Addressing land ownership after natural disasters:
An Agency Survey
Addressing land ownership after natural disasters:
An Agency Survey
Natural disasters like hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes damage and destroy land vital to peoples’ livelihoods. They kill titleholders, destroy land documentation and erase boundaries.
In addition, land slides, pollution, salinisation and the destruction of irrigation systems can leave land unusable for either agriculture or construction. The location of refugee camps, the relocation of disaster refugees and measures to increase future resilience such as no-construction zones have also been fraught with problems.
It is widely acknowledged that determining and redistributing land ownership[1]equitably after natural disasters is a very important step in the transition from short-term humanitarian reliefto the long-term reconstruction of livelihoods and communities.
However, it seems that there is little consistency between the approaches of different humanitarian relief agencies to land ownership when rebuilding after natural disasters.Some ignore theissue, preferring to leave it to national governments, while others get deeply involved mapping previous ownership and demarcating new boundaries.
At IISD we believe there is a need for a clearer understanding of the tools and strategies relief agencies have at their disposal to address these issues. This short survey aims to develop a practical understanding of the ways that national and international agencies have tackled land tenure issues following recent natural disasters.We hope to draw out some best practice lessons from the considerable experience that has developed over the years.
Given that everyone has extremely busy schedules we have tried to streamline this survey as much as possible and estimate that it should take no longer than 10 minutes to fill out. We will collate the responses into a short report which will be circulatedto all participants. We would like to encourage frank and full responses and consequently will maintain anonymity wherever requested.
We thank you for your valuable time and hope our report may be of use to you in your important work.Please note that all the boxes expand and please return completed surveys to:
Oli Brown:
Name:
Organization:
Title:
Email:
What are your primary responsibilities in your organization?:
1.
2.
3.
Which natural disasters has your organization responded to since 2000? What wereyour organization’skey responsibilities after the disaster?
1eg. Gujarat Earthquake – water & sanitation, refugee camp location
2.
3.
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5.
When is land ownership an issue?
On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 =not important, 5 =very important), what do you think the importance of land ownership is to the resilience of communities to natural disasters?
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Can you give us some examples or reasons why you think so?:
What do you think the importance of land ownership is during the immediate response to disasters in the short-term humanitarian relief phase?
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Can you give us some examples or reasons why you think so?:
What do you think the importance of land ownership is during the mid- to long-term reconstruction of livelihoods and communities?
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Can you give us some examples or reasons why you think so?:
To what extent do you think natural disasters provide an opportunity for different and (potentially) more sustainable systems of land ownership?
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Can you give us some examples or reasons why you think so?:
How do you think your organization does?
In your experience, how do the following describe your organization’s management of land issues:
Does not describeDescribes well
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- Cost effective
- Rapid
- Integrated into disaster management plans
- Coordinated with other agencies
- Involving local communities
- Informed by knowledge of underlying vulnerabilities
Can you think of an example of where your organization dealt particularly well with disaster-related land issue? What made it successful?:
Can you think of an example of where it’s been less successful? Why do you think that was so?:
In your opinion, overall does your agency respond adequately to issues of land tenure?
If so, why? If not, why not?:
How do you measure the outcomes of your efforts? :
If you would like the information in this section to remain anonymous, please let us know.
I don’t mind if you quote me-
Please don’t attribute directly to me-
Please don’t attribute to either me or my organisation-
What gets in the way of resolving land ownership equitably?
In your experience which of the following potential barriers hinders the equitable resolution of land ownership after natural disasters?
Not a barrier A significant barrier
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- Political interference/ bias
- Lack of government capacity/ political inertia
- The activities of private companies
- Lack of information/ poor data/ mapping capacity
- Conflicting responsibilities/ lack of co-ordination between government and relief agencies?
- Conflicting responsibilities/ lack of co-ordination between different relief agencies?
- Lack of infrastructure/administration capacity
- Lack of appropriate mechanisms to resolve disputes (community based or legal systems)
- Societal discrimination (caste, gender, age)
- Conflicting rights (eg between communally and privately held land)
- Others we may have missed? :
Who should do what?
The allocation of land ownership is typically the responsibility of government. However, different stakeholders can also contribute to pre-disaster resilience and post-disaster reconstruction by supporting equitable land tenure systems. However, it is not always clear what these different stakeholders should be doing. In your opinion:
What is the role of governmentin resolving land ownership after natural disasters?:
- of humanitarian relief agencies?:
- of development agencies?:
- of the private sector?:
- of civil society?:
Thank you verymuch for your valuable time and input
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[1] By land ownership (or tenure) we are referring to the ownership, whether legally or customarily defined, of people over land and its associated natural resources (water, trees, minerals, wildlife, etc.). Rules of tenure define how property rights in land are allocated in society. Land tenure systems determine who can use what resources for how long, and under what conditions.