Land Administration And Management Under The Devolved Government In Kenya. Case Of Kiambu And Machakos County

Since the period when Kenya was under colonial rule, land issues have remained emotive, contentious and an obstacle to social cohesion and economic growth. Kenya Vision 2030, therefore, recommended the development of a national land policy that would provide an overarching framework for land administration in the country. In December 2009 the ninth Parliament approved Sessional Paper No. 3 of 2009 on National Land Policy. In 2013, the government formed a National Land Commission to act as the lead agency the management of public land which had perennially been abused through grabbing by successive regimes, to work with the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development (MLHUD) and country-level institutions including other relevant authorities. To further address land issues, the 2010 Constitution and the 2012 Land Acts produced an institutional restructuring that was designed to touch directly on land rights and land administration. This was aimed at separation of powers at the pinnacle of the national political system to extinguish the president's arbitrary authority to allocate land while placing oversight and regulatory authority in the hands of a non-partisan, transparent, and law-governed National Land Commission (NLC). However despite the noble intentions of the 2010 Constitution, the land governance function has been dogged by many problems mainly misinterpretation of functions and conflicts between various arms of government. Using two case studies of Kiambu and Machakos County, this research looks at the interplay involved in land administration and management in the devolved system. The case underscores the extent to which use of the new laws was shaped by existing institutional players who sought to thwart their reformist thrust as well as by newly-empowered institutional actors who sought to harness their reformist potential.