Shocks connected directly with conflict events exist in two types: 1) the effects of specific, including repeated, combat and combat related events on individuals, households, and communities; and 2) the effects of the overall conflict on livelihood systems. The first concerns the temporal and spatial combat and combat-related (banditry, pillaging, land mine encounter, food provisioning from communities by troops, etc.) repercussions, which have a direct impact resulting in deaths, household and community disruption, asset striping, conscription, trauma, loss of crops and livestock, food store depletion, and immediate dislocation. The repercussions of these events can vary with the temporal and spatial nature of the conflict and can range from areas being repeatedly subjected to large-scale combat events, to areas subjected to one or two small-scale combat-related events, to areas that endured the war with little or no experience of such events. Such direct effects, while spatially prescribed, have wider repercussions as people flee, and markets collapse; which in aggregate constitute the second type of direct shock-the broader effect on livelihood systems. The latter includes disruptions in coping strategies regarding how households and communities deal with direct combat events or fear of them, and lack of assistance and support provided by like groups (lineage, geographic, religious, ethnic, etc), the state, or the international community.
While dislocation can be due to direct or indirect conflict events and trends, dislocation itself is a shock as individuals, households, and communities deal with the experience of greatly reduced and often complete loss of assets or access to them. Arrival in destination locations for displaced persons can result in an ongoing series of shocks as individuals and households are subject to discrimination, and ongoing asset in-access or deprivation, in contexts where there can be a range of support-from effective support by kin, the state, or an international agency, to little or no support or assistance by the host community, to outright conflict, animosity, and depredation by locals, troops, and social banditry. The results can range from a permanent or semi-permanent hosting in a destination location, to repeated dislocation as people continue to attempt to locate an area with near-term personal security as a priority. A primary question in such a context is how to view and assess such a population in aggregate, given that the experiences involving the shocks of dislocation will be so varied across a post-conflict landscape.
Dislocation-related shocks can also affect host communities. The settlement of IDPs or refugees in areas occupied by local communities can result in compromised property rights, from decreases in tenure security, to loss of access to lands or land-based resources. Often dislocatees are relocated in new areas and lands with little or no consultation with host communities. This can result in loss of access rights to agricultural lands, along with forest product, grazing, and water resources. The shock can become aggravated with additional factors such as droughts, floods, and disease, resulting in significant competition between IDPs and local communities over diminishing resources. With the presence of significant numbers of dislocatees, competing land use and claims can result in local landholders abandoning features of their own tenure systems because disputes and the lack of legitimate mechanisms to resolve them have made such features unworkable, or they believe there is little point in adhering to tenurial constructs that others (IDPs) are not following. Such a situation then leads to considerable disruption of local customary tenure.
The destruction of crop and livestock assets (liquid financial capital) during and subsequent to conflict has a primary impact on livelihoods and coping strategies. In addition to direct loss of both due to combat, forced abandonment, and theft; this shock also involves the destruction of or in-access to the means to reproduce both crops and livestock. These include, predictable access to land(s) and water for cultivation and grazing, participation in trading networks involving seeds, new herd additions, market opportunities, and delegation of responsibilities among family members who must travel varying distances from households and communities in a potentially insecure environment.
Market collapse and in-access due to conflict can be one of the most pervasive and enduring shocks due to conflict. The spatial network of infrastructure, institutions, and norms which support contacts, trust, transport, and facilities are delicate and difficult at best in developing country contexts, even in times of peace. Market network collapse can be among the first shocks delivered with wide impact in conflict scenarios, and among the last to be re-established after conflict. The effects of market collapse and in-access can be felt far from actual conflict events as combinations of transport, political affiliation, non-delivery of products, monetary institutions, and dislocation are reworked over large areas. The influence on non-reproduction of the means of livelihood (crop and livestock production) then feeds back to perpetuate market dissolution and militates against market network re-establishment after conflict.
While the shock events associated with many forms of direct combat do not occur in post-conflict situations, this is not the case with land mines. Ongoing shocks due to landmine encounters after the end of open hostilities continue for years, as does the fear (and subsequent decision-making) that certain areas still contain mines. This leads large, often agriculturally productive assets to be treated as “off limits” to rural inhabitants, with ongoing repercussions on crop and livestock sector rehabilitation, livelihoods, and resettlement (Unruh et al 2003).
The dissolution of communities and their long-term reorganization subsequent to conflict is one of the most important trends influencing vulnerability and the re-access and accumulation of assets. Due to the very large role that community plays in rural livelihoods in the developing world, its reorganization subsequent to conflict can be a long, and often difficult process. While some communities will be able to re-establish themselves quickly due to easy access to natural, social, and human capital that accompanies community cohesion which can favor the more isolated areas, often there are complicating factors. The effects of political affiliation during a conflict, notions of victimization, victory, or blame, IDP return problems between those who fled and those who stayed behind, the often large increase in the roles and responsibilities of women during and after conflict, and lessons learned in refugee camps and cities, can combine to make reorganization of communities of agriculturalists problematic and long-term. But because the prospect for such reorganization will vary markedly over a post-conflict affected landscape, aggregations and single notions about this trend will be difficult.
