions; compulsory acquisition; investment projects; oil and mining; urban expansion; fraud; and overlapping institutional mandates. Available evidence indicates that land disputes are not isolated technical problems but are connected to wider questions of authority, citizenship, identity, and economic opportunity. [National Land Policy 2013; Whyte, Gausset, and Henriques 2013; Kandel 2016]

Northern Uganda remains a core example of conflict-linked land insecurity. The end of active conflict did not end land disputes. Return from camps created conflicts over inherited land, clan boundaries, abandoned parcels, widows’ rights, intra-family claims, and allegations of elite and military land grabbing. Traditional mechanisms remain important, but they may lack authority, inclusiveness, gender sensitivity, or enforceability where disputes involve outsiders, state actors, investors, or multiple legal systems. [Whyte, Gausset, and Henriques 2013; Kandel 2016]

Kibaale, Bunyoro, and western Uganda have long-running disputes shaped by lost-county claims, migration, settlement schemes, kingdom politics, forests, oil, and land grabbing. These disputes require careful conflict-sensitive treatment because ethnic, regional, and historical claims can be politically charged. [Espeland 2006; National Land Policy 2013]

Compulsory acquisition remains contested. Uganda’s constitutional framework requires public purpose and prompt, fair, and adequate compensation, and courts have emphasized compensation before possession. In practice, affected households may face valuation disputes, delays, inadequate livelihood restoration, weak access to courts, and limited bargaining power. Pending valuation reform should be monitored, but it should not be treated as enacted law until officially adopted. [Constitution 1995, art. 26; Land Acquisition Act 1965; UNRA v. Irumba; Parliament of Uganda 2025]

Recent advocacy and media reports continue to document illegal evictions and land grabbing. Because these reports often involve active disputes and named actors, this profile treats them as evidence of governance risk rather than final legal findings unless confirmed by courts, official inquiries, or verified administrative records. [Witness Radio 2024; Reuters 2023; State House Anti-Corruption Unit 2025]

Land governance is central to Uganda’s climate and environmental agenda. Forest reserves, private forests, wetlands, riverbanks, lakeshores, wildlife areas, rangelands, and carbon projects overlap with customary use, local livelihoods, settlement, agriculture, and investment. Uganda’s Constitution directs the state to hold key ecological resources in trust, while the National Environment Act 2019 and climate legislation regulate environmental assessment, protection, and climate mechanisms. [Constitution 1995, art. 237; National Environment Act 2019; National Climate Change Act 2021]

Forest loss remains a major concern. Recent World Bank and NFA-linked sources report continuing forest-cover decline, particularly on private land, driven by agricultural expansion, charcoal and wood-energy demand, settlement, urbanization, grazing, and weak enforcement. Forest tenure is therefore not only a conservation issue but a land-rights, energy, livelihood, and enforcement issue. [World Bank 2024; NFA/World Bank IFPA ESMF 2024]

Wetlands and water resources are also land governance issues. Uganda’s lakes, rivers, and wetlands are constitutionally protected trust resources, but agricultural conversion, settlement, industrial development, urban growth, and infrastructure continue to create pressure. Stronger spatial planning and enforcement must be balanced with procedural protections for people whose livelihoods depend on wetlands and riparian resources. [Constitution 1995, art. 237; National Environment Act 2019; National Land Use Policy 2008]

Carbon markets are a new land governance frontier. The National Climate Change (Climate Change Mechanisms) Regulations 2025 provide a framework for climate mechanisms. Carbon and nature-based projects may create finance for restoration, community forestry, agroforestry, and climate resilience. They also create risks if customary landholders, forest-adjacent communities, women, pastoralists, and local governments are not meaningfully consulted, if benefit-sharing is unclear, or if carbon rights are separated from land and resource rights without safeguards. [Climate Change Mechanisms Regulations 2025; UNDP Uganda 2025]

Oil and mining intensify land pressure, especially in the Albertine Graben and mineral-bearing areas. Land acquisition, resettlement, compensation, environmental assessment, cultural heritage, livelihood restoration, and benefit-sharing are central issues. The Mining and Minerals Act 2022 updates the mineral legal framework, but surface-rights implementation and community protections require continued monitoring. [Mining and Minerals Act 2022; National Environment Act 2019; Brookings/Kuteesa 2014; ACODE 2016]

Uganda’s development strategy seeks to increase agricultural productivity, industrialization, infrastructure, urban development, mineral development, oil production, tourism, and climate finance. Land is therefore both a productive asset and a conflict trigger. The government has promoted investment in agriculture, livestock, forestry, energy, petroleum, minerals, and urban development, while communities and civil-society groups have raised concerns about transparency, consent, compensation, illegal evictions, and livelihood restoration. [NDP IV 2025/26 to 2029/30; Uganda Investment Authority materials; Stickler 2012; Nakayi 2016]

Foreign investors cannot own land under freehold, mailo, or customary tenure; they may access land through leasehold, with noncitizen leases limited to a maximum of 99 years. In practice, investor access commonly depends on transactions with private landowners, government leases, or land assembled through intermediaries. Where land is occupied by lawful or bona fide occupants, customary users, tenants, or communal users, acquisition can create disputes even where formal title appears clear. [Land Act 1998 as amended, s. 40; National Land Policy 2013]

