The enormity of the world’s dislocated population generated by contemporary conflicts has brought significant attention to a complicated process of returning housing, land and property (HLP) to their rightful occupants once conditions permit. As the complexity of large-scale HLP restitution becomes increasingly apparent, significant obstacles emerge that require examination. This article describes how the ‘evidentiary bind’ is such an obstacle.

The livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, particularly the rural poor, are based on secure and equitable access to and control over land and natural resources which are in turn the source of food and shelter, the basis for social, cultural and religious practices, and a central factor in economic growth.

Growing commercial interests;population growth and conservation initiatives are increasing competition for land in Tanzania. At the same time;land-related conflicts are on the rise. These trends undermine livelihoods by threatening rural people’s access to land and tenure security. Women tend to be disproportionately affected as available land diminishes;disadvantaged by weak land rights and limited participation in decision-making processes.

The Afghanistan land sector is plagued by a multitude of problems linked to weak governance, corruption and lack of capacity. There are competing claims to land, widespread conflicts, resultant landlessness and poverty. Other issues are limited availability of undisputed farmland, difficulties in accessing grazing lands and many disputes over pasture lands. These issues are exacerbated by conflicting land ownership systems, insecure land tenure and registration, weak land governance environment and uncertain and incomplete legal frameworks.

For the African continent, the ability to manage trade-offs at a landscape scale has huge potential to influence the future of migration and conflict, as well as the future of land resources, food security and biodiversity. Integrated land management can act as an accelerator for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and can be considered an essential element of a sustainable strategy to address the root causes of irregular migration.

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.

The Rights-based Approach (RBA) allows local communities, or others who are marginalized, excluded or discriminated (the rights holders), to exercise their rights; and for institutions, organizations or other agencies (the duty bearers) to provide support towards equitable and inclusive development programmes that benefit them. RBA interventions can address inequities and disparities evident in these communities. In the context of the management of forested landscapes, RBA emphasizes the rights of local communities for fair benefits, access to resources, secure tenure and gender equity.

The Center for People and Forests' New Five Year Strategic Plan

The European Union funded Voices for Mekong Forests (V4MF) project conducted a set of forest governance and capacity needs assessments in late 2017 and early 2018 to assess the state of forest governance in five GMS countries: Thailand, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Viet Nam.

Why this study?
Recent years have witnessed an increase in violent conflicts involving pastoralists in parts of West Africa and the Sahel. They often take the form of clashes between herders and farmers, impacting human, national and regional security.
Given its mandate and role in conflict prevention, the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel, in collaboration with the Economic Community of West African States, initiated this study in 2017 to examine the causes and identify concrete solutions to conflicts related to pastoralism.

In recent years conflicts of land expropriation in China have received a lot of concern. Recent systematic reviews highlight causes, types and resolution of land conflicts, yet very few of these studies have considered the spatial-temporal characteristics of the issue. Utilizing spatial statistical analysis and statistical software, this paper aims to build a contextual overview on Chinese land expropriation conflicts and explore spatial and temporal distribution of it during 2006–2016. Correlations of land conflict intensity with per capita GDP and urbanization rate have been studied.