Profound shocks to human societies such as conflict, famine, some natural disasters, and recovery from these, frequently result in socioeconomic segmentation, whereby many people become poorer or worse off, but at the same time there emerges a segment that is able to grow wealthier (Unruh 1997). This occurs as crisis, adaptive, and livelihood coping strategies comprise progressively selling off assets (including land), sometimes at very low prices in order to move them quickly and gain a quick income. These assets are sold to others who can afford to buy them, ensure their security and hold them, and sell them either to others or back to the original owners subsequent to a crisis, but at higher prices. This allows those in a position to do this to become wealthier. While this trend occurs at the village level, it can also occur at higher levels, including the level of the state, and can reach a point whereby such an activity is so lucrative that those in such an advantaged position can seek to slow or stop the resolution of the conflict or progress of a peace process.
While shock-related disruption of production systems can result in an immediate stripping of assets fundamental to production systems, trend-related dissolution of production systems are longer term and more complicated. For example, dislocatee return and attempts at reintegration into production systems finds that significant system components are missing or not operable, and alternatives must be sought in their place. This can result in trends in post-conflict situations progressively acting to dissolve aspects of pre-existing production systems due to, (1) conflict over land with no legitimate, respected in-place institutions to resolve then, and (2) lack of market opportunities and state support which leads to significant difficulties in re-establishing the crop-land and livestock-land mix fundamental to livelihoods.
Subsequent to the end of a conflict disappointment and distrust trends in a newly reconstructed state can manifest themselves in the development of different forms of local alternatives; particularly since the ideology, mobilization, and wartime aspirations are still fresh in the minds of many, and a post-conflict state can find that it has less influence than initially thought. In Zimbabwe local distrust of the state became significant even when the insurgency won and went about establishing a government and policies regarding land, because local chiefs were purposefully left out of the new state due to their alliance with the Rhodesian administration (Ranger 1985).
While seasonality can be a difficult variable in times of peace for smallholders, the difficulty can be magnified in post-conflict scenarios. This occurs as the timing of the biophysical and social aspects of the agricultural calendar intersect with the timing of priorities involved in post-conflict survival: migration and resettlement; pursuit of short-term food, personal, and livelihood security; re-claiming land and land disputes; and the lack of seeds, agricultural implements, labor, and livestock, along with other forms of financial capital. The overall effect can be to significantly extend any “hungry season” effect (the time when food stocks are low, but crops are not yet harvested) in locations where this occurs normally, and to potentially introduce a hungry season where it did not previously occur. Such an extension can occur over additional weeks, months, or encompass the entire agricultural year, depending on the area’s intersection with the conflict and recovery.
The intersection of crop and livestock destruction with seasonality in post-conflict settings, will, in addition to the hungry season effect, likely mean that recovery of these assets will take a significant amount of time. While economic, social, and biophysical rates of increase for both crop (rebuilding seed supplies, reacquisition of implements, and land and labor) and livestock (herd rebuilding tied to purchasing power, availability of livestock, and reproductive rates of livestock species) can be predicted in times of normal production system function, in post-conflict settings the issues associated with recovery will significantly magnify the role that seasonality plays in agricultural asset recovery. This will particularly be the case if drought or flooding, or erratic onset and duration of rainy seasons are present.
Food prices in post-conflict settings, in both rural and urban areas are ongoing trends affected by available supplies after a conflict (often low), together with infrastructure and market recovery, and the quantity, distribution, and type of post-conflict food aid and productive asset development assistance. The combination of high prices, and low purchasing power is arguably one of the factors involved in the upsurge of “social banditry” after a war (Unruh 1997). The influence of prices on agricultural strategy will involve: continued use of “famine food” including wildlife (particularly given the prevalence of light weapons), and plant species considered edible only in times of stress. In Ethiopia the naturally occurring “vetch” plant is eaten in times of food insecurity and conflict, usually mixed with grain stores to stretch out supplies. In times of extreme stress it is eaten on its own, and has a crippling effect on children and the elderly. As well “shortcuts” in food preparation can occur as high prices prevent the purchase of alternatives. In post-conflict northern Mozambique, returning populations were unable to afford the purchase of foodstuffs, necessitating the immediate consumption of cassava without the normal processing of the plant that would have removed the naturally occurring poison. High prices will likewise delay the recovery of crop and livestock assets and the attendant production systems, necessitating the pursuit of alternative agricultural strategies more focused on extraction, overuse, and mobility (Korf 2002).
Changes in land asset access during conflict can come about with, (1) dislocation; (2) dislocatee claims in destination locations; (3) victory or loss of particular sides in the conflict and the rural inhabitants connected to these sides (including ethnic cleansing and the subsequent purposeful ethnic re-population of areas); (4) land losses and gains connected with opportunistic activities of individuals and groups intending to take advantage of the fluid post-conflict environment and the lack of functioning state institutions to pursue economic, religious, or identity-based land taking; or what can be perceived of as re-taking of lands. In Rwanda various rationales were derived to facilitate the post-conflict taking, or occupying of land and property that were tied to the character of the conflict; particularly involving perceived, actual, or accused guilt with regard to participation in the genocide (Huggins 2004).
