Effective land governance mainstreaming requires plans, resources and dedicated people to ensure that commitments are translated into action and actual change on the ground. Although land governance has been a pre-occupation of the African Union (AU) and its agencies, land governance mainstreaming has not been adequately addressed and more precisely, there has not been comprehensive land governance mainstreaming tool to guide countries in mainstreaming land governance in their strategies and plans. The synthesis of land governance issues in Burkina Faso, Benin, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Namibia and Botswana has shown that African countries, particularly the selected countries, underscore the importance of land governance mainstreaming by undertaking some initiatives towards that front. However, there are challenges that limit effective land governance mainstreaming. One of the challenges is lack of a clear mainstreaming tool that provides practical steps on effective mainstreaming of land governance into the national priority programs and investment plans. Furthermore, there are a number of identified land governance mainstreaming barriers such as historical land injustices, ethnicity, cultural dominance and political conflicts and instabilities, that have been identified from the selected
countries.

This land governance mainstreaming tool is developed with the aim of supporting mainstreaming of land governance into national priority programmes. It is expected that this tool will help to support and inform decision making processes on land governance on the basis of participatory assessment of barriers to land governance mainstreaming. It will further enhance participatory assessment of land governance mainstreaming barriers. With such a tool, each department or agency implementing land governance mainstreaming project is expected to adopt its action plan to structure and monitor activities for mainstreaming Land Governance.

The document is organised into two major parts. Part A provides background and justification for the tool and Part B focuses on the land governance mainstreaming tool. Each of these parts is divided into sections. Section I of part A provides the rationale for and review of mainstreaming land governance. Section II identifies land governance challenges and issues in the context of land governance mainstreaming in Africa. The identified issues include multiple legal systems, land tenure insecurity, lack of protection of customary tenure, unregulated land, unregulated land deals, abuse of state control over land, increasing land and natural resource degradation, conflicts over land and natural resources, land information management and administration inefficiencies and women land rights. Land Governance Barriers are discussed in section III.

Part B provides the land governance mainstreaming tool based on the identified issues in section II and III of Part A. It outlines the essentials of the land governance mainstreaming tool, key entry points for the mainstreaming tool and the practical approach for land governance mainstreaming into national priority programs.