Vaste pays (1 284 000km²), très largement désertique, au moins au nord de la frontière naturelle que constitue le Chari, le Tchad comptait une population de 10 millions d’habitants en 2006, dont le taux de croissance est de 3,3 % la même année1. Comme le relevait déjà une étude de 1996, la part urbaine de cette population est en forte expansion (taux de croissance de 4,8 %, mais avec des pics pour N’Djamena, 6 %, et Moundou, la ville du pétrole, avec 4,8 %). Cette population urbaine représenterait àpeu près 20 % de la population2.

Les sécheresses des années 1970-1980 et le réchauffement climatique attirent l’attention médiatique sur les risques de disparition du lac Tchad. Alors que la plupart des avis scientifiques contestent cette vision pessimiste, nous proposons ici d’étudier la dynamique des relations entre N’Djaména, capitale sahélienne de plus d’un million

Located in the Guéra region in central Chad, the Mongo Sub-Prefecture is the scene of recurring conflicts related to the occupation and exploitation of the land. While the phenomenon is neither new nor specific to this part of the country, the scale it has taken in recent years makes it a worrying subject. This land conflicts are driven by a multitude of actors with traditional authorities, agricultural producers and the urban elite at the center.

During the reporting period, the consolidation of authoritarian rule in Azerbaijan continued. Snap parliamentary elections in February 2020 did not meet international standards for free and fair competition. However, some notorious high-ranking state officials were fired, and corrupt local level administrators detained on corruption charges. These developments, in addition to the appointment of some young professionals to ministerial posts, raised hopes for a possible opening of the country to real reforms and changes.

La République centrafricaine traverse depuis plusieurs décennies des crises socio-politiques et militaires. Celles-ci ont atteint leur apogée en 2013 autour des affrontements entre la Séléka, une rébellion du nord et les Anti-Balaka, un regroupement de milices locales. L’État n’a plus de contrôle sur l’ensemble de son territoire morcelé et tenu par des groupes armés. À partir du cas de l’Ouest centrafricain, cette thèse montre que les conflits armés ont des répercussions profondes sur les rapports des populations aux ressources et aux territoires.

Ce numéro des Cahiers d’Outre-Mer traite d’une question classique de géographie politique, la relation entre ressources et conflits armés, dans un contexte original, celui de la République centrafricaine (RCA). Afin d’introduire les textes qui composent ce dossier, il s’agit d’abord de situer le cas centrafricain par rapport aux principales approches développées dans les sciences sociales sur la thématique des conflits et des ressources, et de trier celles qui semblent le plus opératoires pour éclairer l’imbroglio centrafricain.

Le Groupe Castel, géant français du sucre et des boissons, lié au financement de milices armées en République centrafricaine.

The Supreme Court of Burundi has just published a collection of land case law which constitutes volume 5 of the "Jurisprudence Review of the Supreme Court of Burundi". This collection was officially presented to the public on December 15, 2022.

This report documents the evaluation of the Cambodian Land Dispute Independent Mediation (CLAIM) project, an independent mediation between Socfin-KCD Co., Ltd. and Coviphama Co., Ltd., known as Socfin Cambodia and five Bunong villages from Busra Commune, Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia. MRLG provided funding for CLAIM. The evaluation was undertaken by the Australian Disputes Centre (ADC) in 2022.

Agricultural Land-Use Change (ALUC) is a major driver of global environmental change, not least via its direct impact on the sustainability and resilience of the rural economy. Its drivers are complex and have remained contentious, necessitating further empirical study. This study aims to derive context-specific evidence on the driving factors and effects of ALUC from different stakeholders’ perceptions. We carried out household surveys and participatory rural appraisal across Benue State, Nigeria.

Despite the economic and social costs of national and international efforts to restore millions of hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes, results have not met expectations due to land tenure conflicts, land-use transformation, and top-down decision-making policies. Privatization of land, expansion of cattle raising, plantations, and urbanization have created an increasingly competitive land market, dispossessing local communities and threatening forest conservation and regeneration.

Land use conflicts can present major obstacles to sustainable land management. An accurate understanding of their actor constellations and conflict lines is therefore crucial in developing tools for successful landscape governance. In this context, actors from cities and actors from rural areas are often seen as typical opponents. Hence, the objective of this paper is to analyze the extent to which empirical conflict lines indeed run between urban and rural actors.