Are community–investor conflicts inevitable? Community legal empowerment and conflict prevention experiences from Cameroon and Uganda

This report presents findings from a three-year action research project in Uganda and Cameroon that aimed to preventively address conflicts related to land-based investments.

Predominant approaches to investment-related rights violations are reactive, rather than preventive: legal support is often provided after property has been destroyed, waters and soils polluted, and communities devastated. In such cases, reactive legal empowerment has a limited chance of remediating the damage caused.

This project piloted four strategies designed to prevent and/or resolve latent or emergent conflicts related to land-based investments before significant harm has been done. These strategies included: 

1. Mapping investments to assess ‘hotspots’ where conflicts are likely to emerge
2. Supporting communities to monitor investor compliance with laws and contractual obligations
3. Creating systems that allow communities to promptly access legal and technical help, and
4. Establishing local, government-led grievance redress mechanisms that communities can approach at the first indication of conflict.

The research findings indicate that such proactive interventions have the potential to not only prevent egregious rights violations and mitigate harm, but also to strengthen communities’ ability to assert their rights and engage investors in the process of collaboratively resolving conflicts.