Land Tenure and Customary Rights Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Land administration officers, Natural resource programme managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-NRM-016

Before you join: Participants should have practical exposure to land, natural resources, infrastructure, conservation, community development, social safeguards or public administration.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Land tenure problems can delay infrastructure, conservation, renewable energy and agricultural investment; trigger disputes; and leave women, pastoralists, indigenous peoples and informal settlers without effective protection. Formal recognition of customary rights can improve security, but poorly designed registration or titling programmes may exclude secondary users, convert communal land into individual parcels, or create new conflicts. Professionals need to establish who holds which rights, under what authority, and how proposed interventions will affect those rights.

This course examines customary, statutory and religious tenure systems; the continuum of land rights; legal pluralism; participatory mapping; fit-for-purpose land administration; and registration approaches for individual, family and communal holdings. Participants assess tenure security, identify overlapping claims, interpret governing legal and policy requirements, and design rights-recognition processes that account for consent, gender, mobility, accessibility and local decision-making structures. The course also addresses land acquisition, involuntary resettlement, compensation, grievances, dispute resolution, climate projects and carbon-rights due diligence.

Teaching combines short technical briefings with realistic cases involving community land registration, solar project siting, pastoral corridors, forest restoration and urban informal settlements. Participants work with mapping records, claim forms, stakeholder analyses, entitlement matrices and grievance data. They leave with a tenure formalization action dossier containing reusable templates, a rights-risk analysis and an implementation roadmap suited to their own programme, project or institution. The course is delivered over five days in a classroom in 50+ cities or live online, with approximately 6.5 contact hours each day. Participants receive a certificate of completion.

The course suits professionals responsible for land governance, natural resource programmes, environmental and social risk, community engagement, project development and public land administration.

What you will be able to do

  • Assess tenure security using bundle-of-rights and continuum-of-rights analysis
  • Map customary claims, overlapping rights and resource-use boundaries using participatory methods
  • Interpret legal pluralism, VGGT principles and relevant land-rights protections
  • Design inclusive customary-rights recognition and registration processes
  • Prepare stakeholder, consent and gender-responsive participation plans
  • Apply fit-for-purpose land administration and Social Tenure Domain Model principles
  • Develop land acquisition, compensation and grievance-management documentation
  • Create a tenure-risk mitigation and formalization implementation roadmap

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Judge whether proposed registration will strengthen or weaken customary land security
  • Conduct more credible discussions with customary authorities and affected rightsholders
  • Identify land-rights risks before site selection, acquisition or conservation restrictions
  • Prepare evidence-based recommendations for communal, family or individual rights recognition
  • Build a reusable portfolio of tenure, consent, mapping and grievance-management tools

For your organisation

  • Reduce project delays caused by unresolved claims, contested boundaries and weak consultation
  • Improve compliance with tenure safeguards in infrastructure, conservation and climate programmes
  • Protect vulnerable rightsholders from exclusion during mapping, registration and compensation processes
  • Produce clearer land-risk records for investment decisions, audits and lender reviews
  • Strengthen community legitimacy through documented consent, accessible grievances and fair procedures

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can distinguish tenure systems and assess the security of different land and resource rights.

  • Bundle of rights analysis distinguishes access, use, control and transfer
  • Statutory, customary and religious tenure systems compared through source-of-rights analysis
  • Continuum of land rights positions occupation, group claims and title
  • Tenure security assessed through duration, enforceability, clarity and perceived legitimacy
  • Identify overlapping rights held by households, lineages, users and public authorities
  • Land governance functions: policy, administration, dispute resolution and taxation

Participants can interpret the legal and governance principles affecting recognition of customary rights.

  • VGGT principles applied to legitimate tenure rights and responsible governance
  • UNDRIP land provisions and self-determination considered in indigenous territories
  • National land laws read alongside constitutional protections and customary norms
  • Legal pluralism mapped through jurisdiction, authority, forum and remedy
  • Distinguish recognition, registration, titling and conversion of customary interests
  • Screen proposed formalization against non-discrimination, participation and accountability duties

Participants can identify legitimate rightsholders and plan inclusive consent and participation processes.

  • Stakeholder mapping identifies rightsholders, duty bearers, claimants and secondary users
  • Power analysis traces gender, age, wealth and political exclusion
  • Free, prior and informed consent process sequenced from disclosure to agreement
  • Community entry protocols establish representation, language, timing and decision rules
  • Document consent using attendance records, translated materials and signed resolutions
  • Participation plans protect women’s land claims and minority voices

Participants can plan participatory mapping and document rights data responsibly.

  • Participatory rural appraisal combines transect walks, seasonal calendars and social mapping
  • Participatory mapping records boundaries, resources, access routes and overlapping claims
  • Social Tenure Domain Model captures people-to-land relationships beyond parcels
  • GPS data collection follows accuracy, consent, metadata and field-verification protocols
  • Sketch maps validated through public display, corrections and community sign-off
  • Sensitive spatial data classified before storage, publication and third-party sharing

Participants can design appropriate processes for recognizing and recording customary rights.

  • Fit-for-purpose land administration matches accuracy, cost, speed and legal needs
  • Adjudication workflow verifies claimants, witnesses, boundaries and documentary evidence
  • Systematic registration plans sequence mobilization, survey, notice and record creation
  • Individual, family and communal registration options assessed against local tenure arrangements
  • Registration records specify right holders, restrictions, responsibilities and transaction history
  • Estimate formalization costs, maintenance obligations and barriers to sustained registration

Participants can address exclusion risks affecting women and groups with secondary or mobile rights.

