Between October 2004 and January 2005 SPDC troops launched forays into the hills of Nyaunglebin District in an attempt to flush villagers down into the plains and a life under SPDC control. Viciously timed to coincide with the rice harvest, the campaign focused on burning crops and landmining the fields to starve out the villagers. Most people fled into the forest, where they now face food shortages and uncertainty about this year's planting and the security of their villages.

The Land Rights Research and Resources Institute held its second National level Public Forum on land on 12-13 May 2005. The two day forum was partly one of the planned activities in the Institute’s three year Strategic plan and a special event to commemorate the Institute’s tenth Anniversary. It thus took place along with other activities such as Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop, preparation and running of a documentary on land rights advocacy, special media programmes, Special theatre performance by Dhahabu theatre arts Group and moving into a more specious office premise.

Background – renewed impetus for systematic demarcation – policy, legislative and operational frameworks. Systematic demarcation and poverty reduction – theoretical and conceptual frameworks, methodology. Outcomes of systematic demarcation – the demarcation process, transformations in land rights, including for children and women, asset enhancement, access to capital, farm investment and production, the land market, land disputes, area land committee operations, local parcel registration data bank. Conclusions and recommendations.

Includes land rights in gender equity; issues in gaining access to land property – acquiring land rights from the state and through inheritance and the market, legal pluralism, population displacement; three postconflict studies (Rwanda, Guatemala, Afghanistan); conclusions and recommendations – legislation and policy, programme implementation, overcoming patriarchal norms, the cost of speaking out, gender sensitivity training and legal assistance, information on gender impact.

Examines the jurisdiction of the Lands Tribunal, its operations, composition, funding and secretariat. Urges the Government to finalise its draft Land Policy and revise the 1995 Lands Act. Recommends that the Lands Tribunal be decentralised to be accessible to poor women and men, that it publicise its work more and that its capacity and resources be increased. There is also a need to strengthen traditional structures and appeal mechanisms to provide a balance to the power of chiefs.

Mit Zwangsarbeit, ethnischen Umsiedlungen und ausländischen Investitions-Dollars sichert die Militärjunta ihre Machtstrukturen in Myanmar. Forced labour, internal displacement, foreign investments, power structures.

This summary of the Report of the Ndungu Commission on Illegal and Irregular Allocation of Public Land provides an insight into a critical recent episode in the struggles over land and graft in Kenya. Includes land and demography in Kenya; the law relating to the allocation of land; the Commission’s findings – (1) urban, state and ministries’ land, (2) settlement schemes and trust lands, (3) forest lands, national parks, wetlands, riparian resources and protected areas; the Commission’s recommendations; commentary.

Africa’s Great Lakes Region has in recent years experienced
political strife, armed conflict and population displacements
with severe humanitarian consequences. While these events
have clearly revolved around political struggles for the control
of the state, recent research has pointed to the significance
of access to renewable natural resources as structural causes
and sustaining factors in struggles for power in the region.
Contested rights to land and natural resources are significant,

Contains background to the Acts; the Land Act – concentration of powers in the Ministry, the provisions for a market in land, women’s rights to land, conflict resolution; the Village Land Act – definition and registration of village land, registration and adjudication of customary rights, women’s rights, conflict resolution, the enabling legislation; if not this, then what?; what next?

This paper argues that Ghanaian litigants in land disputes favour authoritative state legal-institutions over out-of-court settlements. Current policy debates on how to protect the land rights of the majority of customary land holders revolve around the respective merits of customary and non-state regulation (said to be accessible, flexible and socially embedded) versus state systems, which are said to offer more certainty, impartiality and nondiscriminatory codes and procedures.

This report analyzes the evolving water-management institutions and their performance of five core water management functions, in the context of the ongoing economic and agrarian reform in the Kyrgyz Republic. These core water-management functions are, operation of water systems, maintenance, resource mobilization, conflict resolution and organizational management. The report also identifies key issues and challenges that constrain effective stakeholder participation in water-resources management.