Analysis of mediation processes on land conflict management (original) (raw)

Abstract

This research study generally examined the effectiveness of Village Land Council (VLC), Ward Tribunals (WT) and the District Land and Housing Tribunal (DLHT) in dealing with conflict between livestock herders and farmers in Uvinza District, Tanzania. Specifically it aimed: to examine mediation procedures and strategies in land conflicts management between livestock herders and farmers in Uvinza district, to assess structure and composition of these tribunals in dealing with land conflicts among farmers and livestock herders and analyzed the strengths and weakness of mediation processes over court or customary procedures. The study used exploratory design in investigating how mediation was practiced. The design was fitting for to this study as it sought to the knowledge on the composition, structure and capacity development; that are key to the functioning of Land Dispute Courts in conflict management between livestock herders and farmers. Study findings showed that VLCs particularly those that were not providing pre-mediation activities did not appreciate the advantages of meeting disputants before bringing them together for mediation. Participants interviewed at village land council suggested that lack of legal status within village land council is a drawbacks in sustaining peace building processes. In most cases, post mediation activities are not conducted by village land council as a result recurrence of land related conflicts are very common. Findings reveled also that no village council member was as well member in village land council. That was also the case with ward tribunal members. There were reported good practices by some villages in terms of visiting the area under conflict before reaching resolution, while in others it wasn’t the case. The study observed that where such arrangements were not possible, the mediation was understood to use close neighbors who were invited to witness the dispute. This study concludes that there are more benefits of settling land disputes through mediation in comparison to the normal courts. The advantages include user-friendly costs, consumes less time for VLC compared to normal costs. Nonetheless, DLHT cost s were still a challenge stemming from its travel logistics, congestion of cases, the hardship in the accurate recording of the case and bureaucracy. Generally, there were trends of decline in land conflicts in studied villages and at wards both reported cases and those that are being mediated or resolved. The study recommends policy makers, the concerned Ministry to facilitate the efforts of locating DLHT at each district to mitigate the challenges that accrue to the same. Similarly, the inclusion of people within the village as members of the council will be an added benefit. For Further studies this study recommends investigation on the allegations of corruption influencing or ruining the justice system accounting for inconsistences in appointing members of VLC, WT and DLHT. Unfortunately, it is still not known whether there are confounding variables that trigger these changes in visited villages

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