Research shows that land disputes are increasingly common, exposing businesses to severe risks at the project level. The problem is endemic and growing – companies want evidence-based approaches to address this new reality and understand their exposure to risk. The Quantifying Tenure Risk (QTR) financial model blends verified company data with detailed case research to accurately assess tenure risk and provide tailored support to investors and businesses. 

Baseline survey which includes a literature review. Findings cover land and livelihoods, land ownership and security of tenure, land rights and decision making, land market and transactions, land disputes. Concludes that the volume of land transactions is too low to support a transformation from subsistence to commercial agriculture, as planned. Smallholder farmers have limited capital options making increased land utilization impossible. Tenure security for women is still far from a reality. There is a need to strengthen land rights of widows and orphans.

Report is in 3 parts: literature review findings, field study findings, recommendations. Divided into land justice and family justice and concludes by defining strategic interventions for the Justice, Law and Order Sector. Finds a dominant preference for disputes to be resolved at the lowest level possible, that lack of legal aid remains a big hindrance to access to justice, and that the conflict-affected districts of Lango, Acholi, Karamoja and Teso deserve special attention as a matter of urgency to resolve emerging land disputes and conflicts.

Covers (1) Land as a source of conflict in Africa – the multi-dimensional nature of land issues; indirect causes of conflict, land access and structural poverty; interactions between customary and state-managed tenure systems; historical injustices and land disputes. (2) Land rights during conflict – population displacement; land as a sustaining factor in conflict; land rights of women, children and marginalized communities.

Includes background to women’s land rights in Zambia; policy and legal reforms of the1990s; key findings – gender insensitivity on land laws and policies, the high cost of legal fees to handle land disputes, the limited benefits of title deeds for women, lack of awareness on land policy process, land grabbing and disinheritance, lack of security of tenure, lack of access to justice; conclusions and recommendations.

Includes context, project objectives, coverage, cost, delivery and achievements, beneficiaries – communications and targeting, gender, innovations, employment and training, lesson learning, flexibility, geographical scope, government ownership and political will, sustainability, capacity of the justice sector to address land disputes, reliability and scalability of approach taken.

Background – renewed impetus for systematic demarcation – policy, legislative and operational frameworks. Systematic demarcation and poverty reduction – theoretical and conceptual frameworks, methodology. Outcomes of systematic demarcation – the demarcation process, transformations in land rights, including for children and women, asset enhancement, access to capital, farm investment and production, the land market, land disputes, area land committee operations, local parcel registration data bank. Conclusions and recommendations.

Current interventions in land conflicts in the eastern Congo are focused on conflict management rather than conflict resolution. Land conflicts are part of a wider governance problem and need political rather than technical approaches. Conflicts over land are related to wider conflict dynamics, which are the result of an interplay between struggles for power and resources, identity narratives and territorial claims. There is a need for better donor coordination and more coherent land governance interventions, which should be integrated into larger state-building efforts.

The full Report, covering evolution of land policy and law, overview of land problems, current land tenure systems, systems of inheritance and land administration, settlement of land disputes, towards a new land policy and legal framework, and strategy for policy development.