No doubt land is the most important and the only reliable physical and economic resource for everybody, especially in predominantly agricultural communities. It is the only productive asset that can support the socio-economic and holistic human development. It provides the basic source of all material wealth such as food, clothing, shelter, timber, energy from oil, charcoal, fire (fuel) wood, etc. It is also a resource support during unemployment and illness, and acts like pension during old age. Every human being derives non-material solace spiritually and psychologically from land. Throughout Africa (and beyond), human beings sustain their livelihoods on the land and to the land their bodies are committed upon death. When human beings are sick, retired or dead, they return or are returned to the “soil” where they belong. Land can therefore be seen as the “biggest coffin” for everybody and it remains the physical basis of all economic process and an essential resource for agriculture as well as a basis for political power. It is so central that it continues to inform integrated developmental plans and strategies. It is particularly important in rural setting where livelihood is derived, and many activities are conditioned by possession of a piece of land. All other human rights are therefore predicated on and dependent upon the existence of land, since human rights are, by their very nature, inherent, inalienable, interdependent, and universal. For instance, the rights to life, to access to safe and clean water, or safe and healthy environment; to shelter, food and all other material and non-material sources of livelihoods, are sustainable by the existence of land. The crucial peculiarity of land is that God created it in a finite manner: He will not create any more land! That is the reason why land as a resource, has remained ever scarce! To date, it is one of the many sources of resource-based conflicts not only in Lira but all over the globe.
Land question in the district if not handled well then pose a very big source of conflict in our society this in other word will lead to death, imprisonment, and unproductively, hence the need to see in to it that Land Department is Fully and well functioning. This can only be done by increasing land right awareness.
The knowledge in land law, land rights, land use, management and administration is of great importance in social and economic development of any society. There is no more important way of making growth broad-based than ensuring that most people retain access to and ownership of affordable land. The worst effects of economic collapse have been mitigated in Lira and the whole of Northern Uganda by the relatively low incidence of landlessness, in the sense of people with no access to land.
It is beyond doubt that majority of population lives in rural areas and a vast majority are farmers for whom land is the most essential source of livelihoods. Furthermore, Land has won itself a central place in the cultures of many Ugandans. To the people of Lira in particular land and their own lives are the only assets left after the conflict in the region destroyed virtually everything they once owned.
The core function of the Sector is therefore to increase Land right awareness and ensure security of tenure for the Majority poor, especially the most vulnerable like women, orphans and person with disability.

Goal
Ensuring Sustainable Land use, Land Tenure Security, Affordable, Decent Housing and Organized Urban Development, by creating an enabling environment to use land resources sustainably for better living conditions in rural and urban Uganda

Policy issues
– Improve the livelihood of the very poor people by ensuring equitable access and ownership of land and ensuring greater security of tenure to the people.
– Improving access to justice – strengthening dispute resolution institutions; and increasing land right awareness; support to improve land right of women and other vulnerable people and legal aid support to the needy
– Maintain transparent, accountable and easily accessible institutions and systems for decentralised delivery of land services. This will be done by developing capacity of the land management institutions in the Lower Local Government
– Ensure the quality of rural and urban settlement and strengthen land use planning at all levels.
– Ensuring decent housing by regulating contraction of houses in accordance to the Physical plan.

SWOT Analysis
This is an analysis of the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats in the urban/physical planning sub-sector.
Potentials
– Political will and support from political leadership
– Committed and respectable members of the District Land Board.
– Increase in land right awareness hence the increase in the desire for land right justice.
– Knowledgeable and highly qualified personnel to handle land matters in the department
– The communities have welcomed the idea of having organized settlements and appreciate the values
– Trained trading centre development committee at the rural growth centres
– Close link with the departments of physical planning under the Ministry of lands, Water and Environment

Opportunities
– Developments are beginning to appreciate the value of organized land uses
– There are new set policies that have been set up like land use policies and the land poly to streamline land management and administration.
– Civil Society Organisation are beginning to realise the importance of land in poverty reduction hence a paradigm shift to land based poverty reduction campaign.
Challenges
– Inadequate funding for the sub-sector
– Enforcement officers not in place to implement the Physical plan
– Recorders at Sub Counties have not been inducted to issue Certificate of Customary Ownership being the even thought it remains the cheapest paper prove of land ownership.
– Inadequate funding to members of the Area Land.

Constraints
– Wide spread poverty hence limited the level of land utilisation.
– The cost of processing land titles is prohibitively high for the average person in the district.
– Haphazard developments which proceeds planning