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Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law

Land Use Impact Assessment Project

The Center’s Land Use Impact Assessment (LUIA) Project convened a team of local partners to create a pilot tool to facilitate multi-stakeholder (community, government, and business) resolution of land-related disputes in Vietnam and Cambodia, rooted in inclusive community empowerment and engagement. The centerpiece of this approach wasÌýthe participatory Land Use Impact Assessment tool, which integrates existing laws, human rights norms and evidence-based approaches.

The LUIA tool incorporatedÌýthe best practices of those who have been able to achieve results in this extremely difficult operating space, and empowers them with a desperately needed alternative mechanism to reduce long-standing land disputes. The tool and its documentation processes have been designed to be stakeholder-led, enabling deep engagement among diverse groups throughout a process of buy-in, engagement and documentation. Building off of momentum and relationships established through sustained and strategic stakeholder engagement over the past two years, the LUIA team sought to create an innovative approach to multi-stakeholder documentation and evidence-based dispute resolution through the LUIA process.Ìý