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.

Offers a series of steps on how to stop border conflicts by marking the borders.

Includes landlord-tenant relations, the Kibaale land question, pastoralists, gazetted land, IDPs and returnees in Northern Uganda, conflicts about refugee resettlement camps, the impact of oil discoveries, deficits in dispute resolution and land administration, corruption, ignorance of the law.

Includes the return process, public knowledge of land rights, land conflicts and dispute resolution, post-conflict vulnerable group issues, performance of land administration institutions, recommendations. Finds the issue of return not adequately dealt with in the NLP. 92% have returned in Lango, but only 5% in Acholi.

A second report for the World Bank’s Northern Uganda Recovery and Development Program – RDP. The objective is to inform policy processes on post-conflict land policy and administration on likely types of land conflicts and claims, their resolution, gaps in current land policy, resources needed. Survey suggests that Teso’s IDP displacement patterns are unique. Customary tenure has been transformed, with household heads now owners, not trustees, of rights in land, so clans are merely informed of sales. Common property resources are at greatest risk.

In 2013, 20 expert advocates from across Africa gathered for a symposium to share experiences and practical strategies for effectively supporting communities to protect their lands and natural resources. Resulting from that meeting, this book is a collection of case studies and analysis written by and for practitioners, sharing a variety of creative and practical strategies for proactively confronting the forces that undermine community land and natural resource tenure security in Africa.

Key findings: Customary tenure remains strong with only 1.2% of plots held under statutory tenure. Over 86% of women reported they have access to land under customary tenure and c.63% of women reported they “own” land under customary tenure. Tenure security is not dependent on formal documentation as proof of ownership. Men play a dominant role in land management. General knowledge of statutory and customary land law and management systems is poor. c.50% of the population have experienced land conflicts, 72% are within household, family or clan.

Covers land use patterns in the Cotton Belt – joint venture companies, smallholders and privados, research questions and characteristics of the 5 study zones, smallholder perceptions of land tenure security and experiences with conflict in the Cotton Belt. Challenges widely held beliefs about land tenure and access in the smallholder sector in Mozambique. Provisions in the new legal framework will not be sufficient to eliminate or adjudicate land conflicts between smallholders. The research results reveal significant variation in the size of household landholdings.

The paper discusses the interface of anthropological research on land with policy positions across formative periods – from the colonial period through to the present as land tenure reform has repeatedly become a development priority; and recent research on intensifying competition over land, its intersection with competition over legitimate authority, new types of land transfers, the role of claims of indigeneity or autochthony in land conflicts, and the challenges of increasing social inequality and of commodification of land for analysis and for land reform.

The report discusses the approach and methods underlying the study and offers conceptual clarifications. It presents the legal framework and historical context in relation to political economy and identity politics. The bulk of the report is devoted to the analysis of significant case studies: on boundary conflicts linked to decentralisation and development programmes, the conservation issue, autochthons/migrants relations, the ‘youth factor’. A final section outlines policy orientations.

Issues identified as being of major importance in relation to the land rights and land conflict situation are: questions related to governance; contradictions and lack of harmonisation between recent laws and policies in Tanzania; the existing power relations (including gender relations); and present development priorities. Makes it clear that dealing with land matters is in essence political and presents a series of recommendations for interventions in the field of land rights.

Presentation of 5 brief case studies of what Oxfam actually did with regards land in post-conflict situations in Africa, in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Rwanda and Angola, concluding with the common themes, conclusions and lessons that emerged from the case studies. Also includes a critique of the role of USAID.