During the Annual Conference hosted by the Knowledge Platform Security and Rule of Law (KPSRL), the LAND-at-scale knowledge management organised a session exploring how land registration might impact relations between local governments and the populations they are expected to serve. Land registration interventions today often follow a path of decentralisation in which local land offices are tasked with additional responsibilities, or new entities are being created. These local offices give local authorities an important role in land mapping, registration, administration and adjudication.

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact”
- Arthur Conan Doyle

Overcoming Land Disputes by Fostering Relationships in Communities: Experiences from Zambia’s Systematic Land Titling Program

Written by Dimuna Phiri and Kamiji Malasha

Unresolved disputes and disorder, can be addressed through the judicial system. However, the process is expensive, slow, unscalable, and does not focus on reconciling individuals, families and communities. Through the lens of beneficiaries, this article reveals the importance of alternative dispute resolution in land reforms, particularly adjudication committees.

The Land Portal works to embed land governance in open data discussions and vice versa. This primer is extracted from the recently published Open Up Guide for Land Governance.

First, What is Open Data?

There is an immense pressure on land in Uganda. The country has a rapidly growing population and is host to the world’s third largest refugee population. Particularly poor people struggle to get access to healthy food. Agriculture practices need to become more efficient and focused on the domestic market. The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) in Uganda works to improve food security in selected areas in the country. Among several food security projects, the EKN works with the LAND-at-scale program to improve land governance.

By Sean Johnson, land administration specialist at COWI, Swaziland

* This piece was originally published as part of the online discussion on customary law in Southern Africa

By Allan Cain, Development Workshop Angola

* This article was originally published as part of the online discussion on customary law in Southern Africa

By Phillan Zamchiya, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)

* This article was originally published as part of the online discussion on customary law in Southern Africa

Submission Deadline: All manuscripts should be submitted for consideration by December 31, 2021.

The global environmental crisis is intertwined with the crisis of social and economic inequality. From coal plants to palm oil plantations, economic activities that threaten the planet are concentrated in communities with less power and wealth. “You can’t have climate change without sacrifice zones,” writes Hop Hopkins, “and you can’t have sacrifice zones without disposable people.”1

There is some irony in that many of the terms – ‘thesaurus’, ‘taxonomy’, ‘controlled vocabulary’ ‘ontology’ – that are intended to bring order and clarity to our use of language in professional settings are themselves subject to diverse interpretations and application. This is in large part because they are used by a range of people working in different contexts with different purposes.