Opinion | Zambia wants to give millions of families written proof of the land they live on. The programme deserves support, and its real strength is people, with machines helping in the background.
Key takeaways
- Of Zambia’s roughly 1.2 million numbered properties, only about 450,000 carry a registered title deed, Lands Minister Sylvia Masebo said in January 2026.
- The National Land Titling Programme, run by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources with Medici Land Governance, had issued more than 232,000 offer letters by then. The stated aim is 4 million certificates of title, a target and not yet a result.
- A title lets a family defend its plot, pass it on and, in time, use it to support a loan: what the economist Hernando de Soto called turning “dead capital” into live capital.
- Aerial mapping and machine learning speed up the survey, but boundaries still depend on neighbours agreeing at the fence line.
Zambia is trying to give its landowners written, registered proof of what they own, and it is doing so door to door. The effort is worth backing. Its success will rest less on the technology behind it than on the families, enumerators, officials and chiefs who make each boundary true.
Start with a simple question
Ask a family in Lusaka a simple question. If someone said tomorrow that your plot is not yours, what could you show them? For many households the honest answer is very little. Maybe an old letter. Maybe the word of a neighbour.
That is not a small worry. Sylvia Masebo, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, put numbers on it in January 2026. Zambia has about 1.2 million numbered properties, she said, and only about 450,000 of them carry a registered title deed. In her words, more than half of the country’s properties lack full legal protection.
So the question at the kitchen table is also a national one. The government has decided to answer it at scale.
How is Zambia’s land titling programme carried out?
Answering it at scale means going house by house. Under the National Land Titling Programme, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources works with Medici Land Governance, which signed its first agreement with the ministry in August 2018. At the time the company was the blockchain land registry subsidiary of the American online retailer Overstock.
The method is practical. Locally hired enumerators carry tablets and knock on doors. They record who owns the plot, who shares it and where its edges run. Aerial images help draw the map. By January 2026, the minister said, the programme had issued more than 232,000 offer letters. Medici describes the national aim, set with the ministry, as 4 million certificates of title.
The credit here is shared. The ministry set the goal and carries the responsibility. The company brings tools and teams. Families open their doors. Without all of them, nothing moves.
Why does a title deed matter to a family?
Once the enumerator leaves, what has the family actually gained? More than a document. A title deed settles arguments before they start. It can be passed on to children without a fight. And it can support a loan for a shop or a roof, which matters in a country where small businesses still struggle to borrow because lenders want collateral they can verify.
There is a bigger idea behind this. The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto set it out in The Mystery of Capital in 2000. He noticed that poor families often already own a great deal: houses, plots, small farms. Without papers, that wealth is stuck. You cannot borrow against it or sell it safely, and a bank will not take it as security. De Soto called this dead capital.
A title changes that. The same plot, with the same house on it, becomes something the whole economy can see and trust. Dead capital becomes live capital, which is why titling is more than paperwork for Zambia. It is one of the quiet foundations of growth.
In the best case, I believe this could help lift many Zambian families out of poverty. I am honestly not sure how far it will reach, and nobody can promise a number. A title is not a loan, and a loan is not a business. But it opens a door that was closed before.
The same need in Lundazi
That door matters just as much outside the city. In September 2025, Chief Mphamba of Lundazi District in Eastern Province issued 259 customary land certificates to women. The project was run by the Lundazi District Women Association, with technical support from Zambia Land Alliance and Women for Change and Swedish funding through We Effect. The chief reminded the women that the certificates do not allow them to sell the land, and urged them to put it to good use.
Lundazi and Lusaka are very different places, and a customary certificate is not a state title deed. Yet the need is the same. People want to know the ground under them is theirs.
Where machines help, and where they stop
That need is old. The tools serving it are new, and they improve every year. Some of the mapping uses machine learning to find buildings in aerial images. Records can be stored so they are hard to change in secret.
Soon we will add SI, superintelligence, the technology we used to call AI. It will check records, spot errors and speed up approvals. I believe robots will also meet us in homes, in offices and in dangerous work underground, taking on the heavy and risky jobs so people can do more of what they love.
Still, no machine can stand at a fence line and get two neighbours to agree. That takes patience, a familiar face and sometimes an elder. The tablet records the answer. People find it.
What can families do before the enumerators arrive?
If the work is coming to your area, a few steps help:
- Keep any papers you already have in one safe place.
- Talk with your neighbours about where your boundaries are before the survey team comes.
- If a plot is shared with a spouse or a sibling, make sure every name is given.
- If you already hold an offer letter, ask your local lands office what the next step is.
Small actions like these make the big programme work faster for everyone.
A promise worth keeping
Four million certificates is a large promise. It will take years, and there will be delays. That is normal for work this big.
But each certificate is a small promise kept to one family. Machines will help count them. Neighbours, officials and chiefs will make them true.
About the author
Dr. Krisztián Galánthai Fekete is an investor, computer scientist and philosopher. He is the author of Find Your Meaning in 60 Days, In the Age of AI and Robotics, which offers sixty short daily principles for keeping work and life human as machines grow more capable. The book is available on Amazon.
Sources
- News Diggers, 4 January 2026: Masebo on title deeds and offer letters
- Medici Land Governance: Systematic Land Titling (4 million certificates, with the Ministry)
- Lusaka Times, 2 August 2018: Ministry of Lands agreement with Medici Land Governance
- Overstock news release, 1 November 2018: Medici Land Governance as an Overstock subsidiary
- CoinDesk, 30 April 2021: enumerators with tablets going door to door
- Coordinates, April 2021: machine learning on drone imagery at Medici Land Governance
- Lusaka Times, 14 September 2025: 259 Lundazi women get customary land certificates
- IMF Finance & Development, March 2001: Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital
- Lincoln Institute of Land Policy: The Influence of de Soto’s The Mystery of Capital
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