This report presents strategies of grassroots women's organisations in Eastern and Southourn Africa in working toward land tenure security, including home-based care and counselling, increased participation of women in government bodies, raising awareness about land issues, providing support for women's legal procedures, increasing economic security through skill development and microcredit loans as well as leadership development. The report concludes by giving some recommendations for increased effectiveness and scope for these grassroots activities.

In order to address this problem and to guide its policy advocacy work, the ERETO project commissioned a study to review existing and planned policies and laws that currently touch upon pastoralism and analyse how they actually impact, or are likely to impact, on pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods.  The policies and laws reviewed include those dealing with overall national development, those specific for the livestock sector, those dealing with access to pastoral resources, those dealing with conservation of wildlife and other natural resources, and those dealing with decentralisation a

Between 1999 and 2002, interviews were conducted in Laikipia District to examine whether pastoralists also experience conflict, and to determine whether wildlife conservation provided appreciable benefits to residents, or fostered pro-conservation attitudes

This paper discusses the internal processes and decisions that characterized the transition from collectively held group ranches to individualized property systems among the Maasai pastoralists of Kajiado district in Kenya. It addresses the question of why group ranch members would demand individualized property systems, but then turn against the outcome. In addressing this puzzle the paper discusses the process of land allocation and distribution during group ranch subdivision.

In den Grenzregionen des Shan State im Nordosten Burmas, die seit 1989 unter der Kontrolle der United Wa State Army (UWSA) ist, werden 65 Prozent des gesamten Opiums des Landes angebaut. Trotz der Bereitschaft der Landwirte konnten wegen minderwertiger Bodenbeschaffenheit und klimatischer Bedingungen bisher noch keine Erfolg versprechenden Alternativen zum Opiumanbau realisiert werden. Seit dem kompletten Bann im Jahre 2005 werden tiefgreifende humanitäre Konsequenzen für die Region in Form von Menschenhandel, Armut und mangelnder Sicherheit befürchtet.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
"The Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) first collaborated with communitybased
organizations to document the scale and distribution of internal displacement
in Eastern Burma during 2002. Two years later, another survey was coordinated to
enhance understanding about the vulnerability of internally displaced persons. These
assessments sought to increase awareness about the situation in conflict-affected
areas which remain largely inaccessible to the international community.

...Burma’s State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military junta claims to be implementing peace and development in Karen regions, but civilians in Toungoo District of northern Karen State say they are facing instead brutal treatment aimed at asserting military control. An example of SPDC-led ‘development’ is a new dam project on the Thauk Yay Ka (Day Loh) river in western Toungoo District.

Karen Internally Displaced Persons wonder when they will be able to go home...

"Sitting in his new bamboo hut in Ler Per Her camp for Internally Displaced Persons, located on the bank of Thailand’s Moei River near the border with Burma, Phar The Tai—a skinny, tough-looking man of 60 who used to hide in the jungles and mountains of Burma’s eastern Karen State—waits for the time when he can return home.

...While the nonviolent struggle of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi against the Burmese military government’s continuing repression has captured the world’s attention, the profound human rights and humanitarian crisis endured by Burma’s ethnic minority communities has largely been ignored.4

Between October 2004 and January 2005 SPDC troops launched forays into the hills of Nyaunglebin District in an attempt to flush villagers down into the plains and a life under SPDC control. Viciously timed to coincide with the rice harvest, the campaign focused on burning crops and landmining the fields to starve out the villagers. Most people fled into the forest, where they now face food shortages and uncertainty about this year's planting and the security of their villages.

The Land Rights Research and Resources Institute held its second National level Public Forum on land on 12-13 May 2005. The two day forum was partly one of the planned activities in the Institute’s three year Strategic plan and a special event to commemorate the Institute’s tenth Anniversary. It thus took place along with other activities such as Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop, preparation and running of a documentary on land rights advocacy, special media programmes, Special theatre performance by Dhahabu theatre arts Group and moving into a more specious office premise.