European and US development funds are bankrolling palm oil company Feronia Inc despite land and labour conflicts at its plantations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. New information now raises questions as to whether the Canadian-based company misused millions of taxpayer dollars destined for international aid by way of companies connected to a high-level DRC politician.

What can an analysis of power in local communities contribute to debates on women’s legal empowerment and the role of paralegals in Africa? Drawing upon theories of power and rights, and research on legal empowerment in African plural legal systems, this article explores the challenges for paralegals in facilitating women’s access to justice in Tanzania, which gave statutory recognition to paralegals in the Legal Aid Act 2017. Land conflicts represent the single-biggest source of local legal disputes in Tanzania and are often embedded in gendered land tenure relations.

Contains background, key actors and institutions, key problems and risks, possible scenarios, main recommendations.

Includes land forum to debate tough issues, land law and land rights, resuming community delimitation, Lioma, Niassa, exaggerated plans fuelled by secrecy and speculation, poor consultations mean communities lose out, biofuel expansion slower than expected, hundreds of land conflicts, resettlement badly done, the Chinese land grab myth.

An independent newsletter providing details of current developments in land reform and land conflicts in the Horn, East and Central Africa. Covers Burundi, Eastern DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan (including origins of the Darfur crisis), Tanzania and Uganda. As in Southern Africa, land is a highly contested and contentious issue right across the region. A short case study in Apac, Northern Uganda, symbolises the dilemmas of land reforms across the continent in an era of privatisation. Some are very clearly gaining at the expense of others.

Includes land issues as trigger of conflict in eastern Congo, experiences in resolving land tensions, policy options.

Covers multiplicity and diversity of land conflicts; the formal conflict settlement and its limitations; definitions of alternative conflict management methods; key alternative conflict management methods; limitations of alternative conflict management mechanisms.

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

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.

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.

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.