Pro-poor land records, palm oil, and prosperity: any proof from Bugula Island, Uganda?

In 2012, the GLTN released its pro-poor land recordation tool: design principles for establishing land records for a country’s poorest people. The tool is undergoing refinement using further case examinations. This paper provides lessons from one case: the Vegetable Oil Development Project (VODP), based on Bugala Island in Uganda, instigated the Ugandan Government, and backed by IFAD. Field visits were undertaken in May 2014 and included interactions with Ugandan government, NGOs, local community groups, and outgrowers. Relevant to GLTN was how land interests of the poor were handled. Analysis suggests early VODP stages were not entirely imbued with a pro-poor recordation approach. Adopting the approach earlier might have contributed to more collective negotiations, identification of mutual incentives, and recognition of the wider range of development interests for the whole island, including environmental sustainability. Later stages of the project have seen pro-poor recording tools adopted: STDM trials were affordable, transparent, and inclusive. Whether STDM enabled the capture of the complexity in existing layered rights, could have delivered preventive justice if undertaken earlier, and will be co-managed using CPR principles, are key points of further discussion.