SEMINAR: LAND GOVERNANCE AND LOCAL LIVELIHOODS IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION

Leiden - 'Oude' Sterrewacht, Sterrenwachtlaan 11 (ingang Kaiserstraat 63) zaal B104

LANDac, IKV Pax Christi, Van Vollenhoven Institute and African Studies Centre invite you to the seminar  Land Governance and Local Livelihoods in the Great Lakes Region
 
Date: Tuesday 3 April 2012, 13.30- 17.00, with drinks afterwards

Registration: Please register at mailto:asc@ascleiden.nl
 
This conference aims to discuss the contemporary challenges with regard to land governance and local livelihoods in the DRC, Burundi and Rwanda. Fragile but progressive post-conflict reconstruction is producing a new growth-oriented logic in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Simultaneously, smallholder farming is increasingly called into question as a viable strategy for enhancing agricultural productivity. Meanwhile the opportunities provided by economic development are not equally distributed. One consequence is an increasingly prevalent scramble for natural resources by investors. As a result, competition within the land arena is becoming increasingly fierce and conflicts over land are becoming more numerous and more intense. The loss of control over land is impacting heavily upon local rural livelihoods as there are few alternative options outside the agricultural sector.

Programme

13.30 Registration

13.40 Opening by the chair: Frits van der Wal (DDE, Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

13.45 Land politics and rural practices in Burundi and the DRC

· A legacy from the past hindering the future: land conflicts in Ituri (DRC) by Joost
van Puijenbroek (IKV Pax Christi)
· A new land law in Burundi: innovations and challenges ahead by Dominik
Kohlhagen (University of Antwerp)

Discussion

14.45 Break

15.15 Views from below on the pro-poor growth challenge in Rwanda

· Looking behind the screen: National development versus local survival in rural
Rwanda by An Ansoms (Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve)
· Sharing scarcity: access to land in South-east Rwanda by Margot Leegwater
(African Studies Centre)

Discussion

16.15- 16.45 Final discussion with panel (names to be confirmed).

16.45- 17.00 Book launch ‘Natural Resources and Local Livelihoods in the Great Lakes
Region of Africa: A Political Economy Perspective’, Editors: An Ansoms and
Stefaan Marysse, published by Palgrave in 2011.

The book can be purchased during the conference for € 60 (normal price ± € 85).

17.00 Drinks