Customary Land Secretariats in Ghana as Champions of Efficient Customary Land Governance

Although Customary Land Secretariats (CLSs) in Ghana have been in existence for two decades, research on the institution has remained for a long time an unchartered territory except for periodic works by students. As a result, not much is known about the innovations some CLSs have employed to improve on land governance at the customary level in Ghana. This work reviewed the entire working processes of 18 high performing Customary Land Secretariats selected from both Stool and family land areas in rural and urban Ghana to identify and explain how these Secretariats are operating within the ambit of the Land Act 2020, Act 1036 to improve efficiency of land management in terms of streamlining Customary Land Administration, maintaining reliable and up-to-date record of land transactions and settling disputes through Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms. Results show that in areas where Customary Land Secretariats have been established, there is now credible data on land grants for use by investors. There is also a reduction in the number of disputes contrary to belief and that CLSs are making strides in public education and sensitization of the rural folks. The work makes a number of recommendations that will enable developing economies to improve land management at the local level. E.g., The work buttresses the call for a system of monitoring of CLSs by CSOs based at the local level to check and expose abuse by traditional leaders in their role as trustees of the land. Overall, the work points to the fact that, the Ghanaian example provides useful lessons for other African countries seeking to improve on participatory approaches to land management at the local level.