In many parts of Africa, legal services organisations have developed innovative ways for using legal processes to help disadvantaged groups have more secure land rights. Their approaches, tools and methods vary widely – from legal literacy training to paralegals programmes, from participatory methodologies to help local groups register their lands or negotiate with government or the private sector through to legal representation and strategic use of public interest litigation.

Burma/Myanmar has suffered
from two decades of mine
warfare by both the State Peace
and Development Council and
ethnic-based insurgents. There
are no humanitarian demining
programmes within the country.
It is no surprise that those states
in Burma/Myanmar with the most
mine pollution are the highest
IDP- and refugee-producing
states. Antipersonnel mines
planted by both government
forces and ethnic armed groups
injure and kill not only enemy
combatants but also their own

Mining has not always had good press in the development arena, due to a history of inadequate environmental and social governance. This short paper argues that there is enormous opportunity to be had in including women in mining operations. The author looks at how International Finance Corporations’ (IFC) Gender Program was able to implement strategies to help two IFC mining clients better integrate women into their operations. The author highlights how in so doing, IFC has contributed to the clients’ sustainability objectives and to improved performance through greater gender diversity.

This report analyses how Tanzania is failing to use its considerable mineral resources to tackle poverty, and asks: where is Tanzania’s mineral wealth going?  Gold mining is the fastest growing sector of Tanzania’s economy. Minerals now account for nearly half the country’s exports and Tanzania is Africa’s third largest gold producer.

Countries throughout the world are rapidly urbanising, particularly in the developing world, and for the first time in human history, the majority of people today are no longer living in rural areas, but rather in cities. This report examines the worldwide phenomenon of urbanisation from the point of view of women’s housing rights.

A publication from Engineers Against Poverty for the extractive industries - an eight-page briefing note to guide oil, gas and mining (OGM) companies on how they can maximise the contribution of local enterprises to the supply chain of their projects in low income countries. It provides practical guidance on three major opportunity areas to increase local enterprise participation in project supply chains:

modifying procurement policies and processes
modifying contract documentation
supporting the efficacy of supplier development programs

This study focuses on mining related conflicts in Tanzania, a relatively new mining country. It argues that unclear land and mining rights, and conceptual differences in how land and mining rights are perceived, contribute to conflict in the country and to a feeling among both local people and human rights advocacy groups that the government has betrayed ordinary people.The study finds that there have been seven recorded conflicts related to mining companies in the country, six of them taking place over the last seven years.

Mine Ban Treaty status:

Not a State Party...

Stockpile:

Unknown...

Contamination:

APMs; some AVMs and ERW...

Estimated area of contamination:

Extensive...

Demining progress in 2006:

None reported...

MRE capacity:

Increased but remains inadequate...

Mine/ERW casualties in 2006:

Total: 243 (2005: 231)...

Mines: 232 (2005: 231):

Unknown devices: 11 (2005: 0)...

Casualty analysis:

Killed: 20 (2 civilians, 2 children, 6 military,

10 unknown) (2005: 5);

Landmines continued to be deployed in Burma during 2006. According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), only three countries; namely: Burma, Nepal and Russia, continued to use landmines during 2006; with the most extensive use reported to have occurred in Burma. [1] Meanwhile, there is a growing international consensus on the need to ban the use of landmines across the globe.