Addis Ababa, November 2025 — In a packed conference room at the African Union Commission headquarters, a side event dedicated to land dynamics amid displacement and climate change shed light on a reality long overlooked but now impossible to deny : across the region, relations that were once complementary between herders, farmers, refugees and host communities are fracturing.
Opening the discussion, Mahamat Abdoulaye Malloum of local consultant for Kadaster International of Chad and ambassador of sustainable development. of cadastre the Chadian representative painted a striking picture of the profound shifts underway in his country. Historically, he explained, pastoralists moved across Sahelian landscapes in harmony with farmers: livestock fertilized the land, and each group found its place within an ancient, balanced mobility system. But climate change, combined with the early arrival of transhumant groups to harvest zones, has disrupted this equilibrium. A new actor has also emerged: a rising agro-pastoral elite, described as a “proto-bourgeoisie,” reinvesting oil revenues into massive acquisitions of land and livestock while ignoring local conventions. “This is where conflicts emerge,” he warned, as host communities now see external groups — some returning after more than two centuries settling permanently on their ancestral lands.
This has created a deep rupture between farming and pastoral communities, amplifying resistance to the pastoral law of 2014, revised in 2025, which many perceive as too favorable to herders. But the tensions do not end there. Chad, long mocked for the outmigration of its citizens, has in less than a decade become a major host country, now sheltering more than one million refugees from Cameroon, Nigeria, Sudan and the Central African Republic, fleeing Boko Haram, armed conflicts or political crises.
This historic reversal, combined with climate impacts, is fueling new competition for land : refugees who were allocated plots for one year often remain for twenty, sometimes benefiting from better living conditions than local populations a growing source of resentment. In response, a consortium bringing together Oxfam and several technical institutions is testing low-cost participatory land-mapping approaches in Chad to identify community lands, sacred sites and existing rights, enabling negotiation and co-creation of solutions. “With the current system, it would take us 40,000 years to map all the land,” joked one panelist, prompting nervous laughter across the room.
The discussion then shifted to Mozambique, where Borgas chivamba of the NGO Centro Terra Viva described an equally critical situation. Since 2017, Cabo Delgado province has been shaken by violent conflict that has displaced more than 600,000 people. On top of this, recurrent natural disasters hit the country’s central region. More than half of the displaced find refuge within host communities, the rest in designated sites. The main challenge lies in a legal loophole: Mozambican laws regulate resettlement linked to private investments — where operators must guarantee adequate conditions — but no such rules apply to displacement caused by conflict or disasters. This vacuum leads to numerous injustices: returnees often find their land occupied, with no legal means to reclaim it due to a lack of titles.
The Landed Skill program seeks to address this by informing both displaced people and host communities of their rights, aiming to prevent future conflicts, particularly around the “ten-year rule,” which grants land-use rights through good-faith occupation. Borges stressed: “We want to avoid a situation where displaced people later claim legal ownership of land that communities had offered them in solidarity.”
Asked about the role of youth, the speakers acknowledged that although this dimension remains underexplored, young people are key drivers of peace, often capable of transcending cultural, ethnic or identity divides.
Finally, Simon Peter Mwesigye from a Land Tenure Advisor with Global Land Tool Network and UN-Habitat offered insights from Uganda, one of Africa’s largest refugee-hosting nations, receiving people mainly from South Sudan, eastern DRC and now Sudan. Long praised for its progressive policy granting plots to refugee families, Uganda now sees this model under strain: massive arrivals are significantly reducing the size of the plots allocated, undermining the goal of self-reliance. Moreover, nearly all the land used to host refugees belongs to customary communities. These communities continue to welcome people generously, drawing from their own history of exile, but are increasingly questioning the sustainability of this model.
Beyond data and analysis, the side event revealed the urgent need for renewed continental reflection on land governance in contexts of mobility. In an environment shaped by climate disruption, conflict and economic pressures, African countries face a silent yet profound transition: from a system built on community complementarity to one increasingly defined by competition over scarce land.
In The end of the session, the message was clear: without land policies that are adapted, inclusive and co-created with communities, current fractures risk hardening into long-term conflicts. Yet with new participatory approaches, stronger recognition of local rights and meaningful youth engagement, several panelists believe it is still possible to build more resilient and peaceful territories.
By Kilalopress