An important aspect of land as natural capital is the security with which it is held. Thus while quantities of land as capital can be high or low, what one is able to do with this capital depends on the degree of tenure security enjoyed. Ongoing reductions in secure access to lands in post-conflict settings (different than no access) result in continued short-term resource use and extractive use of land resources (Korf 2002), with repercussions on the agronomic resources necessary for recovery and subsequent development. While wide-spread decreases in tenure security may be the logical assumption in post-conflict settings, research in post-conflict Mozambique reveals that there can be a segmentation of tenure security with most members of a sampled population having very low, but a significant number having very high indices of tenure security (Unruh 1997). High measures of tenure security in post-conflict settings for particular segments can emanate from the peace accord, solidification of gains made by one side or another in the conflict, the presence of state or international actors connected to particular pieces of land, or security exerted over lands through force of arms.
Tenure security is ultimately a product of the mix between natural, human, social, and political capital. In this context tenure security is to a large degree less about the rights possessed by a particular individual, than it is about the respect for those rights that a community provides (Unruh, 2002b; 2003). Tenure security is fundamentally about this community role. Where locals, IDPs, and commercial interests find themselves in one broad community, the degree to which an individual believes “others” in the community are willing to respect rights based on specific evidence attesting to those rights, is fundamental to one's sense of tenure security (Unruh, 2003). As newcomers, IDPs can (in many cases from their own experience) believe that they are second class members of a community, and this belief may prevail over other indications of actual adequate rights provision (Unruh, 1997).
While land as a form of natural capital in a post-conflict period is of high value in terms of food security and production system recovery, the asset itself can change value in an agricultural context, as lands are overgrown due to abandonment, unconnected to markets due to infrastructure destruction and neglect, mined, or degraded due to high concentrations of dislocatees during the conflict. While such changes may eventually be overcome with time, the real value of land as a natural asset comes as it intersects with primarily social and political capital.
Human capital retention and acquisition in terms of education and awareness of formal and customary tenure structures (rights, laws, norms, authority structures, procedures) will be particularly hard hit by conflict scenarios, and significantly debilitated during the post-conflict period. In-place customary communities that experienced limited or no dislocation, and did not receive high concentrations of dislocatees during the war will likely have retained greater human capital in terms of land access issues. Dislocatees, and demobilized combatants will likely have very low human capital upon which to draw to gain access to lands, or defend rights to land nonviolently. With regard to the latter, in some cases the result can be attempts at replacing the necessary human capital with more easily accessed political-financial capital in the form of light weapons (power) in order to defend or acquire rights to land.
The importance of knowing about the changes in human capital that are underway in both formal and informal tenure systems are important to one’s ability to pursue opportunities in changed circumstances with regard to evidence, tenure security, and access and claim in post-conflict settings. The overriding problem in this awareness for smallholders is the rapidity with which customary norms can change in post-conflict settings particularly with neighboring groups, and the remoteness of new happenings in the formal system, especially when government efforts are hampered by delays and information dissemination limitations. While those who are more educated or with state connections may be more able to obtain information and understand how the formal system is evolving in a post-conflict environment, they may also be in leadership positions within customary systems, and in a position to lead with regard to how the customary system will operate over a given area.
A primary aspect of human capital in post-conflict settings will be its role in dealing with the many land disputes that will result from reintegrating rural populations - in a context of a limited, but growing state ability to resolve land disputes. In the immediate post-conflict period, most dispute resolution and mediation will be accomplished by community leaders and others (including warlords) with the authority and power to decide such issues. The role of such an aspect of human capital however can become eroded in some cases as forces favor the deployment of physical power (weapons) over traditional authority. This is a significant aspect of the ongoing land problem in Somalia, and the Karamajong Cluster (border area of Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya) where weapons (as a form of political-financial capital) supersedes local traditional authority (human capital), over sometimes large areas.
For much of the immediate post-conflict landscape, the presence of local farmers, dislocatees, commercial interests, and demobilized combatants from different sides in the conflict, all located in the same areas will mean that land disputes involving these players will unlikely be able to locate a commonly respected and legitimate authority. This will be a significant degradation of an important aspect of human capital regarding land tenure in post-conflict situations and a trend-related shock to recovery. What can emerge in some circumstances however are mediation efforts (different from land dispute resolution) by people, committees, or groups who can be seen as objective (different from authority). This was the case in East Timor near the West Timor border, where the lack of state or locally respected authority together with the large presence of UN troops to prevent violence as an option, led to the emergence of mediation efforts that, while not deciding dispute resolution, were effective at mitigating disputes and their effects so that peace, farming, and recovery continued. The effect essentially was to put off ultimate resolution until a later date. This also occurred in post-genocide Rwanda, where lack of state involvement led to the spontaneous formation of local land commissions to attend to the emerging land disputes over “land sharing” and boundary problems (Huggins 2004). This form of objectivity is likely to be an important form of human capital regarding land dispute resolution in problematic post-conflict settings. That it differs from other forms that human capital can take (authority, education, training, and experience) is worth noting, and it would be well considered to include this form of objectivity in the post-conflict variant of human capital.
