Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol Assessment of the land inventory approach for securing tenure of lawful and bona fide occupants on private Mailo land in Uganda ⋆ Moses Musinguzi a , Thorsten Huber b, *, Daniel Kirumira b , Pamella Drate b a Department of Geomatics and Land Management, Makerere University, Uganda b Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Kampala, Uganda ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Private Mailo Land inventory Overlapping land rights Occupancy rights Fit-For-Purpose Uganda ABSTRACT The co-existence of overlapping land rights is an issue of concern as countries strive to secure land tenure rights for improving land productivity. Whereas considerable research has been directed to overlapping rights on customary land, there is limited research on the solutions to overlapping land rights between registered land- owners and unregistered occupants. The Mailo tenure in Uganda, which is a case of a century-old impasse between registered owners on one hand and legally recognized unregistered occupants on the other hand, has resisted both political and legislative-based solutions. Yet Mailo tenure accounts for about 20 % of Uganda’s land, including the capital city, major influential towns and high value land. In this paper, we introduce and evaluate the Land Inventory Approach, which is a step by step approach to documentation and formalization of occupancy rights on registered land, with acceptance of landlords and tenants, while maintaining harmony within the community and the political environment. The approach is specifically designed for the Mailo tenure and other similar tenure systems where overlapping land rights are shared between registered owners and legally protected unregistered occupants. The land inventory approach was initiated by GIZ under the Improvement of Land Governance in Uganda (ILGU) project co-funded by the European Union (EU) and the German Government, as part of the Global Program "Responsible Land Policy" for the Special Initiative "One World, No Hunger" (SEWOH) of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). After more than one year of piloting, an assessment was undertaken to review the suit- ability of the approach to addressing overlapping rights impasse between landlords and tenants on Mailo tenure. The assessment was based on four guiding questions, namely whether the approach: (i) improves the relationship between landlords and tenants, (ii) addresses all land related disputes on Mailo tenure, (iii) provides adequate information for negotiations between landlords and tenants, and (iv) provides an appropriate Fit-For-Purpose (FFP) technological as well as operational/procedural solution. Findings indicate that overall, the approach significantly improved the relationship between landlords and tenants in the areas where the project was successfully piloted. The approach provides the necessary informa- tion, such as location and size of tenancies, use of tenancy portions, claims to usufruct rights and proportion of the landlords’ occupied and unoccupied land, which helps further negotiations. The collected information will, if included in the National Land Information System, not only improve transparency in land administration but will also increase the menu of negotiation options and hence empower both the landlords and tenants to reach consensus. 1. Introduction There is a general recognition that registration and titling of land is a trusted means for promoting investment in land and hence enhancing its productivity. However, land productivity may be affected by the presence of occupants, especially if the occupants are eventually re- cognized and protected by the law. A scenario that permits a set of persons to legally own land and another set of persons to legally occupy the same land creates an impasse that surpasses the solutions inherent in many contemporary approaches for securing tenure rights. Studies https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104562 Received 28 April 2019; Received in revised form 21 February 2020; Accepted 1 March 2020 ⋆ Paper prepared for presentation at the “2019 World Bank Conference on land and poverty” The World Bank - Washington DC, March 25–29, 2019. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: musinguzim@cedat.mak.ac.ug (M. Musinguzi), thorsten.huber@giz.de (T. Huber), pamella.drate@giz.de (D. Kirumira), daniel.kirumira@giz.de (P. Drate). Land Use Policy xxx (xxxx) xxxx 0264-8377/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Moses Musinguzi, et al., Land Use Policy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104562