Dr Gavin Capps joined SWOP at the University of the Witwatersrand as a Senior Researcher in January 2013. He is leader of the Mining and Rural Transformation in Southern Africa (MARTISA) project, a six-year research programme funded by the Ford Foundation.

This is a judgment of Supreme Court of India to check grabbing of village common land including ponds and water bodies (called in different names) by unscrupulous persons, political clout, powerful vested interests, corrupt state authorities, etc by fraudulent practices and ensure their protection and safeguard.

Landesa (strengthening land rights for the world’s poorest people) and Land Portal co‑facilitated the online dialogue on “Responsible investments in land: perspective from Tanzania and globally” from June 5 -16, 2017.

For details on the dialogue follow this link.

This report is in relation to a study on the Land Tenure and Livelihood Issues in the Albertine Graben Region. The study was carried out in three districts of Amuru Buliisa and Hoima. The study specifically focused on tenurial arrangements and land transactions in the region. The ultimate outcome of this study will be drawing of policy issues for policy engagement and dialogue towards a comprehensive policy direction to land governance in the Albertine Graben.

A well-functioning land administration and management system is crucial for Madagascar's economic and social future. Land is implicated in Madagascar's ongoing economic development and social transformation in many important ways, as key a factor in its quest for economic growth, urbanization, transparent decision-making on land-related foreign investments, environment protection, vibrant and sustainable rural communities, political stability, and social cohesion.

The exploitation of natural resources plays a critical role in the Uganda government’s plans to develop the country. Extractive industries are up scaling their activity as the sector is gearing up for the exploitation of oil and gaz by 2020. In a country where most people live off the land, the construction of industrial infrastructure carries great risks for the protection of fundamental rights.

This report investigates cases of land grabbing in Uganda, focusing in particular on oil palm plantations in Kalangala, Lake Victoria. It assesses the impacts on rural communities and on the local environment, and questions who benefits from these projects.

This research forms part of a larger study on large-scale land acquisition in Uganda. There are three main components of this study: (1) a “risk map” that identifies areas “at risk” for land acquisition due to their high suitability for biofuel crop production; (2) a due diligence report on the existing land uses and users of land identified as “at risk” in the first activity; and (3) an assessment of the land acquisition process, including applicable social and environmental safeguards.

The protection given to the land rights of women, orphans and any other vulnerable groups in Northern and Eastern Uganda is probably as good as can be found anywhere in the world. Customary land law is based on three main principles. First, everyone is entitled to land, and no-one can ever be denied land rights. A second principle is that all inherited land is family land, never individual property.

Date : 2017

Source : Foncier & Développement

Les membres de Coordination SUD dénoncent l’accaparement des terres, de l’eau et des autres ressources naturelles liées à l’alimentation. Ils ont consacré à ce problème l’une des premières publications de la commission Agriculture et alimentation (C2A), le traitant comme une menace pour la sécurité alimentaire.

This paper focuses on one community in Cambodia that won back land from a large land deal by grabbing onto the rupture in property relations initiated by a one-year land titling campaign. I document the struggle between competing legibility and illegibility projects which I examine through two moments, one of the state choosing to see its population and their relations to territory, and another in which the state’s excuses for not recognizing smallholders’ claims began to falter.

This article focuses on how climate change mitigation policies and economic land and mining concessions in Prey Lang, Cambodia, accommodate and facilitate each other physically, discursively and economically. Maps and project descriptions reveal that climate-related policies and extraction coexist in the same landscape, even the same projects. Knowledge co-produced by the authors and affected individuals suggests that climate change mitigation initiatives are not only intimately linked to economic intensification in Prey Lang, but they also contribute to conflict and dispossession.