DS Director Scott Leckie and DS associate Zeke Simperingham again visited Myanmar for a two-week DS mission in May 2016 to explore recent developments in the land sector, and the prospects for restitution forming part of the expanding peace process in the country.  With the new NLD-led government in power for the first time, the prospects for positive action within the land sector are noteworthy. DS worked together with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in developing recommendations for the British Government's aid agency DFID, and how the UK might best support land-related activities in the context of the peace process. Land is key negotiating issue between the government and the various ethnic negotiating partners, and will invariably form a key basis for the eventual conclusion of peace agreements in the future. DS will continue to expand its Myanmar HLP Initiative in the coming year with a variety of projects within the land sector, including a joint project with Landesa on climate displacement within the country. ...

  http://issuu.com/displacementsolutions/docs/ds-nrc_pinheiro_principles_in_engli?e=31296948/53928323...

This report provides an in-depth understanding of customary land dispute resolution in Kayin State, Eastern Bago Region and Shan State and its interaction with the formal statutory Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar(GORUM) system. A participatory community-based research approach was used to understand customary practices concerning land, including how land title is defined, enforced and how land disputes are contested, negotiated and resolved at the community level. Based on the perceptions of local people and village leaders in the three research sites, the report identifies current practices as well as prior work on this topic in Myanmar and seeks to identify ongoing dispute resolution mechanisms and practices used by communities in ethnic nationality areas with a view to informing policy and programming on restitution. Key to this analysis is the question of what a genuine restitution process might look like in Myanmar and how customary practices might be integrated into it. Furthermore, if a genuine restitution process was established, what realistic capacity is there to integrate customary dispute mechanisms and authorities into it. Based on in-depth qualitative research in 31 villages across 3 regions/states, it offers an insight into understandings of customary mechanisms that people use to…...

DS carried out its latest mission to Myanmar in October with a focus this time on the question of housing, land and property restitution rights and how best to ensure these rights for everyone with an HLP loss and valid restitution claim in need of remedy. DS and the Norwegian Refugee Council will shortly be reducing a major new study on restitution, which it plans to publicly launch in Yangon in January 2017. A range of restitution measures are already in place in Myanmar, signalling a major concrete outcome of the political reform process. The new study proposes a series of specific recommendations on how to move to the next level of the quest of restitution for all. These efforts build on DS' extensive global experience on designing restitution laws and systems throughout the history of the organisation. ...