In recent years, the Malawi Ministry of Lands has been making big strides in improving land governance. Improvements include passing the 2016 Customary Land Act, passing the 2022 Land Act Amendments, and receiving approval from the Office of the President’s Cabinet of the decentralization of land services functional plan. All of these developments help contribute to reducing inequality, promoting sustainable land-use, protecting livelihoods, and enabling economic growth.
The Land Productivity Project, funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, aimed to enhance land governance and unlock economic development for Malawians by improving land markets and increasing overall investment in land. As part of this, Cadasta Foundation, Global Land Alliance (GLA), and the Land Governance Alliance (LAGA) supported the Government of Malawi’s evidence-based decision-making by analyzing the current situation and developing data-driven options for a more optimal service administration and financial management
With the supportive legal frameworks in place, the Ministry faced decision points in proceeding to implement recently enacted policies and operationalize new district land offices and traditional land management authorities across the country. Critically, the Ministry’s activities to operationalize new district offices and improvements in service delivery required higher levels of funding than was available.
In Malawi, 80% of people live in rural areas, often far from government offices. This makes basic land services, such as registering property or paying ground rent, difficult to reach. To remedy this, the government is shifting land administration from the national level to local councils. In 2023, the Office of the President approved the Ministry of Lands’ plan to transfer key land functions (like surveying, registration, and rent collection) to local councils. Since then, the Ministry has hired land staff across the country and started rolling out these services at the district level.
The consortium of Cadasta, GLA, and LAGA worked together with the Ministry of Lands and the Ministry of Finance to create a series of cost and revenue projections with corresponding implementation roadmaps on how to increase and sustainably manage revenue sources, while delivering land administration services in this new environment.
With Cadasta as the lead, the team produced policy, legal, operational, and financial assessments and recommendations for:
- Cost of land administration services in current and future scenarios
- Legal and financial rationale for the Ministry operationalizing partial revenue retention
- Options for new ground rent rates and property valuation models with subsequent revenue modeling
- Areas for optimization in the implementation of the decentralization of land services to the district-level
“From the Ministry’s perspective, this work strengthened our operations by introducing evidence-based, regionally informed approaches to rationalizing ground rent rates, making billing and collection quicker, fairer, and more efficient. The financial modeling and recommendations have informed our ongoing process to establish a ground rent database, while the overall engagement has improved our ability to make data-driven decisions and sustainably manage decentralized land services.” –Mickson Chiundira, Commissioner for Estate Management and Valuation
Through these assessments and recommendations, as well as a series of consultations and workshops, the Malawian government reached key decision points. Throughout, the team used regional comparison and international best practices while anchoring recommendations in the Malawian context and legal framework.
This work supports the Ministry of Lands in analyzing the cost of services, identifying ways to raise the revenue needed to fund them, and implementing cost-saving measures. In doing so, it will improve service delivery, boost investment in land markets, and encourage more productive land use. By supporting the Government of Malawi’s initiatives, this work is contributing to practical changes and lasting reform with a positive impact for the Malawian people.