1. INTRODUCTION

This paper addresses the application of sustainable livelihood approaches to access to land and land administration in post-conflict situations.

FAO’s Land Tenure Service has observed that providing secure access to land is frequently not easy, and it is particularly complex in situations following violent conflicts: getting the answer right can go directly to the matter of achieving sustainable peace. The effects of violent conflicts are usually widespread in a country but they can be particularly severe in rural areas. As most of the population in poor countries is rural, violent conflict in rural areas can result in vast numbers of people being displaced. Rural areas often lack access roads and other infrastructure and services, and their absence hampers the establishment of good governance during the transition to peace. Following conflicts, access to land in rural areas is required by those displaced, and often by former militia members. Of particular importance in such an environment is the recognition of the vulnerable which invariably include women and children, and may also include ethnic or political minorities.

FAO has provided technical assistance to improving access to land in a number of countries emerging from violent conflict within the context of food security, poverty alleviation and rural development. While every conflict situation is likely to be different, they nevertheless share a number of common characteristics. FAO, through its Land Tenure Service, is working on the preparation of a guide for land administrators responsible for the re-establishment of land tenure/administration systems in countries emerging from violent conflicts.

In support of these efforts, a sub-programme of the Livelihood Support Programme (LSP) is addressing the question as to how a sustainable livelihoods approach can be used when addressing land access and land administration in post-conflict countries. The LSP is a FAO project, funded by DFID, to improve the impact of interventions at country level through the application of sustainable livelihood (SL) approaches. Its sub-programme on access to natural resources aims at enhancing SL approaches by making them more effective in reducing poverty by improving access to natural assets by the poor.

By focusing on livelihood outcomes, the SL approach can draw attention to:

• the assets that people have, rather than what they do not have;

• the cross-sectoral nature of many people’s livelihood strategies, and the fact that assumptions based on an analysis of a single sector may be incorrect;

• the vulnerability context, and to influences that are beyond local control but which are responsible for many hardships faced by the poor;

• the role of policies, processes and institutions.

The preparation of this paper is based in-part on the author’s land tenure project, policy and research experience in conflict and post-conflict settings, particularly in Somalia, Mozambique, East Timor, Uganda, and Ethiopia, complemented by additional land tenure work in Zambia, Madagascar, Saudi Arabia, and Peru. As well the paper draws on a variety of academic, government, donor, and NGO publications, in order to provide substantive grounding and wider relevance than what the author’s own experience provides. Of particular utility were the FAO papers on access to land in-post conflict situations; including an initial scoping paper (Thomson 2003), the case studies on Nicaragua (Barquero 2004), East Timor (Thomson 2004), Kosovo (Andersson 2004), and Rwanda (Huggins 2004). Other sources describing the post-conflict situation in Sri Lanka, Bosnia, Guatemala, and the Middle East were also used. Also of considerable value were the DFID Sustainable Livelihoods Guidance Sheets publications, and working papers and briefing notes from the FAO Livelihood Support Program.

The scoping paper, “Access to Land in Post-Conflict Situations,” (Thomson 2003) along with the case studies on Kosovo, Rwanda, Nicaragua and East Timor, describe important aspects of formal, state administration and legislation in post-conflict land tenure situations. “Key questions” identified in the scoping paper and addressed in the case studies are presented in Box 1.

This paper, in section 2, builds on those important analyses by articulating why, in a sustainable livelihoods context, it is also important to look at the “on the ground” informal, tenurial reality of rural inhabitants (e.g. the Nicaragua case study), and how they interface with the postwar efficacy and functioning of the formal land tenure system. This section outlines why there is a primary connection between this informal tenurial reality and the priorities of the sustainable livelihoods approach. And while this section along with significant parts of the paper articulates the differences, problems and possibilities involving informal vs. formal land tenure, this is not intended to present these two aspects of post-conflict tenure as a complete dichotomy. In a number of cases in Africa and elsewhere customary tenure systems are recognized by formal law. At the same time, in other cases the formal system can operate in such a chaotic fashion as to be informal itself. And in reality in many post-war situations the state property rights system can operate in a fairly crippled and disorganized manner. This weakening of the state, in regards to land tenure is highlighted in the paper, as are the attendant repercussions and opportunities.

Section 3 articulates how informal, or customary land tenure systems function “on the ground” in post-conflict scenarios, and the intersection between this reality and the reduced capacity of the formal system. Because the sustainable livelihoods approach can be used to focus on smallholders, an understanding of the post-conflict tenurial realities faced by rural producers is important to exploring how the sustainable livelihoods approach would be able to contribute to resolving the problems associated with land access in such environments. The idea here is to provide insight into smallholder post-conflict land tenure fundamentals that can then be dealt with from a sustainable livelihoods perspective (Section 4). The fundamental components of tenure issues in post-conflict scenarios include both an awareness of the different sets of tenure issues and their role in conflict and recovery, and the need to embrace an approach that engages local level post-conflict realities as building blocks in new property rights legislative and development activities.

Section 4 describes and assesses how the application of SL approaches could enrich FAO’s work on post conflict land tenure by translating important aspects of post-conflict tenure reality (described in section 3), into the sustainable livelihoods framework. By looking at post-conflict tenure through the framework, important constraints and opportunities can be revealed.

Section 5 provides a “lessons learned” outcome of the intersection between “on-the-ground” post-conflict land tenure and the SL approach (Section 4), together with a consideration of the SL approach in a post-conflict case study.

Section 6 describes some of the primary critical issues that may require further attention, so as to tailor both post-conflict assessment, and the SL approach to post-conflict settings.