Large-scale land acquisitions have been reported in palm oil, sugar, forestry, ranching, oil infrastructure, mining, and conservation-linked projects. Some projects bring employment, infrastructure, and fiscal benefits, while others create displacement, litigation, or social conflict. The revised profile therefore uses a responsible investment lens rather than assuming investment is inherently beneficial or harmful. Key safeguards include transparent land identification, lawful compensation, independent valuation, meaningful consultation, gender-sensitive household and community rights analysis, grievance mechanisms, and post-resettlement livelihood monitoring. [VGGT 2012; ACODE 2016; Oxfam/ILC 2022; National Environment Act 2019]

Urban land governance is increasingly important as Kampala, secondary cities, municipalities, and refugee-hosting towns grow. Uganda’s urban land system combines leasehold, mailo, freehold, public land, informal occupation, customary peri-urban land, and rapidly changing land markets. Kampala’s land governance is especially complex because mailo ownership, occupancy rights, planning authority, infrastructure development, wetlands, and informal settlement patterns overlap. [National Urban Policy 2017; Nkurunziza 2007; Hoza 2018; World Bank 2015]

Informal settlements are shaped by affordability, migration, land-market exclusion, insecure tenure, limited serviced land, and planning constraints. Tenure insecurity can discourage household investment and limit access to infrastructure, while eviction risk and redevelopment pressures can deepen vulnerability. Urban upgrading, land readjustment, participatory planning, and tenure-responsive planning are therefore important reform areas. [UN-Habitat Uganda Country Programme; National Urban Policy 2017; Ngoga 2018]

Urban environmental risks are also land governance risks. Wetland encroachment, hilltop settlement, flooding, waste management, and uncoordinated land-use conversion are repeatedly identified in urban policy and environmental sources. Stronger planning must be paired with fair processes, alternatives, and compensation where enforcement affects established settlements and livelihoods. [National Environment Act 2019; National Urban Policy 2017; Uganda New Urban Agenda reporting]

Uganda has improved administrative data through the National Land Information System and Ministry Zonal Offices, but comprehensive, current, publicly accessible data on land registration, customary land documentation, gender-disaggregated ownership, land disputes, evictions, communal land, pastoral routes, and land-market transactions remain limited. Current official reporting should be used where available, and older estimates of registered land shares or customary-tenure coverage should be treated as approximations unless verified against up-to-date government data. [MLHUD Strategic Plan IV; GLTN 2024; National Land Information System]

The 2024 National Population and Housing Census reported a population of 45.9 million, providing an updated demographic base for land and urban planning. The World Bank’s current Uganda country materials describe agriculture as accounting for about 24 percent of GDP and about 72 percent of the labor force, confirming the continuing importance of land-based livelihoods. [UBOS 2024; World Bank Uganda overview]

For SDG land indicators, Uganda should be assessed against SDG 1.4.2 on secure tenure rights and SDG 5.a.1 on women’s ownership or secure rights over agricultural land. Available evidence suggests data gaps remain, especially for customary and undocumented land rights and gender-disaggregated rights that are socially recognized but not formally registered. This profile does not identify a recent authoritative national SDG 1.4.2 dataset that fully resolves these gaps. [FAO SDG data portal; World Bank; UBOS]

• Unresolved mailo tenure conflicts and overlapping rights between registered owners and lawful or bona fide occupants.
• Insecure and under-documented customary land, especially where investment, conservation, mining, urban expansion, or internal family disputes arise.
• Weak, uneven, or inaccessible dispute resolution, including the long-term nonfunctioning of land tribunals.
• Land administration capacity constraints, title fraud, multiple titles, corruption, and high transaction costs.
• Gaps between formal women’s land rights and implementation in inheritance, marriage, divorce, widowhood, registration, and dispute resolution.
• Pastoralist and communal land insecurity, especially in drylands and areas affected by conservation, mineral interest, and climate stress.
• Protected-area and conservation-linked displacement claims, especially for Batwa and Benet communities.
• Compulsory acquisition and resettlement disputes linked to infrastructure, oil, mining, conservation, urban development, and investment.
• Forest and wetland degradation driven by land-use conversion, energy demand, settlement, agriculture, weak enforcement, and livelihood pressures.
• Incomplete land data and limited public access to current, disaggregated land-governance indicators.

• Implement the 2013 National Land Policy through clear legislative, budgetary, and institutional measures rather than relying on policy statements alone.
• Scale up affordable, gender-sensitive, transparent customary land documentation, including digital CCOs, while protecting communal resources, pastoral mobility, and women’s secondary and derived rights.
• Resolve mailo conflicts through negotiated, rights-sensitive mechanisms, Land Fund reforms where feasible, mediation, tenant protection, and transparent dispute resolution.
• Restore or replace effective specialized land-dispute mechanisms with accessible courts, mediation, and administrative remedies that are trusted, affordable, gender-responsive, and enforceable.
• Strengthen land administration integrity through digital systems, audit trails, parcel-data quality control, public access, anti-corruption enforcement, and transparent service standards.
• Adopt and implement valuation and resettlement standards that comply with Article 26, court interpretation, and international good practice on livelihood restoration.
• Mainstream women’s land rights in registration, inheritance, marital property reform, dispute resolution, land committees, awareness campaigns, and legal aid.
• Develop safeguards for carbon markets and nature-based climate projects, including clear rules on consent, carbon rights, benefit-sharing, grievance mechanisms, and protection of customary and community landholders.
• Integrate refugee-hosting land needs into district land-use planning, forest restoration, water governance, service provision, and host-community benefit-sharing.
• Improve public land data, including sex-disaggregated ownership, customary documentation, land disputes, evictions, communal lands, pastoral corridors, forest tenure, and SDG land indicators.