Includes land and conflict, returnee land access, the role of international humanitarian organisations, policy and law reforms, drawing a line under crisis.

Paper introduces the rationale for focusing on women’s land rights and explains the Learning Route methodology and the preparation of this Route in particular, before providing background information on land tenure and women’s land rights in Rwanda and Burundi.

Investors often look for land with a high growing potential, which means land with lots of rainfall or land that can be irrigated. In multimillion dollar investments involving irrigation, investors typically want to secure water rights as part of the deal. Motivated by potential revenues from water fees and the prospect of improved agricultural productivity, many African governments are signing away water rights for decades to large investors. But they are doing so with little regard for how this will impact the millions of other users whose livelihoods depend on customary access to water.

A second volume in this series covering this region, building on that of August 2004. Designed to be useful for planners, programme designers, advocates, practitioners, citizens and subjects engaged in land reform. Contains an introduction, followed by land reform highlights in Burundi, Eastern DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Land is again the subject of debate in Mozambique, 5 years after the passage of a land law which won praise for protecting peasant rights while creating space for outside investment. The new debate is about whether land, or at least land ’titles’, should be able to be sold and mortgaged, are whether more emphasis should be put on improving conditions for would-be investors rather than delimiting and protecting peasant land and capacitating communities to deal with investors. Argues that the debate on land is actually a proxy for a debate about rural development.

Fresh clashes over land in a cocoa plantation in Cavally Region in the west left 7 dead and 5,000 fleeing their homes. An increasing polarisation of ethnic identity. At least 100 cases of land occupations since 2013.

Ensuring security for farmers is a fundamental economic, social and citizenship issue, raising institutional questions. There needs to be a break with inherited colonial legal dualism. Local management of land and resources is needed. There is no automatic link between land title and security of tenure. Looks at the main approaches adopted in West Africa in the recent past. Fully confirm the role, dynamism and adaptability of family farms. Positive recognition needs to be given to local land arrangements and informal contracts. Decentralisation offers valuable opportunities.

Includes large refugee returns to a small country, land access for returnees, re-establishing security of tenure, key lessons, land sharing, remembering the 1994-5 return, the Pinheiro Principles.

Includes colonial rule and land frontiers, late colonialism and modernisation, post-colonial nation-building and state-led development, community participation and community-based solutions, harmonising and devolving land administration, women’s land rights, pastoral land rights, market-led land redistribution in Southern Africa, foreign direct investment in land.

Includes current trends � levels of activity, crops and markets, sources of investment, contract transparency, geographical distribution; focus of existing discourse; land and security; weaving land into conflict narratives; risks; conclusion. Argues that access to accurate information about the extent and nature of large-scale foreign investment in Ethiopian and Sudanese land is extremely limited, so broader narratives of ‘land grabbing’ are a potentially misleading oversimplification.

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 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.