Tom Balemesa K is a teacher turned into an advocate for land rights, peace, and development through social research. He has worked in Uganda and abroad for over ten years, focusing on land, gender, mining and minerals policies, post-conflict development, monitoring and evaluation, social and participatory research. He is leading the designing of a strategy on transitioning from humanitarian to development financing in the health, water and education sector in refugee hosting districts for the government of Uganda and GIZ. He has served as the land rights consultant with ZOA on quality assurance for four land rights projects and traning, supported the design of ADR guidelines for the land sector in Uganda and previously he was involved in the development of a Fit for Purpose Capacity Development Strategy for Land Administration institutions in Uganda for the Ministry of Lands Housing and Urban Development. He is also member of the working group reviewing the National Land Policy and has worked on land policy and gender, co-existence, humanitarian assistance, land banking, CCOs with line ministries, World Bank, Saferworld, UNHabitat, UNWomen ESARO, Bird with GIZ, UNWomen Fahamu, Danish Refugee Council and EUTF partners, Actionaid Uganda and Netherlands, Oxfam OIS, ACODE. Tom is currently an associate with Resource Rights Africa (RRA), advisor to Land Equity Movement (LEMU), a mentor and member of the regional task force for Interpeace projects: Youth Innovation Lab for Peace and The Cross-border Dialogue for Peace in the Great Lakes. His other works include; conducting a conflict analysis to inform land rights programming in refugee hosting communities, establishing a baseline on women , peace and security for the UNWomen, identifying and compiling women peace and security data gaps for the IGAD countries, documentation of gendered impacts from large scale land-based investments by MNCs, studying the feasibility of local peace committees in resolving conflicts among refugees and writing a  concept and guidelines for implementation of land banking in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area. Tom possess an MA in Peacebuilding and Conflict studies that focused on addressing land conflicts as a result of Oil exploration in Hoima and a BA Ed from Makerere University. He also has a post graduate diploma in M&E from Uganda Management Institute, certifications in gender data from Techchange, gender and peacebuilding, conflict analysis and mediation from United States Institute of Peace. Tom is a recipient of 3 professional awards from Landesa–Seattle, Atlas Fellowship-USA and Africa Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)-Durban. He is a certified practitioner for achieving responsible land-based investments on the Social License Platform. He has published on land, conflict, extractives’ policies and values family, volunteering and farming.