NPP Manifesto Watch: Lands, Forestry, & Water Resource

Ghana’s lands and forests are major sources of food, income, livelihood, and employment for many. Over the past eight years, the Akufo-Addo-led administration has rolled out several significant policies and legislative reforms to improve the overall performance of the sub-sector, and to effectively deploy these resources to support national development, poverty reduction, and the promotion of equity and sustainability.

However, rapid population growth, climate change, and urbanisation, have continued to exert considerable pressure on land and forest resources, and risk undermining efforts to realise the full range of benefits from policies and reforms in the sector.

Addressing challenges
To fully meet the challenges in the sector, we need stronger, well-resourced, and accessible institutions to ensure inclusive land rights, enforcement of regulations, and operational efficiency.
For example, land title registration currently requires high precision survey and physical monumentation to take effect.

A change in regulation, which enables the adjustment of survey standards, will facilitate the extension and coverage of land title registration to many districts across the country. Similarly, digital interoperability, connectivity and the use of remote sensing data, can simplify the delivery of land administration services, improve the quality of land records, and maximise the use to which these records can be put.

Lands
A Bawumia presidency will:

• Pass the Legislative Instrument for the Land Act 2020.
• Decentralise land title registration by extending services to regions outside Accra and Kumasi, tied to availability of updated base maps in each location. This will include: physical decentralisation involving setting up Lands Commission offices at the district level, establishing more satellite client service units, and strengthening the availability, reliability, and security of online services to clients.
• Continue to invest in digitising the sector to create a digital database for land transactions. This will enhance the integrity of land records, and promote public confidence in the land administration system.
• In consultation with traditional authorities, and in collaboration with Parliament, introduce laws to allow the state acquire land for public use by lease. This will create a two-way benefit, for families and the State, by relieving the State of frontloaded, hefty compensation payments while ensuring families receive periodic (annual) payments, the benefits of which will be transgenerational enhance collaboration with the Judiciary to deal with the backlog of land cases in the courts.
• Enhance the efficiency of Customary Land Secretariats to make them more efficient in the delivery of basic land administration services, and minimise land related disputes at the local level.
• Promote collaboration among relevant state agencies and customary landowners to establish land banks to facilitate access to land for commercial, agricultural, industrial, and mixed uses.

Forestry and Water Resources
To protect our forests and water resources, and to ensure a business- friendly environment for forest related businesses, a Bawumia presidency seeks to do the following:

1. Reforestation:

• Enhance the national efforts to reforest the country to respond appropriately to climate change.
• Target 30,000 hectares of degraded areas for reforestation and plantation development annually.
• Establish 1,000 hectares of bamboo and rattan plantations annually for watershed protection and plantation development.
• Provide tree seedlings and plantain suckers in a minimum of 1000 communities to enhance the national reforestation and plantation development programme.
• Collaborate with the private sector to provide modern equipment for the timber industry, as currently available machinery are designed for large diameter logs.
• Support the protection of the remaining natural forests and biodiversity hotspots.
• Protect and preserve our water resources by: vigorously protecting both surface and underground sources by enforcing the provisions of the water use regulations; reviewing and strengthening the Water Buffer Zone Policy for implementation; collaborating with riparian neighbours to protect and ensure sustainable utilisation of transborder water sources, notably the Volta River, and resourcing the Water Resources Commission to effectively manage all major river Basins in Ghana.