Course Summary:

This course is for you who are interested in the real life complexity related to the use and management of land and natural resources. This context requires competent management of the resources in question but also competent dealing with people issues – such as conflicts of interests, culture clashes and differences in values, culture and perceptions among stakeholders. The target group for the course is students within any education concerning the relation between humans and the environment – e.g. forestry, biology, geography, agricultural development, land-use, landscape architecture, urban greening, and natural resource economics, and development studies.

Course Objectives:

• Explore the special problems associated with mediating land disputes, and the specific demands on public  resolvers involved in land use resource management
• Familiarize yourself with advanced tools and techniques used by mediators of land use disputes
• Learn how to apply consensus building strategies in resource management and land allocation disputes
• Discuss and debate actual cases that raise challenging mediation dilemmas
• Link advanced mediation theory and best practice in the land use context

Course Outline

INTRODUCTION

• Land and conflict: a complicated relationship
• About this Guidance Note

LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCE TENURE - SOME KEY CONCEPTS

• Land and natural resources
• Land and natural resource tenure 
• Land tenure, land rights and property rights
• Housing, land and property rights (HLP)
• Land tenure system: statutory, customary and other forms of tenure 
• Continuum of land rights and security of tenure 
• Legal pluralism and forum shopping

LAND, CONFLICT AND INTERNATIONAL ACTION: A FRAMEWORK

• Introduction to the framework
• The dynamic nature of conflict
• The complicated role of land in conflict
• Land institutions and governance play a critical role in conflict
• and peace-building
• International action can play an important role
• Land, conflict and international action at different stages of the conflict cycle
• Stage : Grievance
• Stage : Insecurity
• Stage : Conflict
• Stage : Negotiation and peace-making
• Stage : Post-conflict

A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO ADDRESSING LAND GRIEVANCES AND CONFLICTS

• Lessons-learned from UN peacekeeping and peace operations 
• A systematic approach to land grievances and conflicts
• Developing and implementing a systematic approach
• International experience with systematic approaches

 ADDRESSING SPECIFIC LAND CHALLENGES

• Access to land and humanitarian programmes
• Land and identity documents
• Abandoned land and secondary occupation
• Restitution and the right to return
• Land reform 
• Balancing investment and security of tenure for the poor
• Informal settlements
• Women’s land and property rights
• Pastoralism and conflict 
• Land policy, legal and institutional reforms
• A broad strategy for policy, legal and institutional reform
• Land policy reform
• Land law reform 
• Land administration reforms 

CROSS-CUTTING TOOLS AND APPROACHES 

• Early warning tools
• In-conflict assessments
• In-take questionnaires
• Post-conflict needs assessments
• Conflict analysis
• Coordination
• Risk management