The information dissemination environment in post-conflict settings will be significantly compromised both in the formal and informal tenure sectors. Because of the often significant delay between the cessation of overt hostilities and the effective implementation of new laws regarding land access relevant to smallholders (e.g. Rwanda over ten years), and therefore dissemination and enforcement of new formal legal arrangements, there will exist a “sequencing effect” regarding dissemination about formal and informal tenure constructs. Because local informal tenurial constructs will emerge quicker, and operate over much smaller areas subsequent to conflict than formal constructs, local dissemination about these constructs will also occur sooner than the state will be able to pass laws and disseminate relevant information regarding how they operate. This means that binding obligations involving land assets attached to informal constructs will be up and running when dissemination regarding formal law does finally occur, significantly complicating the implementation and enforcement of formal law. Such a situation reveals information itself as a form of capital, mitigated by dissemination, sequencing, or other forms of information control. However there are ways to mitigate this effect. The Rwanda case study (Huggins 2004) noted the effects of a radio broadcast speech by then vice president Paul Kagame, whereby a combination of respect and implied use of military force appeared to have a significant effect on informal resettlement where lands allotted to refugees were already occupied.
Exclusion of specific groups from awareness, training, or information dissemination regarding evolving tenurial arrangements (formal and informal) will be a significant concern in post-conflict settings. On the one hand government exclusion (purposeful or not) of smallholder awareness, education, and training regarding what the state is doing in terms of formulating new land tenure arrangements will disadvantage smallholders, and complicate consultation, input of ideas, notions of legitimacy, and equity. On the other hand, the state will likewise be excluded from information about emergent smallholder local tenure constructs which will have allowed them to resettle and to a significant degree manage disputes, and restart production system activity. As well there are constructs of exclusion within the informal sector. In an example from Guatemala, those that fled lands and ended up as refugees in camps run by the international community in southern Mexico became very well educated as to their rights to lands in the post-conflict setting due to their exposure to international sources regarding human rights, rights of return, and the peace process. Those that stayed on their lands in Guatemala however were excluded from this education, awareness, and information. Such that upon the return of the refugees, there were pronounced differences in notions of land access rights arrangements. At the same time, the absence of significant parts of the customary landowning population (as refugees) meant that for those who stayed, there was a development of new local tenure arrangements that allowed them to function as an agricultural community during the conflict. One of the most dynamic aspects of this was the much elevated status of previously marginalized groups, such as women, poorer members of the community, migrants, etc. Those that fled and became refugees in Mexico were excluded from this awareness and education, which added an additional complication to their return to home areas in Guatemala (Krznaric 1997).
Building human capital in post-conflict situations will entail taking advantage of the sequencing of formation of tenurial constructs (informal then formal) by seeking to include the informal constructs within the process of deriving formal laws regarding land tenure. This will have the advantage of working with the grain, as opposed to expecting people to disengage from binding obligations made involving land when formal laws do come on line and information about them is disseminated. At the same time significant effort put into dissemination of what the state is doing with regard to national land tenure, along with consultation and input from the smallholder sector would go a long way to mitigating the formal - informal tenurial disconnect.
Subsequent to conflict, and particularly conflict which has lasted for long periods of time, the rural population will, in general have experienced a much reduced degree of social capital. While connections, networks, group membership, and relationships of trust, reciprocity, and exchanges that provide for important informal safety nets will be quite valued and heavily relied upon in the early years of conflict (where they are not abruptly disrupted due to the conflict), these can become exhausted as continued food, personal, and livelihood security is progressively degraded, and new relations (as IDPs, refugees, migrants, combatants, political, etc.) are defined to ensure survival and pursue notions of opposition or allegiance to a particular side in a conflict due to personal experience. But again segmentation is an important feature of social capital during and after conflict, as it is with other forms of capital. While connections, networks, and membership for some can provide for complete removal from conflict’s effects, or an advantaged position with regard to a conflict, often for rural inhabitants there is either a progressive degradation of social capital over time, or quite rapid disintegration depending on the nature of the conflict and one’s exposure to it. Disruption of social networks, especially trust, was a large part of the post-conflict land access environment in Rwanda (Huggins 2004).
Distrust is a general feature of post-conflict settings, and can include distrust of the state; traditional authorities; other ethnic, religious, or geographic groups; and refugees, and IDPs. Such distrust can come about due to attachment of specific groups to one side or another in the conflict, historical animosities and disagreements aggravated by conflict-related factors (economic, livelihood, or cultural disruption); or non-compliance with inter-community and inter-personal contract arrangements or agreements involving trading, marriage (particularly between lineages), and boundaries.
