The present volume is part of a series of Land Tenure Studies produced by FAO’s Land Tenure Service of the Rural Development Division. Land tenure arrangements are a key to food security and sustainable rural development. Equitable and secure access to land, especially for the rural poor, is a crucial factor for reducing poverty and hunger, for increasing agricultural productivity, and for improving rural conditions. Effective land tenure institutions are needed to administer who has rights to what natural resources for which purposes, for how long, and under what conditions.
Violent conflicts typically cause significant changes to land tenure and its administration. A widespread conflict lasting for a number of years may result in successive waves of displacement of people. People may lose their land because they have been forcibly evicted, or they may abandon their land because of fear of violence. Those displaced are forced to seek land to settle, either within the country as Internally Displaced Persons, or externally as refugees. People living in safer areas may have lost access to their land with the arrival of those who are displaced.
At the end of a conflict, many people return home only to find that others occupy their property. In some cases such occupants may not have a valid claim. In many other cases the waves of displacement result in several people having legitimate claims to the same parcel of land. Many people will not be able to return to their original home areas and will have to settle elsewhere.
Providing secure access to land is particularly complex in situations following violent conflicts. A wide range of people and organizations require access to land for a variety of purposes. In some cases temporary access is required; in other cases more permanent arrangements are needed. Resolving claims to land and ensuring access to it are often hampered by a weak capacity of central and local levels of government. New processes for managing land restitution and resettlement programmes must often be designed and implemented. Critical infrastructure must be replaced, land records must be recovered or recreated, and technical and managerial expertise must be re-established.
This volume is intended to support land tenure and land administration specialists who participate in the recreation of land tenure and its administration in countries following violent conflicts. The book, like others in the series, does not seek to be exhaustive but rather reflects what FAO and its many collaborators have discovered are "good practices". FAO’s Rural Development Division looks forward to continuing collaboration with its larger audience.
Parviz Koohafkan
Director
Rural Development
Division
