Contested Land in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Anatomy of the Land-Related Intervention

Land is fiercely contested in the densely populated and ethnically heterogeneous eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Competition over land is intimately intertwined with violent conflict and simultaneously constitutes root cause, sustaining factor and consequence of war and human suffering. For the great majority of the rural population, access to land is the primary condition for subsistence. Frequently, the same piece of land is claimed by various parties, but legal pluralism hampers the unambiguous determination of the legitimate owner. The state and its judicial structures being largely absent after almost two decades of armed conflict and insecurity, law and order have widely been replaced by the right of the strongest. Since a few years, there has been increasing acknowledgement of the urgent need to address the land issue if the country is to sustainably recover from conflict. National and international actors have initiated programs directed at the prevention and resolution of land-related local conflicts, with the long-term objective of fostering more comprehensive and secure access to land  for the Congolese population. This paper examines the problem of contested land and its manifestations in the province of North Kivu and reviews and analyzes the corresponding national and international land- related intervention in order to identify gaps, opportunities and future challenges.

Beck, J. (2012). Contested Land in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Anatomy of the Land-Related Intervention. IFHV Working Paper, 2(2).

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