This article examines the evolution of policy recommendations concerning rural land issues since the formulation of the World Bank’s “Land Reform Policy Paper” in 1975. That paper set out three guiding principles: the desirability of owner-operated family farms; the need for markets to permit land to be transferred to more productive users; and the importance of an egalitarian asset distribution.
This gender study forms part of the International Land Coalition’s ‘Commercial Pressures on Land Initiative’ Global Study. As stated by the International Land Coalition (ILC), the goal of this initiative is to support the efforts of ILC members and other stakeholders to influence global, regional and national processes on land to enable secure and equitable access to land for poor women and men in the face of increasing commercial demand for land (ILC 2010a, emphasis added).
Northern Uganda is currently recovering from a 20-year long civil war that left the area in ruins. One of the groups, the Lord’s Resistance Army, orchestrated brutal mass murders and abductions forcing nearly two million people to live internally displaced people’s (IDP) camps for over 10 years. The war particularly affected the people of Acholi and Lango sub-regions which had previously suffered sporadic attacks by armed Karamajong cattle rustlers from north eastern Uganda.
Across the developing world, rural women suffer widespread gender-based discrimination in laws, customs and practices cause severe inequalities in their ability to access, control, own and use land and limit their participation in decision-making at all levels of land governance.
The Karamoja region in Northeastern Uganda, covering an area of 27,200 square kilometers, is inhabited by around 1.2 million people who live in seven districts; Moroto, Nakapiripirit, Napak, Amudat, Abim, Kotido and Kaabong. Its residents are mainly Ngakarimojong speaking peoples, but the area is also home to the Ethur, Labwor, Pokot, and indigenous minorities such as the Tepes and the Ik.
In recent years, issues of access to land and natural resources have been of growing concern to developing country governments and donors. Much evolution in experience and thinking has taken place over this period, with several multilateral and bilateral donors drawing up new policy papers on land.
The Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) is a diagnostic tool for the evaluation of the legal framework, policies and practices regarding land and land use. The LGAF is based on a comprehensive review of available conceptual and empirical material regarding experience in land governance (refer to Land Governance Assessment Framework: Conceptual Approach, Formulation and Methodology). In 1995, the Uganda government embarked on land reform starting with the Constitutional provisions. Land reform was imperative because of the country’s turbulent land tenure history.
The nature and significance of China's engagements with African agriculture continues to be hotly debated in the media, academia and policy circles around the world. Although China has been engaged in Uganda’s agriculture for more than 40 years, the recent jostle for agricultural land by private Chinese investors is dystifying and justifies the need to conduct a scientific study to provide clear evidence before the issue gets bundled into the messy anecdotal media inquiry.
Well before the effective ending of the protracted Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
insurgency in northern Uganda in July 2006, and at a time when the entire rural
population was displaced into camps, concerns had emerged around land, in particular
in the Acholi sub-region, where the war had been most intense and longest lasting
(Adoko & Levine 2004). Through forced displacement, almost all rural Acholi
families has been prevented from occupying their land for many years, years in which
The meaning and scope of the concept of Community-Based Property Rights (CBPR) has become a dominant feature of conservation and development policy discourse over the last decade. The debate has largely been shaped by the growing trends where governments have continued to appropriate traditional lands for conservation and development activities that have resulted into large scale dislocation and widespread disenfranchisement of sections of our society.
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