Housing, Land, and Property Rights Toolkit
DD - R3 - HUMANITARIAN SHELTER AND LAND RIGHTS IN SOUTH SUDAN DUE DILIGENCE GUIDELINES
The intended audience for these guidelines are shelter actors supporting the construction of humanitarian shelters in South Sudan, covering two principal emergency shelter scenarios: Host Land and Allocated Land. They are a result of a field assessment carried out by IOM land experts that took place in May 2015 and is based on experiences from a three-week field visit to the states of Equatoria, Lakes, and Jonglei.
The broad goal of the document is to assist shelter actors in South Sudan in understanding existing land rights over plots of land and to minimize the risk of shelter activities further contributing to land disputes. The guidelines also can help shelter actors apply the Global Shelter Cluster Due Diligence Standard[1] to respond to issues of land rights as they emerge, or where there exists risk that land issues might emerge in shelter programming. Guidance on obtaining to legal certainty, reducing risk of tension and eviction and operationalizing the due diligence standard in emergency shelter programming is also provided.3
The guidelines are organized by four phases of shelter programming.[2] Each phase or component of shelter intervention provides details on applicability by shelter scenario and provides a checklist that may be useful for other shelter intervention contexts outside of South Sudan. The phases included in the guidance are as follows: 1) Preparedness and Planning,[3] 2) Before Shelter Activities,[4] 3) Implementation of Shelter Activities,[5] and 4) Evaluation.[6]
Most of the document is specific to South Sudan, but it provides guidance for areas characterized by conflict, communal land rights, and Host Land/Allocated Land contexts. The document also provides a detailed history on the key characteristics of the land rights situation in South Sudan, including legislation, customary land rights, gender issues, and history, as well as land issues in the context of the current conflict.[7]
Annex 2 provides the Sudan-specific legal guidance2 and Annex 3 provides the institutional framework surrounding land issues in South Sudan,[8] Annex 4 provides a tool for “Actor Influence Mapping” to assist practitioners in understanding key actors and interrelationships in land issues and disputes.[9] Annex 5 provides Agreements and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) templates and examples for land and shelter agreements.[10]
Humanitarian Shelter and Land Rights Due Diligence South Sudan
[1] Global Shelter Cluster. Humanitarian Shelter and Land Rights in South Sudan Due Diligence Guidelines. (2015). P.5.
[2] Ibid. P.6.
[3] Ibid. P.11.
[4] Ibid. P.16.
[5] Ibid. P.21.
[6] Ibid. P.25.
[7] Ibid. P.7-9.
[8] Ibid. P.33.
[9] Ibid. P.36.
[10] Humanitarian Shelter and Land Rights in South Sudan Due Diligence Guidelines for Shelter Actors. Shelter Cluster South Sudan. (2015). P.39.