Continued social disruption after a conflict can serve to delay, degrade, and rework social capital, as attempts to resolve land disputes, government missteps with regard to how rural inhabitants are treated in the context of land issues, social banditry, and lack of land access, along with personal, food, and livelihood insecurity lead to the abandonment of connections, networks, and forms of trust and exchange that do not work, in favor of alternative approaches which may (Korf 2002). But because alternative approaches are new, they are by necessity experimental and unpredictable, which leads to a potential continued “switching” from one form of arrangement to another, which in aggregate can significantly slow the reformation of durable, predictable, workable forms of social capital involving trust and of utility over the long term. On the other hand certain forms of this “choosing” can be beneficial. In Ethiopia significant “forum shopping” continues to go on in terms of searching for ways of land dispute resolution that work, and are connected to important aspects of enforcement and legitimacy. Such forum shopping in fluid post-conflict settings can be a valuable form of social capital. Valuable in that it can allow for a peaceful “process” (in a PIPs context) of dispute resolution, mediation, or simply repeated attempts at these for large numbers of people and different groups. That forum shopping emerges on its own, and is operated and engaged in by local participants, and serves an important institutional need that the state is unable to provide in post-conflict settings, can be seen as a positive asset that local rural inhabitants do have control over.
Subsequent to conflict there can be significant interest in rebuilding social capital (particularly involving trust), but given the starting point, and that rebuilding can be slow, experimental, and sometimes unconnected to pre-existing forms, there can be continued low access to effective forms of social capital in post conflict settings. At the same time social capital built around situations of dislocation, combat, and opposition can grow weaker as the conflict ends and people return to home areas, are resettled and demobilized; and refugee, IDP, and demobilization support by the international community comes to an end. As well government activities can work against the establishment of social capital with regard to land by not disseminating information, and seeking to marginalize portions of the population (possibly due to their affiliation to one side in the conflict). In aggregate social capital for rural inhabitants after a conflict will be in a state of flux, and weakened overall, with predictability of connection, trust, and reciprocity also low.
How social capital is retained in post-conflict settings is an important question. While one’s sphere of social connections may contract due to conflict, and post-conflict difficulties in maintaining a wide network, noting what “purpose of connection” is associated with retention of social capital is worth investigating. Do points of connection such as household, livelihood, production system, lineage, religion, political affiliation, or others allow for certain types of social connection to endure conflict and post-conflict scenarios? Are specific forms of social capital retained under some post-conflict conditions and not others (e.g. food insecurity, ethnic strife, dislocation,
Political capital, as a variant of social capital in post-conflict settings, can be influenced by the degree of connection or alliance to one side or another in the conflict. What can be a significant political asset in a crisis strategy (connection to the combat, support, or sympathetic aspects of a particular side in the war) can turn into a liability or a much reduced asset depending on the fate of those involved in that side, or involved in a peace accord, or local to national intersections with particular battles, victory or loss in the larger conflict, transformation of a warring party into a political party, etc.
There can be significant intersection between physical capital and post-conflict rural land tenure. The status of transport infrastructure (due to destruction, neglect, or as “off limits” due to land mine presence) and its effects on marketing of agricultural produce, can effect the amount of land put under production during recovery. But as well there are significant intersections with the placement of specific forms of physical capital (infrastructure, water, shelter, etc.) that, combined with security and fertile land, results in either large concentrations of IDPs and land degradation, or dislocation, migration for economic reasons, and the subsequent land abandonment.
The co-location of forms of physical capital together with security, water, and relief supplies can result in large concentrations of small scale agriculturalists in certain areas even long after a conflict is over. Such “critical resource tenure” areas (Unruh 1995b) are derived due to the presence of a mix of physical, natural, social, human, and political (security) capital and can constitute significant influence on land tenure issues more broadly. While such locations can be problematic politically (just as refugee camps can be) these are also locations where human capital (awareness, education, training) and social capital (networking, information dissemination) gains can be quickest.
While access to land as a form of natural capital is important in post-conflict settings, by itself land as an asset has little utility apart from short-term extraction activities. It is the mix of land with human and social (including political) capital where tenure security emerges, and how the resulting longer-term production system and livelihood security come about. As noted earlier, tenure security is significantly based on a community’s respect for an individual’s claim and rights to land. Such respect can be based on degree of connection to the community as a social network, including connection to the authority structure (human capital), and an ability to defend one’s rights via dispute resolution within institutions that a community holds to be legitimate. The human capital involved in knowing how to do this (including knowing how a customary system works, and what is valuable evidence at a given point in time) is an important connection to natural and social capital. But because it is human and particularly social capital that suffers significantly in conflict and post-conflict scenarios, security of tenure declines markedly, along with security of livelihood, and land as natural capital is then accessed on its own-in an extractive format. At the other extreme, the locations where human and social capital exist in highest potential for being rebuilt (refugee camps, IDP concentrations, settlements around cities and other secure locations, membership in militia groups), agricultural land as a natural asset is in extremely short supply. What can exist in aggregate, is largely a spatial problem, where the forms of social and human capital of greatest potential are not located where productive land resources or rights to those exist.
