Angola’s 27 years of civil war created many problems that further compound the land challenges faced by the country. The war disrupted and changed customary land use and allocation (for both cropping and grazing), and such customary rights are now threatened by encroaching land users and competitive claims (both formal and informal). Earlier assessments of the land situation in Angola indicate that the newly enacted land law (August 2004) is vague, ambiguous, and potentially threatening to customary, informal, and formal land users and rights holders. The new law requires that land occupiers make application for formalized land rights within three years of a date uncertain (or forever lose those occupation rights), and the new law also re-asserts the government’s right to grant land concessions subject to unclear and non-transparent criteria and processes.
