The relevance of land: from the Solomons to the Sudan

I think land tenure, and questions about access to land, are one of the most neglected aspects of aid and development initiatives and conflict resolution initiatives. Sure, big institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank realise they're important, but how many NGOs deal with these issues? In Australia at least, one of the primary criticisms of AusAID that I hear from activists and those working for NGOs is that the money is directed at "too high a level" - ie it's directed at reform of legal and administrative mechanisms, rather than at what some would call "the grassroots". However land tenure is one of the very areas in which we see exactly why it might be not only flawed, but dangerous, to assume that such distinctions can be drawn.

I was reminded of this last year when I attended a workshop with people from around the world who'd gathered to talk about housing, land and property issues in post-conflict societies. I don't know much about the conflict in the Sudan, but I now realise that land tenure underlies this conflict as it does so many others. Check out this article for more: Sudan: The Question of Land.