Communal Land Associations claim compensations for investments in their territories

Location: Karamoja, Uganda

Timeline: 2009 - present

Principal organisations: ULA

Half of the total land area of Karamoja, a sub-region in Uganda, is held by communities on a customary basis. These communal lands are not demarcated or registered and are prone to land grabbing, mostly for tourism or mining. The Uganda Land Alliance (ULA) has empowered communities to assert their land rights by supporting the creation of 52 Communal Land Associations (CLA). Although the 1998 Land Act provides a legal basis for the creation of CLAs, no attempt had ever been made to implement this. Several of the recently established CLAs have been able to reverse land grabs or claim fair compensation for investments in their territories.