Abstract
Customary land governance pertains to land ownership and administraon systems established
and maintained within a community or civilisaon based on customary pracses, tradions, and
norms. This exists in several countries worldwide, across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and
Australasia. Governments have challenges when a empng to include customary land
management in municipal development planning since this undertaking involves a complex
balancing act between promong development and preserving cultural heritage. In parcular,
there are notable challenges with municipal development planning across South Africa, where
customary land governance exists. These issues are parally derived from the contrast between
communal (applicable to customary lands) and freehold land tenures. Being enrely qualitave,
this study ulised the interprevism research philosophy. Deploying a mulple case study
research design, the research focused on three local municipalies in North-West and KwaZulu-
Natal Provinces of South Africa where dualist governance of tradional and municipal authories
are extant. The first case was Mahikeng local municipality, which, despite being the polical
capital of the North West Province, is dually administered by the Provincial and Municipal
government and six self-governing Tswana chiefdoms. Rustenburg local municipality was the
second case, also located in the North-West Province. The third case was Nongoma local
municipality at the heart of the Zulu Kingdom in KwaZulu-Natal Province. The study ulised
mulple qualitave research methods, including ethnography, the Delphi technique, focus group
discussions, and semi-structured interviews. Data obtained through audio recordings were
transcribed using O er.ai so?ware and grouped into themes for further analysis alongside
documentary reviews. These three cases revealed similaries in administrave cooperaon with
municipal authories but ambiguies in customary land tenure formalisaon. Customary land
was uniquely under communal tenureship, and its administraon differed in both provinces.
Though administered by tradional councils, customary lands are vested under the office of the
Minister for Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development in South Africa. In KwaZulu-Natal
Province, customary lands are administered by the Ingonyama Trust Board. This study
contributes to academic debates on PanAfrican thoughts, Afrocentrism, municipal governance
v
and local development planning. In light of growing cooperaon, despite occasional fricon
between customary and municipal governance systems, the study acknowledges the relevance
of tradional authories to African societal governance. The study proposes the complementary
governance framework, which avails spaces for the formalisaon of customary land
administraon, thereby complemenng extant statutory ambiguies. This is key to ensuring
inclusive development planning and catering for solving present and future urbanisaon
problems.