Organizational structures within the formal land tenure sector in post-conflict settings constitute a weakened set with regard to rural land tenure. While reconstruction of formal tenure structures will begin at the national and provincial, and possibly at the district levels, reconnecting (or connecting for the first time) these with rural smallholder structures and processes will be a separate, and significantly large-scale and sustained effort. However in many developing countries (especially in Africa) the disconnect between formal and customary structure remains the prevailing tenurial theme even in peacetime, and constitutes one of the primary development dilemmas. Such that if smallholder rural structures in a post-conflict country has had little or no history of connection to formal land tenure structures even in peacetime, it may not suffer overtly due to the existence of a disconnect in a post-conflict setting, and may experience a degree of benefit from a debilitated set of formal structures. This may come about as those formerly well positioned to use the state’s structures to their advantage (elites, state officials), are less able to purse land claims in rural areas using formal organizations, which smallholders may have had little ability to defend themselves against in the past. But this effect will be spatial and temporally variable and operate in a continuum over both. Thus while formal organizations that are weakened in a minor way can allow for increased abuse in terms of land claims by those able to use the state structure to their advantage (obtaining documents and lands fraudulently, coercively, or through force), a very severely debilitated set of state structures will not even provide for an opportunity for abused functioning. The latter will especially be the case where security issues were prevalent during the conflict, and where sympathies connected to the opposition are in-place after the conflict.
The lack of appropriate legislation dealing with property rights in post-conflict settings does not prevent a land market (as a structure) from operating - however informally. But without a formal legal and economic framework the informal nature of the market can breed tenure insecurity in urban areas, discourages larger-scale investment and reconstruction, and has the potential to become conflictive later if subsequent property rights legislation is unable to adequately embrace what has occurred in market transactions during this informal period (Marqhart et al 2002). Significant questions here include, what is the nature of the informal land market as it operates on its own; and, what is used to secure and enforce these transactions? As well, who is involved in such transactions can indicate if security of transaction is related to personal relationship. Transactions of unregistered properties over time, present particular problems to constituting a comprehensive land titling and cadastre program, if the latter does not intentionally connect with the former. The development of a formal market that does not engage what has already gone on in the informal market runs the large risk that smallholders will not engage the formal market, that large scale evictions will take place, particularly in and around urban areas, and that the formal market will end up being for the educated elite only, while discouraging both foreign and domestic investment.
The NGO domain is of particular note in post-conflict situations, in an SLA “process” context. Subsequent to war, developing countries can be inundated with international NGOs who then assist in creating domestic NGOs as counterparts who can receive funds (and often direction) from donors. While there are problems with a very high volume of this activity (e.g. creation of parallel institutions to government, attracting trained personnel away from government), the positive aspect is that structures can be built that represent the poor. In Mozambique a number of land-related domestic NGOs operated together with international NGOs, donors (in particular FAO) and their institutional contractors to push the land issue on behalf of the rural poor, significantly influencing national debate and ultimately policy reform. In Mozambique several organizations were created, including the Interministerial Land Commission, that dealt with the connection of rural smallholder land tenure to policy reform (Unruh 2004b).
Processes involving informal institutional change regarding land during conflict can be in a state of continual flux, as rural inhabitants employ a variety of crisis and adaptive coping strategies focused on the short-term in order to engage in risk avoidance, vulnerability reduction, asset retention, and food and livelihood security. Getting an aggregate understanding as to the direction of this change, apart from large-scale moves toward or away from extractive, short-term decisions, is difficult due to the high spatial, temporal, and type variation in smallholder strategies. However subsequent to a conflict there can be a directional surge in the process of informal institutional change (described above in emergence of normative orders and legal pluralism) as large numbers of dislocatees return to home areas, and in-place agriculturalists re-claim lands and begin what in aggregate is a large-scale increase in the cultivation of previously abandoned land (Unruh 1995b). At such a time a variety of conflict, and pre-conflict institutions that provided for access to land will be tested against post-conflict rule-set derivation designed to facilitate access, reclaiming, eviction, dispute resolution, and intersection with the formal system for specific groups. Power relations change in a post-conflict process context as gender, caste, socioeconomic and class relations from a pre-conflict setting clash with roles taken on by female-headed households and marginalized groups who became combatants, land use decision-makers, leaders, and/or simply operated without the confines of former power relations.
Because all societies experience land conflict, what is important to a peace process in a land tenure context is equitable access to legitimate land tenure dispute resolution institutions between groups who may view land resources very differently, possess profoundly different evidence with which to pursue claims, and may have occupied different sides in the armed conflict. For dispute resolution institutions to effectively operate between different forms of informal and formal tenure systems in the context of a peace process, it must ultimately be realized that it is easier to modify national land legislation to accommodate what is seen as existing legitimate rule-sets and evidence, than it is to legislate out of existence smallholder norms regarding land tenure and land use, in an attempt at replacing the local tenure systems with the formal.
Dennis (1999) examines such legitimacy in the context of adjudication applicable to land claim and dispute resolution legitimacy issues in post-conflict environments,
“adjudication is a form of official decision-making concerned with the resolution of disputes and the implementation of law. This remains true whether the forum of the dispute is criminal court, a civil court, or an administrative tribunal. If official adjudications are to succeed in gaining acceptance and respect as authoritative decisions, it is essential that they are, and are seen to be, legitimate”.
