Post-conflict land governance reform in the African Great Lakes region. Part II - Reshuffling land ownership for development (original) (raw)

After conflict, governments and donors often feel a need for up-scaling and modernizing land use. Through stimulating large-scale investment in land, the ambition is to realize economic recovery and contribute to food-security. Our research in Uganda, Burundi and South Sudan suggests that policy makers should be extremely careful to promote large-scale land acquisitions, both foreign and national ones. Especially in the difficult transition from war to peace, large-scale appropriation of land risks turning into a threat to tenure security and the recovery of rural livelihoods. The second part of this info-sheet analyses ongoing transformations in and policies on pastoralism in the Great Lakes Region, which also has a significant effect on rural livelihoods and land use patterns. Pastoralism is widespread in the region, and plays an important role in contestation over land. Issues at stake are the increasing enclosure of former communal lands, competition with other land users, and l...