Kathmandu— Nepal’s policy of providing land to landless citizens, while intended to address inequality and promote social justice, suffers from a critical flaw: it prioritizes land distribution as an end goal rather than the first step towards comprehensive socioeconomic transformation. While receiving a land ownership certificate offers a sense of security, it doesn’t automatically create employment, ensure irrigation, connect settlements to markets, or provide families with sustainable livelihoods. The central question facing policymakers is whether these newly landed households can achieve upward mobility and become productive members of the local economy.

Lessons From Tanzania’s Ujamaa

Tanzania’s Ujamaa program, initiated in 1967 under President Julius Nyerere, offers valuable insights into state-led settlement planning. Both Nepal and Tanzania share similarities as lower-middle-income countries with socialist ideals focused on equitable land access and social justice. By reorganizing rural households into planned villages, Tanzania aimed to improve access to essential services like schools, healthcare, and infrastructure, achieving some success in literacy, education, and social cohesion. However, the program also revealed that simply relocating people doesn’t guarantee improved livelihoods or sustainable communities.

Beyond Land: The Need for Comprehensive Support

Tanzania’s experience highlighted that effective settlement policies require more than just secure land tenure and housing; they depend on employment opportunities, market access, infrastructure, good governance, and strong public institutions. Similarly, Nepal’s own “Back to the Village” campaign in 1967 initially showed promise but ultimately failed when it became entangled with local elections. South Korea’s Saemaul Undong Movement, which focused on rural well-being through increased agricultural productivity and community empowerment, provides a contrasting example of success.

The Pitfalls of Isolated Land Distribution

A landless family receiving a plot detached from essential services – roads, schools, healthcare, markets, and employment – faces continued hardship. Without irrigation, storage, machinery, or access to buyers, landowners may struggle with unemployment and debt, potentially leading them to sell their land or seek opportunities abroad. Land distribution alone can simply change legal status without addressing underlying poverty.

Building Smart Settlements

Secure tenure is crucial for protecting households and encouraging investment, but policymakers must recognize its limitations in improving livelihoods. Employment-generating programs near housing offer a more sustainable path to improved living conditions by providing continuous income for families to cover basic needs, education, healthcare, and potential small business investments. For agricultural communities, land distribution should be coupled with irrigation, roads, extension services, storage facilities, affordable credit, and market access. A truly ‘smart’ settlement provides affordable access to work, schools, healthcare, markets, reliable infrastructure, enforceable property rights for women, and resilience against environmental risks.

The experiences of Tanzania, South Korea, and Nepal itself underscore the importance of integrating land distribution with broader investments in infrastructure, skill-building, markets, and job creation to achieve durable development outcomes for rural communities.

Originally published on abcnews.com.np.