This form of legitimacy in law, (termed “legitimacy of decision”), is different than factual certainty of decision, regarding true facts of a dispute (Dennis 1999). Legitimacy of decision seeks legitimacy from the parties concerned and society at large, regarding notions of integrity, acceptability, and moral authority (Dennis 1999). In civil matters particularly, “the aim of adjudication is to settle disputes within a framework of economic, social and political relations that attaches considerable value to self-determination” (Dennis 1999). Thus in civil adjudication, such as cases involving land, “[p]rocedural fairness and equality of treatment for parties in the litigation process may assume greater importance” (Dennis 1999). This is because “the aims of the civil process have at least as much to do with the restoration of equilibrium and harmony (via the peaceful and acceptable settlements of disputes) between warring parties as with the implementation of state policy on matters of civil law” (Dennis 1999). This notion of legitimacy of decision and procedure is fundamental in that the parties concerned must be able to present evidence (proof) that they believe to be of probative value in order for the procedure and resulting decision to be regarded by the parties as legitimate (Dennis 1999). In this regard the “adversary system,” as a method of formal adjudication in common law, whereby the opposing parties in a conflict gather, interpret, and present evidence for their claim (Rectlinger 1996) can be of significant utility. A dispute procedure viewed as legitimate by smallholders then is able to employ customary “customs and controls” in enforcement and administration of decisions, effectively relieving the state of this cost, which in many developing country cases it is not able to afford.
Post-conflict situations are unique settings in their combination of a weakened and chaotic formal system, robust, vigorous, but fluid, informal tenure activity, along with the presence of a peace accord, political demands and concessions regarding land, and international actors that can have a large interest in the success of the peace process. While this combination carries risks, it also represents real opportunity. In this regard the tenure reorganization and reform efforts, need to look outside the confines of ministries and missions, to assess how the development of tenurial institutions, problems, and processes are proceeding “on the ground” in what will be a very lively rural smallholder tenure sector-so as to draw legitimacy from these processes into reformulating national structure, policy, and law. Without this purposeful connection, tenure institutions at different levels risk evolving in different directions, with considerable difficulty later on in attempts to connect them. With such a connection, new policy can support what people are already doing, and engage in real ongoing problems of disputing, resettlement, restitution, proof of claim, and development.
Such an improved relationship can begin as a peace accord attempts to resolve land issues involved in the conflict itself (particularly if the conflict was about land, or came to involve a significant land-based resource component - oil, diamonds, timber, wildlife, export crops). As well, because the international community presence in post-conflict settings can be much larger, and much more empowered, it can have more influence on a weakened government than in peacetime. The result can be a significant effort, pushed by the international community, to resolve important or contentious issues, including attempting to craft laws which support livelihoods of the poor. This was the case in Mozambique (Unruh 2004b), Ethiopia (Unruh nd), and Nicaragua (Barquero 2004) in various ways and is a process currently underway in East Timor (Marquardt et al 2002). In Rwanda it was noted in the “1995 Guidelines” that “the post-conflict environment represented a great opportunity for land reform” (Huggins 2004). Thus positive reform of formal structures pertaining to land can take place within an opportune period subsequent to conflict. A period in which input from the rural informal sector can be influential. This is a significant component of what the rural poor can participate in, in post-conflict situations, and which can be operationalized, particularly with the presence of international actors and domestic NGOs. Mozambique again provides an example of a case where mandatory consultations between largeholders seeking title, and resident smallholder communities on the same land has (albeit with some problems) served to help smallholders understand and use laws. While this can occur via the consultation process, it can also occur with NGO assistance in disseminating the need for and character of consultations, and by communication between groups of smallholders themselves (Norfolk 2004). This is an example of an approach whereby stakeholder capacity can be improved in order to gain understanding and utility of laws that can provide rights. While stakeholder capacity building and information dissemination exercises are of considerable importance in their own right in improving this capacity, their application in a particular window of opportunity (post-conflict policy reform; empowered presence of donors, etc.) can possibly allow for particular effectiveness.
As well there is ongoing experimentation in certain African countries attempting to build stakeholder capacity concerning land tenure by focusing on fundamental changes in formal law. In Zambia, the government funded Law Development Commission has re-worked its Commonwealth mandate to examine specifically the intersection between customary law and state law, with land tenure occupying a primary focus. In this case, studies are carried out by the Commission on specific tenure problems, and recommendations are provided to parliament regarding changes in formal law and sometimes fundamental concepts of formal law in order to support local livelihoods. In post-conflict East Timor new formal property rights laws are being proposed after significant research into customary land tenure, admitting testimonial and other customary evidence for claim, dispute resolution, possession, and restitution.
