Traditional leaders: at the interface between formal legal systems and customary land tenure systems

Faced with recurring land conflicts and the need to revise the 1967 legislation, a participatory process to draw up Chad's National Land Policy (Politique foncière nationale du Tchad) has been underway since 2022.

A workshop to consult traditional chiefs and religious leaders was organized in 2023 as part of this participatory and inclusive process to draw up the policy. A group of "Champion leaders for the land tenure cause" was then set up to support the process. A champion leader is someone recognized for their legitimacy as a traditional authority within their community, who possesses local expertise and is capable of mobilizing, advocating, and taking initiatives to drive meaningful changes in land-related policies and practices.

Their Majesties, Sultan Mahamat Moussa Bézo and Canton Chief Kladoumbé Noubarangar, members of the group of champion leaders, have been appointed to represent the traditional chiefs on the Multi-Stakeholder Committee. This committee is responsible for drawing up Chad's National Land Policy and revising the Code on Private and State-owned Land. They are represented at all the Committee's meetings and are actively working to ensure that the voice of local communities is heard and to protect their customary rights.

As his Majesty Noubarangar points out: "We are the interface between the traditional chiefs and the structure responsible for carrying out the reform. As traditional chiefs, we are expected to know good practices, especially good traditional land practices [...] and we must ensure that the land policy takes into account these traditional practices, these customary practices, which are those of rural populations, in the new texts that are going to be drawn up".