This article examines the conflicts arising from the Diamer Bhasha Dam project in northern Pakistan. Conflicts arising from the impacts of the dam on the local population and territory and steps to resolve some of them are identified. These impacts relate to unfair land acquisition, improper displacement, inadequate compen- sation, resettlement and future livelihoods. The completion of the project depends on the arrangement of project finance, resolution of conflicts among different actors and the consent of all stakeholders.

In many cities and urban areas in Africa, land acquisition for urban redevelopment, land readjustment, and resettlement of affected urban residents are currently framed as innovative approaches to eradicating informal settlements, improving the living environments, and supporting the implementation of newly adopted city Master Plans. Nevertheless, it is not yet known how the responses of institutions and affected people shape these processes.

The Red Cross Red Crescent aims to respond to disasters as rapidly and effectively as possible, by mobilising its resources (people, money and other assets) and using its network in a coordinated manner so that the initial effects are countered and the needs of the affected communities are met.

The Australian Red Cross (ARC) is a key Partner National Society, supporting the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' (IFRC) response to natural disasters in the Asia- Pacific.

A major driver of change in the Mekong River basin relates to hydropower development and the consequent changes in landscape and natural resource access regime that it induces. In this paper, we examine how the livelihoods of resettlers evolve following resettlement, and examine the determinants of that process. The study takes place in the context of the Theun Hinboun Expansion Project in Lao PDR. Based on longitudinal household surveys conducted before resettlement as well as 1, 2, and 3 years after resettlement, we identify the process of livelihood adaptation in resettled communities.

The challenges faced by more than five and a half million Afghan refugees who have returned since 2002 receive scant regard in most international media or official proceedings concerning Afghanistan. Attention is primarily focused on Afghanistan’s intensified armed conflict, NATO’s withdrawal planning, and faltering peace efforts. Moreover, despite the millions of refugees who have returned in the past ten years, Afghans still comprise the world’s largest refugee population.

The impacts of large-scale agricultural investments on rural communities’ land ownership, food security, productivity, income, and access to education and health differ within and between communities depending on business and government influence. Recent examples of large-scale investment models are dependent on the legal landscape in the investor’s country of origin, the investor-community linkages, and the nature of partnership with governments.

Large reservoir projects typically occupy vast lots of rural land and trigger resettlement on a massive scale. In China’s reservoir context, increasing concerns have arisen regarding distant-resettlees (those who are resettled outside the reservoir area), while fewer studies have examined the nearby-resettlees (those who are resettled near the original area) and the non-movers (those who do not resettle). The significance of these two groups has been downplayed and their populations are in the millions (or more) in China.

In Nigeria, the recurring impoverishment and other negative socioeconomic impacts endured by landholders affected by expropriation are well-documented and call into question the Land Use Act's (LUA) effectiveness in protecting local land rights. The World Bank's Land Governance Assessment Framework found that, in Nigeria, "a large number of acquisitions occurs without prompt and adequate compensation, thus leaving those losing land worse off, with no mechanism for independent appeal even though the land is often not utilized for a public purpose".

Land questions have invigorated agrarian studies and economic history, with particular emphases on its control, since Marx. Words such as ‘exclusion’, ‘alienation’, ‘expropriation’, ‘dispossession’, and ‘violence’ describe processes that animate land histories and those of resources, property rights, and territories created, extracted, produced, or protected on land. Primitive and on-going forms of accumulation, frontiers, enclosures, territories, grabs, and racializations have all been associated with mechanisms for land control.

This paper highlights how farmers in a northern Lao village transformed their customary land rights – in the face of incoherent overlapping state territorialization attempts – into a territorial strategy to secure their land tenure. By planting rubber, some villagers have engaged in a crop boom to lay claim to land which has recently been zoned for upland rice cultivation (and conservation) as part of a state-led land use planning initiative.

A paper from the Agricultural Policy Research on Africa (APRA) programme in Zimbabwe supported by a DFID grant to IDS;Sussex. Explores the intersecting factors that have shifted pathways of commercialisation;mostly of tobacco and maize;in Mvurwi area in northern Mazowe district;Zimbabwe;since 1890. Looks at five periods;starting with early colonisation by white settlers;then examines the consolidation of ‘European agriculturefollowing World War II;before investigating the liberation war era from the mid-1970s.

Impacts of Resettlement on Women’s Land Tenure Security

This paper seeks to assess the effectiveness of the existing legal framework to protect women’s land rights in the face of hydro power-driven resettlement in Laos PDR. Specifically, it seeks to answer the research question, "In Laos, how effective are the resettlement, land laws and policies and related safeguards at ensuring gender-equitable results?”