by Laura Cunial
Laura Cunial is the lead author and trainer for the NRC/IDMC Housing Land and Property Training Course. She has worked on housing, land and property (HLP) rights and peacebuilding in countries such as Liberia, Kenya, Vietnam and Dijbouti and currently works as an Adviser for the Information, Counseling and Legal Assistance (ICLA) Program with the NRC.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) have, in collaboration with the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), developed a training course on Housing, Land and Property (HLP) issues. The material has been developed under the NRC’s Information, Counselling and Legal Assistance (ICLA) programme with funds provided by the European Commission Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO).
The development of the HLP Training Course is part of NRC’s effort to further improve its work through the mainstreaming of HLP considerations into all programming. The humanitarian community recognizes that HLP issues are main conflict drivers and that they should be addressed from the earliest stages of humanitarian interventions. As a result, NRC has invested significant resources to increase its knowledge on HLP and improve its response, including the methodologies used for resolving housing, land and property disputes.
NRC has been at the forefront for many years in providing assistance on HLP issues to displaced persons and other populations affected by conflict. This has been done both through NRC’s interventions related to the shelter and food security sectors, and through highly specialised ICLA programmes. The HLP Training Course aims at improving the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian response through improved capacity on HLP issues. The course material is designed for all humanitarians implementing response and recovery projects and is not just meant for HLP specialists.
The course material has been tested in several NRC Country Programs. The evaluation of the relevance and quality of each training session was used to improve the subsequent trainings and to refine the modules. In addition, the material was developed in consultation with the HLP sub-working group of the Global Protection Cluster Working Group. As a result, the training material is versatile and can be tailored to different training needs and target audiences.
The NRC HLP Training Manual is currently available in English, French and Spanish and consists of the following modules:
- Module No. 1: An introduction to Housing, Land and Property
- Module No. 2: The Housing, Land and Property International Legal Framework and Principle
- Module No. 3: Housing, Land and Property during internal displacement
- Module No. 4: Women’s Housing, Land and Property rights
- Module No. 5: Housing, Land and Property in urban contexts
- Module No. 6: Addressing Housing, Land and Property disputes
- Module No. 7: Housing, Land and Property and durable solutions
Since early 2011, NRC has delivered more than 15 HLP trainings in the following locations: South Sudan, Afghanistan, the occupied Palestinian territory, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Switzerland, Pakistan, Colombia and Ivory Coast. Trainees included staff from NRC, international and national NGOs, ICRC, UN agencies such as OCHA, OHCHR, UNDP, UNFPA, UNHCR and UN HABITAT as well as national authorities.
The material can be requested by downloading a request form from the training manual web page and sending it to the email address hlp@nrc.no. More information on ICLA and the HLP Training Course are available on the NRC ICLA web page.
Happy International Women’s Day!
by Rhodri C. Williams
I didn’t really come across International Women’s Day until I started work in Bosnia and I never quite knew what to make of it. It had a distinctly east of the Oder-Neisse and non-aligned feeling to it, and the idea of cabining all one’s gender analysis into a single day of the year – and manifesting it through mechanical male-to-female flower transfers – didn’t seem entirely satisfying.
That said, there seems to be a healthy tendency for IWD to be taken as an opportunity for serious reflection on the state of gender equality. And that doesn’t just apply to places with notorious issues like Colombia but also to countries like Sweden, where decades of impressive progress only serve to highlight the unsatisfying fact that equality remains elusive. While a persistent salary-gap is the most obvious symptom, complaints roll in around this time of year ranging from the virtual absence of women from corporate boards to some of the highest rates of harassment in the EU.
For those of you interested in an updated global take on equality, the BBC has a good interactive map broken down both by region and broad themes (health, education, economic empowerment, political participation). However, my absolute favorite graphic on equality for this year is this amazing compilation by the Guardian that breaks down by region and categories of legal rights, including property ownership. While it is not entirely comprehensive (some issues like women’s right to retain their last name after marriage are left out) it still presents an extraordinary tool.
As a final point, expect more on the link between post-conflict humanitarian response, women’s property rights and access to justice on TN soon. This in reflection of the fact that securing equal access and tenure rights for women is increasingly recognized as one of the most meaningful areas linking the work of humanitarian actors concerned with the land claims of the displaced – such as the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) – and those of rule of law and development actors concerned with access to justice.
Women tend to suffer both from disproportionate vulnerability in humanitarian settings and disenfranchisement in development settings. Societies suffer as a result, both in humanitarian cases where disproportionately female-headed households are unable to reintegrate into society, and in development cases where the human and economic potential of women is wasted. As discussed by Dr. Donny Meertens of Colombia here on the Reinventing the Rules blog, securing women’s land rights is now seen as a key to turning these dynamics around, facilitating durable solutions to displacement, social justice and more equitable development.
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Tagged access to justice, GBV, gender, humanitarian response, inequality, land rights, NRC, rule of law