This report is part of a broader comparative effort by the Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian Policy Group on Land Tenure in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations, which aims to inform and improve the policy and practice of humanitarian action and to inform related areas of international policy. It seeks to understand how land issues affect and are affected by violence and conflict resolution, what responses are appropriate and what lessons can be learned from specific contexts of land tenure interventions, both during and after conflict.

This background briefing reports on a study of land access for returnees in Rwanda, and the impacts of land access policies in the post-conflict period. It also seeks to understand better the roles international humanitarian agencies and NGOs have played, and how their performance can be improved. It is not suggested that Rwanda is typical, but rather that the centrality of land issues there has thrown up a revealing set of broader questions.

The briefing ends with the following lessons;

[via UNDP, 2008] These 4 Policy Briefs from UNDP show how increasing knowledge about gender relations and empowerment has highlighted the importance of access to and control over land within intra-household gender relations, and what this implies for broader concerns about empowerment of the poor.  Moreover, significant knowledge gaps are also found in discussions on the link between land policies and cultural, territorial and gender empowerment issues.

[September 2008]

Within this report, the FAO outlines its efforts to reinforce local institutions and promote policies and legislation that aim for fairer access for both women and men to natural resources (particularly land, water, fishing and forestry) and to the relevant economic and social resources.

It goes on to approach the reasons why land tenure should be taken into account in project design, highlighting ecological issues, questions of gender, conflict and migrations, and the relationships between them.

The Community Land Rights Recognition Model (CLRR) sequences specific actions to be undertaken by the Government of Kenya for the recognition of community land rights as stipulated by Article 63 of
the Kenyan Constitution 2010. This proposed process is a result of many months of consultation between
a team of Ministry of Lands officials, the SECURE Project (funded by USAID and implemented by Tetra
Tech ARD), four targeted pilot communities in Lamu County, local administration, and other stakeholders.

[adapted from GTZ] 1999- More than one hundred technical co-operation projects on three continents supported by the various technical departments of GTZ were involved in this discussion on Land Use Planning, paying specific attention to gender and women’s promotion through its pilot program “Gender and Women’s Promotion”.

See attached the 10 points of the agreement signed around land rights between Ekta Parishad and the Indian Government.

The original French version of this article was prepared at the request of the Nature & Progress (Nature & Progrès) journal and published in November 2011 (No 85) issue in the section Resources : the plundering (Ressources: la spoliation).

Translated by Levi E. Johnson

Extracts :

This country profile has been compiled as part of a series of country factsheets particularly prepared for Dutch embassies that are developing a strategic analysis on food security and water. The factsheets present the relevant policy and institutional contexts with respect to land governance for each of the 15 selected countries. They have been updated in July 2012.

This country profile has been compiled as part of a series of country factsheets particularly prepared for Dutch embassies that are developing a strategic analysis on food security and water. The factsheets present the relevant policy and institutional contexts with respect to land governance for each of the 15 selected countries. They have been updated in July 2012. 

This country profile has been compiled as part of a series of country factsheets particularly prepared for Dutch embassies that are developing a strategic analysis on food security and water. The factsheets present the relevant policy and institutional contexts with respect to land governance for each of the 15 selected countries. They have been updated in July 2012.