  • Gender-responsive tenure analysis identifies unequal inheritance, documentation and representation
  • Disaggregated data tracks women, youth, pastoralists, tenants and persons with disabilities
  • Joint titling rules tested against marital property and inheritance law
  • Pastoral mobility corridors mapped as seasonal rights rather than vacant land
  • Safeguards address eviction risks facing informal settlers and secondary rightsholders
  • Accessible grievance channels accommodate literacy, language, disability and social power

Participants can prepare land acquisition and compensation measures that account for tenure rights.

  • Land acquisition screening distinguishes voluntary transactions, negotiated settlements and expropriation
  • IFC Performance Standard 5 requirements applied to displacement and compensation
  • Resettlement Action Plan components link census, eligibility, valuation and livelihood restoration
  • Replacement-cost valuation separates land, structures, crops, businesses and transaction expenses
  • Cut-off dates, entitlement matrices and consultation records control compensation disputes
  • Livelihood restoration indicators monitor income, food security and resource access

Participants can analyse land disputes and establish fair pathways for resolution and remedy.

  • Conflict analysis separates positions, interests, evidence, relationships and power
  • Land dispute typology covers boundary, inheritance, authority, access and compensation claims
  • Negotiation preparation defines BATNA, reservation point, issues and concession limits
  • Mediation design sets neutral facilitators, caucus rules and documented settlement terms
  • Customary forums assessed for legitimacy, due process and appeal pathways
  • Grievance mechanisms track intake, triage, response deadlines and closure verification

Participants can assess and mitigate tenure risks in land-based climate and investment interventions.

  • Tenure risk screening identifies project footprints, restrictions, dependencies and conflict triggers
  • Environmental and social impact assessment baselines document land use and claims
  • Land-based investment agreements tested for duration, benefit sharing and exit terms
  • Climate adaptation projects assess tenure effects of restoration, conservation and carbon schemes
  • Carbon project due diligence verifies carbon rights, consent and benefit-sharing arrangements
  • Mitigation hierarchy avoids displacement before minimizing, restoring and compensating residual impacts

Participants can monitor tenure outcomes and prepare an accountable rights-formalization implementation plan.

  • Land governance indicators measure legality, transparency, equity, efficiency and dispute resolution
  • Monitoring framework links tenure outcomes, indicators, baselines, targets and data sources
  • Audit trails connect field evidence, decisions, registry changes and grievance records
  • Data governance assigns access controls, retention periods, quality checks and accountability
  • Implementation roadmap sequences legal review, mapping, adjudication, registration and monitoring
  • Application plan defines institutional owners, milestones, budget assumptions and risk controls

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Tenure security assessment template
  2. Customary rights stakeholder and power map
  3. Participatory mapping and data-governance checklist
  4. Customary rights recognition workflow
  5. Land acquisition entitlement matrix
  6. Tenure formalization implementation roadmap

Who should attend

  • Land administration officers — need defensible methods for recording and recognizing customary claims
  • Natural resource programme managers — need to protect land rights in conservation and restoration activities
  • Environmental and social specialists — need to assess tenure risks and prepare project safeguards
  • Infrastructure and energy project developers — need to manage acquisition, consent and compensation risks
  • Community engagement practitioners — need credible processes for participation and grievance handling
  • NGO and development programme staff — need practical tools for inclusive land-rights interventions

Skills and tools covered

Customary tenure analysisParticipatory land mappingRights formalization designTenure risk assessmentLand conflict resolutionGender-responsive governance

Tools and standards

Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure, Social Tenure Domain Model, Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration, IFC Performance Standard 5

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce tenure concepts, legal frameworks and technical methods. Case work examines community registration, renewable energy siting, protected-area restrictions, pastoral mobility and urban settlement claims. Group exercises use simplified maps, claim records, stakeholder profiles and compensation scenarios to test decisions. Participants practise structured analysis through tenure-risk screening, rights mapping, consent planning and grievance design. Simulations focus on competing claims and mediated settlement. Application planning converts course methods into a practical action dossier for each participant's work context.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical exposure to land, natural resources, infrastructure, conservation, community development, social safeguards or public administration. They should be comfortable reading project documents, policies and basic maps, and discussing stakeholder and community issues. Prior work with customary institutions, land registries, resettlement or participatory mapping is useful but not essential. The course does not require legal qualifications, surveying credentials, GIS expertise, prior knowledge of a specific national land law, or experience conducting formal adjudication.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should have some exposure to land, natural resources, infrastructure, community development or social safeguards. Legal training, surveying expertise and GIS experience are not required.

Bring a current land, natural resource, climate or infrastructure project challenge if you have one. Relevant policies, non-confidential maps, stakeholder plans or acquisition documents can help you develop a more useful application plan.

It is designed for land administration, environmental and social, community engagement, conservation, development and project delivery professionals. It is particularly relevant where customary rights, communal land or informal claims affect project decisions.

This course focuses on rights, governance, recognition processes, consent, inclusion and dispute management rather than technical surveying or spatial software operation. Mapping is covered as evidence for tenure analysis and rights recording.

Participants can use the templates to screen tenure risks, identify rightsholders, structure consultations and plan registration or formalization activities. The methods also support land acquisition, conservation restrictions, resettlement and carbon-project due diligence.

Each day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. Time is divided between instructor briefings, case analysis, group work, simulations and development of an individual application dossier.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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