‘It’s not all about the land’: Land disputes and conflict in the eastern Congo

September 2016
Gillian Mathys and Koen Vlassenroot (Rift Valley Institute PSRP Briefing Paper 14)

Current interventions in land conflicts in the eastern Congo are focused on conflict management rather than conflict resolution. Land conflicts are part of a wider governance problem and need political rather than technical approaches. Conflicts over land are related to wider conflict dynamics, which are the result of an interplay between struggles for power and resources, identity narratives and territorial claims. There is a need for better donor coordination and more coherent land governance interventions, which should be integrated into larger state-building efforts.