Households Land Use Strategies in a Protracted Crisis Context: Land Tenure, Conflict and Food Security in Eastern DRC

The problematic relationship between land tenure, food security and conflict has recently generated a considerable body of research. Land disputes are increasingly recognised as dynamic processes that are generated by (perceived) land tenure insecurity. Conflicts, however, can also lead to intensified struggle for land, especially when politico-military elites seek to consolidate their power base and reward their supporters by extending control over land as part of their war strategies. This report provides a systematic description of the particular links between local mechanisms of land distribution and conflict in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. It focuses on a number of regions where local patterns of land use and land access can be identified as key dynamics of local tension and dispute. The first part of this paper focuses on the institutional context regulating local access to land and examines how shifts in this context have intensified competition for land access. The second part evaluates how household strategies in a context of war and food insecurity have had an impact on local food production and consumption patterns. It also explores the impact of food security interventions.