The Guide to Land Mediation mainly draws its inspiration from practical experience on the ground of the land program conducted by UN-Habitat in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri. It refers, in some places, to other countries experiences in post-conflict situations. This guide offers practical steps and tools used during the land mediation process. The publication highlights, not only the role and responsibilities of mediation stakeholders and 'beneficiaries', but also principles and foundations of a good mediation

This report provides an overview of the achievements and learning from the Phase 1 of the Tenure Security Learning Initiative - East & Southern Africa (TSLI-ESA) Project. It also looks ahead to strategies for scaling up the initiatives, and to the second phase of the TSLI-ESA project. The main objective of the TSLI-ESA Phase 1 Project has been to identify common land and natural resources tenure issues and to enhance lesson sharing and knowledge management on land-related tools and approaches amongst the various projects, country stakeholders and partners.

In order to build on the momentum and to be able to move from individuals action to change towards a youth responsive land sector at scale, there is a need to strengthen the knowledge base and to broaden the understanding of how youth’s land rights and needs are intricately linked to sustainable development in rural and urban areas.

Why are the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests important?

Land management reform has re-emerged as a priority for many African countries and strongly supported by so-called development partners. This time round, a more nuanced theme combining the classic goals of enhancing tenure security, improving investment and productivity of land with those of poverty reduction and equity in land access. Many continue to question the neo-classical premise which perceives customary systems to not provide the necessary security to promote agricultural investment and productivity due to the lack of clearly defined private and enforceable property rights.

Rural areas in Cambodia have been the target of large-scale land acquisitions since the late 1990s. As of March 2012, economic land concessions in Cambodia covered more than 2 million hectares, equivalent to over half of the country’s arable land. In this paper, we discuss the policy narratives and discursive strategies that are employed by various actors to justify and legitimize large-scale land acquisitions. We then analyze the underlying mechanisms of such acquisitions and investments and examine how they are entangled with donor-assisted land use planning efforts.

Through LMAP, and subsequent LASSP, Cambodia has made impressive progress in building a functioning cadastral system over the last ten years. This process has proved complex and challenging, but since commencing, the land registration teams have successfully issued over 1.7 million land titles, a strong legal framework has been developed for the functioning of the land administration bodies and mechanism, institutions have been built and strengthened, and a dispute resolution process has been established for dealing with disputes over unregistered land.

Land deals are frequently agreed in secret between governments and investors. This lack of transparency in the allocation of land fosters an environment where elite capture of natural assets becomes the norm, where human rights are routinely abused with impunity, where environmental destruction is ignored and where investment incentives are stacked against companies willing to adhere to ethical and legal principles.

This paper investigates the real financial consequences of investing in land with disputed tenure rights. It demonstrates that companies which ignore the issue of land tenure expose themselves to substantial, and in some cases extreme, risks. Using case study analysis, the paper connects ground-up financial thinking with empirical reality. In so doing, it makes a strong case for the need to integrate tenure-related risks more comprehensively into our financial architecture.

Northern Burma’s borderlands have undergone dramatic changes in the last two decades. Three main and interconnected developments are simultaneously taking place in Shan State and Kachin State: (1) the increase in opium cultivation in Burma since 2006 after a decade of steady decline; (2) the increase at about the same time in Chinese agricultural investments in northern Burma under China’s opium substitution programme, especially in rubber; and (3) the related increase in dispossession of local communities’ land and livelihoods in Burma’s northern borderlands.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Foreign investment in agriculture has expanded since 2005, although the figures remain modest. The Cambodian government has prioritized investment in the sector, and an important part of the government strategy has been its policies on land concessions. A 2005 sub-decree sets out the procedures, mechanisms and institutional arrangements for offering economic land concessions (ELCs), with the objective of improving crop diversity, productivity, and employment, among other benefits. By 2009, just over a third of ELCs had gone to foreign investors.