The right to land is a fundamental prerequisite to the other rights (economic, social, and cultural) that depend on land, and which determine the living conditions and social integration of Ethiopia’s rural and urban communities. In recent times, high rates of population growth, unregulated urban expansion, and poor use of resources have led to land degradation, loss of biodiversity, and disputes over access. An integrated and participatory approach to land management is considered essential if resources are to be used sustainably and equitably in the future.

While land that is legally designated or owned by indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local communities worldwide between 2015 and 2020 has risen in acreage, in sub-Saharan Africa the opposite applies, says a report by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI): It decreased by 2.4 million hectares (Mha) – from 9.6 percent of land across the 23 countries in Africa analysed as of 2015 to 9.4 percent of land across the same countries in 2020.

In southern Cameroon, about 150km from the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, a bitter story from the colonial era is playing out. Rubber companies are once again destroying rainforests and communities.

"They come here promising us everything," said one affected Ugandan. "We believed them. Now we are landless, the compensation money is gone, what fields we have left are flooded, and dust fills the air."

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa has halted the tabling of land act reforms, saying Uganda has more serious problems to deal with than those issues arising from the current land law.

We are looking for two consultants to conduct research on the land governance situation in French and Spanish speaking countries.

In Kenya, the Mau forest is the ancestral home of an indigenous community called the Ogiek people. The Ogiek community comprises 20,000 members, about 15,000 of whom inhabit the greater Mau Forest Complex, a land mass of about 400,000 hectares. 

 Civil society organizations in Madagascar are now deeply concerned about the threat the recently passed foreign investment law poses. Currently undergoing a constitutional review, if approved by the High Constitutional Court, it enables foreign investors and companies to lease land for 99 years and renew such agreements which could effectively granting them ownership of the land.

Pinnapa Pruksapan, widow of murdered indigenous land rights activist Porlajee Rakchongcharoen, has requested continued protection for her and her family.

Latest paper from the WOLTS team offers new evidence of a sustainable approach to securing land rights for women and communities 

Whereas Cameroonian law grant men and women equal access to land ownership, unofficial yet prevalent customary laws greatly restrict women’s right to own land. 

Conflict over land rights is escalating in Uganda as people are forced to make way for the East Africa Crude Oil pipeline.