ASC Infosheet: Post-conflict land governance reform in the African Great Lakes region. Part I - The challenges of post-conflict land reform

  Posters for elections of local councils, Mbarara District, Uganda

Disputes over land are a prominent feature of many situations of protracted violent conflict in Burundi, Uganda and South Sudan. Research conducted as part of the programme ‘Grounding Land Govern-ance’ underscores that war reshuffles access and ownership, but also critically changes the ways in which land is governed. Land issues often come to resonate with other conflicts in society, thereby affecting overall stability. This makes interventions in land governance politically sensitive. While in-tended to improve land governance practices, re-forms often result in unintended and unpredictable outcomes, and have significant impacts for the le-gitimacy of the state. We therefore conclude that land governance in post-conflict settings deserves particular attention from academics and policymak-ers. Read the full text.

This is Infosheet no 30.