The exploitation of natural resources plays a critical role in the Uganda government’s plans to develop the country. Extractive industries are up scaling their activity as the sector is gearing up for the exploitation of oil and gaz by 2020. In a country where most people live off the land, the construction of industrial infrastructure carries great risks for the protection of fundamental rights.

Executive Summary:
"Myanmar has been engaged in a process of political change since 2011. A central goal of these reforms
has been the attempt to resolve political conflicts between ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) and the
Myanmar Government. Talks began under the ‘civilian
government’ led by Thein Sein and have continued
under the National League of Democracy (NLD)
-
led Government. However, several years of talks have
produced little concrete progress.
This is a complex peace process, which has only the partial inclusion

Traditionally, in the context of environment and natural resources management, many communication efforts have focused on the dissemination of technical information to end-users who were expected to adopt them. Development practitioners were trying to ‘push’ their products on communities in order to receive community commitment to their development initiatives.

After natural disasters, governments often relocate vulnerable urban communities in the name of humanitarian relief. But urban communities rarely welcome such relocation, since it frequently exacerbates their daily challenges or creates new risks. Indeed, resettlement after a disaster is often another form of eviction. This briefing discusses the situation in Chennai, where state and local authorities have been building resettlement tenements on inland marsh areas using centrally sponsored schemes for affordable housing.

This article explores some of the realities of supporting income generation for displaced people in conflict settings, drawing on experiences in Kachin, northern Myanmar, suggesting development and humanitarian actors need to better acknowledge limitations and rethink our approaches.

We, leaders of groups of women affected by the expansion of industrial monoculture plantations, particularly oil palm plantations, coming from all regions in Sierra Leone and different countries from West and Central Africa;

We, national and international organizations involved in the struggle for the rights of women and local communities in Africa, Latin America and Asia, signatories of this declaration, met from 14 to 15 August 2017 in Port Loko, Sierra Leone.

This article is a summary of the chapter by Marcus King, John O. Rankin Associate Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, in the new book, Water, Security and U.S. Foreign Policy. The book was produced by the World Wildlife Fund-US and edited by David Reed. The summary was prepared by Chelsea Spangler. 

The Philippines faces a breadth of social and environmental challenges that threaten its economic and political stability. A long history of violent conflict stemming from ethnic, religious, and political tensions is further complicated by changing weather patterns that cause severe drought and damaging storms. Millions of people in Mindanao have been displaced by violence and extreme weather events, and their migration from rural areas leaves room for the expansion of terrorist groups that threaten regional stability.

Community-managed reserves (CMRs) comprise the fastest-growing category of protected areas throughout the tropics. CMRs represent a compromise between advocates of nature conservation and advocates of human development. We ask whether CMRs succeed in achieving the goals of either. A fixed reserve area can produce only a finite resource supply, whereas human populations exploiting them tend to expand rapidly while adopting high-impact technologies to satisfy rising aspirations. Intentions behind the establishment of CMRs may be admirable, but represent an ideal rarely achieved.

Effective recognition of customary land rights is still a challenge in Angola, as in many other African countries. Despite customary land rights of the traditional rural communities are expressly recognized in the 2004 National Land Law, very few communities in Angola have been able to register their land. In the Province of Bié, in Angola central highlands, only five customary collective land titles (called Dominio Util Consuetudinario) had been issued within the period 2004-2015.

Community-driven development is a strategy for empowering people to choose their own priorities, project leaders, and monitoring. Many believe that this model results in lower corruption rates. We look at what happened in the Arid Lands Project in Kenya and a community-development project in Indonesia. These projects had strikingly different corruption rates, even though the countries had similar corruption perception rates at project startup. Find out which design elements may account for the differences in corruption.