1 Background The Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Land Tenure and Administration Study (PALTAS) was launched because of the compelling need to identify and recommend policy that clarify and strengthen the land rights of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists and put in place appropriate administrative mechanisms to enforce their rights. It was designed to assess the land tenure problems in the pastoral and agro-pastoral areas of Oromia, SNNP, Gambella, Afar, and Somali regional states.

Namati’s Community Land Protection Facilitators Guide is a step-by-step, practical “how to” manual for grassroots advocates working to help communities protect their customary claims and rights to land and natural resources.

Download the complete Guide PDF from this page. Or access the Guide as an online Toolkit to download individual chapters.

Decret fixant les statut des terroirs d'attache des pasteurs

Southern Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley is one of the most culturally and biologically diverse areas in the world, yet the Ethiopian government is transforming more than 375,000 hectares (1450 sq. miles) of the region into industrial-scale plantations for sugar and other monocrops.

Ethiopia's Anti-Terrorism Law: A Tool to Stifle Dissent, authored by lawyers from leading international law firms, provides an in-depth and damning analysis of Ethiopia’s Anti-Terrorism Proclamation. The report examines how the law, enacted in 2009, is a tool of repression, designed and used by the Ethiopian Government to silence its critics.

Land-use conflict is not a new phenomenon for pastoralists and farmers in Tanzania with murders, the killing of livestock and the loss of property as a consequence of this conflict featuring in the news for many years now. Various actors, including civil society organisations, have tried to address farmer–pastoralist conflict through mass education programmes, land-use planning, policy reforms and the development of community institutions. However, these efforts have not succeeded in the conflict. Elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa traditional systems are not making much headway either.

The purpose of these Mapping Guidelines is to support development practitioners (individuals and organizations) working in the rangelands and sub-humid grasslands of Ethiopia. Specifically, resource mapping can assist with investigating rangeland management systems, negotiating rangeland management plans, and implementing and monitoring progress in Participatory Rangeland Management (PRM). The Mapping Guidelines will provide rangeland management practitioners with a tool to help establish PRM within community, district, zone and regional rangeland management offices across Ethiopia.

I n order to safeguard long-term equitable and sustainable environmental management and governance, a clear and transparent relationship to land – whether an individual’s, a community’s, a government’s or a private investor’s – is essential. To this end, UNEP has begun to engage on land issues in Sudan, and will continue to do so through the next four year phase of programming, as part of supporting the people and the government of Darfur in rebuilding and redefining the social contract on natural resources and land.

Moral Bankruptcy: World Bank Reinvents Tainted Aid Program for Ethiopia exposes the shameful reinvention of one of the Bank’s most problematic programs in Ethiopia. The report also reveals that the US Treasury violated congressional law when voting in favor of this program.

The report summarizes the findings of a participatory assessment of returns on investments in strengthening customary institutions for natural resource stewardship in four wards of Isiolo over the long dry season of 2014. Due to the rapid timeframe for the assessment, many observed benefits were not yet quantified. However, those that could be appraised so far already outweighed the investments made through the Isiolo Climate Adaptation Fund and by the members of the local institutions.

Pastoralism has been under pressure due to a number of factors including climate change, population pressure and socioeconomic dynamism. These factors have affected the relationships among different pastoral groups and the functioning of the customary institutions in managing natural resources. Interference of the state structures into pastoral areas, land alienation for large scale investment and delineation of protected area from communal grazing areas have negatively affected the relationships between pastoralists and the state.

This report provides an overview of the present state of play of the extractive industries in relation to indigenous peoples, taking as its point of departure the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples(UNDRIP) in 2007, together with the 2009 UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues International (UNPFII) Expert Group Meeting on Extractive Industries, Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility, and the 2009 International Conference on Indigenous Peoples and the Extractive Industries.