The period under review covers 20 months under a coalition government, a constitutional crisis and a few months when the president and the prime minister, leading different political parties, jockeyed for position. There was little political progress under the coalition government. The Office of Missing Persons was set up to investigate extra-legal disappearances and initiated some investigations. Parliament approved legislation to set up the Office of Reparations, but this is yet to be operationalized.

Communities around the world are reeling from the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic and measures taken to contain it. Now more than ever, the ability to know, use, and shape the law is critical. Access to health care and various forms of relief hinge on the ability to know one’s rights and navigate complex systems. As emergency actions escalate, citizens must ensure that governments do not use the pandemic as an excuse to entrench unjust or discriminatory policies.

Guinea’s 450 megawatt Souapiti dam, scheduled to begin operating in September 2020, is the most advanced of several new hydropower projects planned by the government of President Alpha Condé. Guinea’s government believes that hydropower can significantlyincrease access to electricity in a country where only a fraction of people have reliable access to power.

Le barrage de Souapiti, qui devrait à terme fournir 450 mégawatts après sa mise en service en septembre 2020, est le projet d’énergie hydraulique le plus avancé parmi plusieurs nouveaux projets planifiés par le gouvernement du président guinéen Alpha Condé. Le gouvernement guinéen estime que l’énergie hydraulique peut accroître considérablement l’accès à l’électricité, dans ce pays où seule une fraction de la population peut y accéder de façon fiable.

The adoption of modern Land Administration Systems (LAS) in Sub Saharan Africa is done with the expectation that principles of equity, non-discrimination, efficiency, transparency, productivity and sustainability among others may be achieved to meet societal needs in those countries.  However, a lack of functional systems to document land through the provision of proper documentation particularly in Sub Saharan Africa has led to a high tenure insecurity in local communities, landlessness and a lack of proper investment in the land they hold.

Translation of the Customary

Msonkhano Wodziwitsa Atsogoleri a ma Dipatimenti ndi Mabungwe a pa Boma

Mamembala a nthambi yoyendetsa chitukuko pa Boma ayenera kudziwa za lamulo la malo a makolo koyambirira kuti asankhe dera lomwe angakayambire ntchito zokhudza lamuloli.

Msonkhano Wodziwitsa Makomiti a ADC, VDC ndi Magulu a m’madera za Lamulo la Malo a Makolo

Makomiti a ADC ndi VDC ndi ofunika kwambiri pothandiza anthu a m’madera mwawo kumvetsetsa za lamulo la malo a makolo.

Chisankho cha Komiti Yoyendetsa za Malo a Makolo

Indigenous and community lands, crucial for rural livelihoods, are typically held under informal customary

tenure arrangements. This can leave the land vulnerable to outside commercial interests, so communities may

seek to formalize their land rights in a government registry and obtain an official land document. But this process

can be time-consuming and complex, and in contrast, companies can acquire land relatively quickly and find

shortcuts around regulatory burdens. This article reviews and maps 19 community land formalization and 14

Evidence shows that women can benefit from having individualised land rights formalized in their names. However, similar evidence is not available for formalization of land rights that are based on collective tenure. Studies have estimated that as much as 65 percent of the world’s land is held under customary, collective-tenure systems. Improving tenure security for land held collectively has been shown to improve resource management and to support self-determination of indigenous groups.

With the current population of 40 million and 213 inhabitants per km², Uganda is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa. Yet land is a fixed asset. Of all the land in Uganda, approximately 80% of the land area is administered under customary tenure system and approximately 5% only is titled under Mailo, leasehold and freehold tenure. There is a high amount of tenure insecurity in major parts of the population, as the land legislation is not well−known among the rural smallholder farmers.

CIFOR undertook a review of Kenya’s legal framework to understand whether legal provisions were sufficient to secure community land and forest rights. Asks how adequate Kenya’s legal framework was in protecting and promoting tenure rights of forest communities. The law appears to offer adequate security for the tenure rights of forest communities. Forests on communal land are secure;at least on paper. Areas of public gazetted forests claimed by indigenous groups as their customary territory are not well secured by law;but a task force is now addressing this gap.

How state and customary authorities deal with land issues has important consequences for how they are viewed by citizens. This may be particularly the case in conflict-affected settings, where displacement and return cause tenure insecurity and land disputes, and where the legitimacy of state and non-state institutions is contested. ZOA and Radboud University have developed a training manual around legitimacy and land, based on research conducted by Radboud researchers in Uganda.