How Sh20m registration fee locks communities out of land titles

Attendees at the launch of the Sajili Ardhi ya Jamii community-driven campaign on June 23, 2026. [Courtesy]

A decade after Kenya passed a law meant to secure community land rights, only 64 of about 1,000 communities have received title deeds.

The Sajili Ardhi ya Jamii Campaign, launched on Tuesday, June 23, brings together indigenous peoples and local communities who collectively steward 34 million hectares, roughly 60 per cent of the country's land mass, and who say the 2016 Community Land Act has remained largely unimplemented.

The campaign's central demand is that every community land holding in Kenya be registered and titled by 2030.

At the heart of the problem is cost.

Registering community land under the current process can cost up to Sh20 million per community, the campaign says, a sum far beyond the reach of most communities, which tend to be politically and economically marginalised.

Records are also largely paper-based and scattered across district land offices, slowing the process further.

Without title deeds, communities remain exposed to land grabs, displacement, unfair investor agreements and climate-related crises, the coalition warned.

The campaign is pushing the government to overhaul the registration process and make it community-centred.

Key proposals include allowing communities to lead their own boundary adjudication and mapping, establishing a mass registration mechanism and amending the Adjudication Act, the Survey Act and the Community Land Act itself to eliminate bottlenecks and cut costs.

The Sajili Ardhi ya Jamii Campaign is anchored in a partnership that includes the Drylands Learning and Capacity Building Initiative, Community Land Action Now!, Kituo Cha Sheria Legal Advice Centre, Namati, the Indigenous Movement for Peace Advancement and Conflict Transformation (IMPACT), Natural Justice and the Pastoralist Parliamentary Group.