Uncharted territory: land, conflict, and humanitarian action

This Policy Brief seeks to create awareness of the importance of land in a humanitarian crisis. The author argues that the end of a prolonged armed conflict will frequently see a large proportion of the population claiming or reclaiming access to land and land based resources with important implications for return, recovery, and reintegration processes. Key messages include:

• land issues are often an underlying cause or casualty of conflict
• land and property disputes tend to increase in the post-conflict period
• humanitarian agencies have avoided land-related issues
• engagement needs to be much broader and more nuanced, based on an understanding of the wider dynamics of land-related conflict.
  

The author provides more information on issues such as:

• the relationship between land and conflict
  
• land in post-conflict contexts
• humanitarian engagement on land issues
  

Charting a way forward, the author makes the following recommendations:

• it is essential that capacity is created to allow holistic analyses of the context, including its historical and political dimensions, and avoiding pre-packaged plans
• at the systemic level, agreement must be sought within the UN on the most suitable institutional arrangement to provide leadership and coordination in this area, both globally and at country level
• it is also important that land and property issues are included in peace negotiations
  
• urbanisation is one of the most pressing priorities in a post-conflict situation, and organisations need to start engaging immediately after the end of a conflict
• in post-conflict contexts, NGOs in particular could offer more substantial legal support to vulnerable people, both residents and returnees
• enhanced practice and policy-making on land and property issues in crisis needs to be based on a number of key partnerships
• mainstreaming action on land and property issues in the humanitarian sector will undoubtedly pose challenges, but there is much to be gained by the contribution that better-informed humanitarian action could make to the management of land relations in conflict and post-conflict transitions.