Learning, capacity-building and opening up spaces for dialogue, depend on reaping knowledge from experiences. It is the basis upon which a movement for property rights for the rural poor is built. The Land Coalition is a communication hub for the interchange of ideas, best practices, lessons learned and advocacy. Learning activities are aimed to:

(i) foster ongoing participation among the Land Coalition's members and partners;

(ii) articulate multi-stakeholder policies;

(iii) collectively advocate from local to international levels; and

(iv) act in solidarity with country partners, especially when rights are at risk of abuse. Learning has been the main focus of interest in the SID project "Resource-based conflicts" financed by the Land Coalition.

The conference specifically sought to:

• Bring together stakeholders in Eastern and Southern Africa to map the current resource conflicts and attempt to broaden the understanding of their driving forces, identifying points of leverage or intervention which yield desired outcomes.

• Attempt to strengthen partnerships within and between civil-society groups and legislators. By working closely with national parliaments and regional legislatures in documenting and sharing experiences of various actors involved, significant opportunities can be created in the areas of collective planning, strategy development, policy elaboration and evaluation.

• Examine further the transnational nature of some conflicts and the involvement of the same actors, critical in exploring the linkages between RBCs, national politics, markets and the impact of globalization.

• Undertake a comparative review of constitutional responses, especially during the last decade, which have been employed by various countries to respond to the challenge of resource,access, use and management.

Lessons learned, among others:

1. There is a need for cross-sector dialogue on resource conflicts issues in East and Southern Africa . This dialogue needs to take into account systemic dynamics underpinning these conflicts, as well as the institutional weaknesses which have allowed them to spiral out of control.

2. Establishing multi-stakeholder coalitions can, and should, be facilitated. Such coalitions need to be organized around institutional processes aimed at making such interaction less contentious. A culture of such multi-stakeholder collaboration needs to be nurtured, a process needing time.

3. The political elite need of educating in their role and responsibility for managing resource conflicts. The tendency to dismiss RBCs as 'local' events having little influence or impact on national issues/life, is an attitude that must be challenged. This is also critical in shifting the emphasis away from securitized approaches to resolving conflicts by embracing dialogue and collective negotiations to achieve lasting solutions.

4. Civil-society groups need to identify space to share experiences in their struggles. The fact that there are few opportunities for reflection, learning and synthesis of experiences might account for the irregular success rate in the initiatives that they spearhead. The success of the conference demonstrated that there is a need, and when properly organized, such initiatives are welcomed.

5. Early-warning systems are only as effective as the processes surrounding them - when there is a 360° analysis and engagement of the key actors. The non-systemic and non-integrated nature of many early warning systems significantly compromise their efficiency.

6. Capacity-building within civil society organizations and community based groups working on conflict issues needs to be placed in the forefront. This means not only ensuring resource development and availability, but also enhancing those skills critical to their work, in particular those enabling them to manage the vertical aspect of their advocacy work (i.e. dealing with the globalization aspect).

Use of generated knowledge and strategy for its dissemination :

The Resource-based conflicts conference produced results which have already been incorporated into the ECOSOC paper on land and conflict, presented by the International Land Coalition at New York in June 2005. SID, and the platform created through this experience, will be partner of the Land Coalition and its members and partners in conflict-related activities in Africa.