Subsequent to multiple dislocation events, the combination of large numbers of people moving across the landscape for a number of years, and the need for near-term crop production for food security, will result in strategies whereby a significant percentage of the population will reside in a location for the duration of an agricultural season, before moving on of their own volition or being evicted by returnees. A primary feature of post-conflict livelihood strategies will be crop and livestock production that results in very quick yield or extraction. This may involve crop focus on quick growing and/or very hardy crop species, such as cassava, together with highly extractive modes of ensuring food security, ie., hunting, fishing, wild foods, and consuming reproductive livestock. In aggregate there can be a significant push toward a very high degree of diversity in livelihood strategy focused on making numerous small gains in food security, to the degree that extreme fragmentation of time and activity can work against the reforming of longer term strategies able to provide greater predictability, quantity and quality of agricultural yield.
Moving from crisis strategies (during conflict) to adaptive and then livelihood strategies after conflict will take time, and possibly more time than initially expected. Being able to switch from one type of strategy to another requires that the process of pursuing one type of strategy does not militate against changing (often itself a process) to another. In this regard timely, precise support may be needed to facilitate transitioning strategies. And support in terms of land access and tenure security can play an important role here. For example, a temporary degree of tenure security (provided by the state, NGOs, or donor projects) for those that occupy lands to which others are returning, may mitigate against their eviction and a return to a crisis strategy. This together with provision of targeted food aid, transport, and land mediation services may provide the necessary space (in terms of personal and food security) for transitioning from crisis and adaptive livelihood strategies involving short-term decision-making, to more long-term livelihood strategies.
Transitioning from one form of strategy to another can result not only in a redistribution of capital (natural, human, social, etc), but redistribution between types of specific capital (i.e. types of social assets or types of natural assets). In other words the type of asset required for the functioning of a crisis strategy can be different than that needed for an adaptive or livelihood strategy even though the quantity of the asset may be the same. For example, in a crisis strategy one type of natural asset that households would likely want to maximize might be non-agricultural areas (forest, national park, woodlands) where wild game, fuelwood, natural cover, natural water supplies, and other natural assets supportive of a more resource extractive strategy exist. This would be different than needing to maximize natural assets involving fertile, easily watered agricultural or grazing land near transportation networks which are needed for livelihood strategies in peacetime.
Livelihood outcomes for a population subsequent to conflict will be variable, but there can be primary patterns that the SLA livelihood outcomes theme can illuminate. A priority for most rural inhabitants will be reduction in vulnerability. Simply the end to hostilities can contribute significantly to successful livelihood strategies in the immediate term. But this can then subsequently compromise sustainability and potentially increase vulnerability as a large percentage of the rural population begin moving back to home areas and properties, and others continue moving from place to place. Sustainability in livelihood outcomes will be difficult for most of the smallholder rural population after conflict, who will be focusing on re-acquiring assets while pursuing livelihood strategies designed for success in the immediate-term.
Food security is an important aspect of both vulnerability and livelihood outcome. Post-conflict outcomes involving food security will eventually switch, for most smallholders, from those related to a livelihood strategy comprised of natural and social asset extraction, food relief, and structures of welfare, to food security resulting from secure access to land resources, and the longer-term aspects of production system function able to provide for reliable, predictable food security. The sequencing of these will play a role. While secure access to land is usually needed to make significant investments in production systems connected to land resources, pursuit of production system activities (farming, clearing land, construction of houses, agroforestry) can, to a degree, themselves solidify claim in largely tenure insecure environments. While the state will take longer to be in a position to provide realistic and effective tenure security for rural producers, the reworking of customary structures and legalities (including laying claim and proving claim to land resources) will be of primary importance to attaining food security in the near, medium, and longer-term.
In this context increases in tenure security as a component of livelihood outcomes will be tied to notions of “community” (community level respect for individual level rights). But in post-conflict settings the community is likely to be of a different character than prior to or during a conflict. There will potentially be large numbers of migrants, dislocatees, or returning refugees, along with commercial interests, demobilizing combatants, and international actors that will all belong to a “community” in terms of the needed acknowledgement and respect of land access claims. That components of the community will not adhere to local pre-conflict ideas of authority, evidence, dispute resolution and land allocation (i.e. migrants, combatants, commercial interests) makes this acknowledgement and respect considerably more difficult. And that this new post-conflict ‘community’ is comprised of actors that possess different notions of claim, evidence, and dispute resolution (the factors important to tenure security) that will not be shared by all members of the community, will also be a complicating aspect of livelihood outcomes.
Also important to livelihood outcomes will be issues involving restitution (properties or compensation), resettlement, and eviction of those on land claimed by others. A primary problem here can be that informal authority, equity, welfare (especially of those evicted), retribution, disagreement, and enforcement (and the connections to violence) can become very problematic if the state is not organized, available, and effective in a timely manner to deal with large, aggregate problems of restitution, resettlement, and eviction. If the state is not in a position to handle such issues in what is seen as a fair, supportive manner, with the appropriate alternatives ready, then negative impacts on livelihoods can result and vulnerability may increase. In many cases the state is not in this position, and it may fall on the international community present at the time. Because the UN is most involved in the early post-conflict stages, these issues will likely to eventually become part of peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts.
