Land and Conflict Case Study: Decades of War Curtail Productive Land Use and Endanger Tenure Rights in Yemen

The case study “Yemen: Decades of War Curtail Productive Land Use and Endanger Tenure Rights” examines how prolonged conflict, political fragmentation, and weak land governance have undermined land use systems and tenure security across the country. For centuries, agriculture, fishing, and pastoralism sustained Yemeni livelihoods through a combination of customary practices and local resource management. Today, this balance has been severely disrupted. Years of political division, repeated cycles of violence, and shifting land policies have placed unprecedented pressure on land and natural resources. Since the escalation of war in 2015, airstrikes, displacement, economic collapse, and climate shocks have damaged rural infrastructure, limited access to water, fuel and inputs, and accelerated land abandonment. At the same time, competing land claims, land grabbing, and the expansion of informal settlements have deepened grievances and insecurity.

Using the GLTN tool “How to Do a Root Cause Analysis of Land and Conflict for Peace Building”  the analysis identifies the underlying drivers of conflict as well as the factors that have intensified or triggered disputes over time. The findings highlight the urgent need to protect housing, land and property rights, restore productive land use, and ensure that land-related issues are addressed as a core component of peacebuilding and recovery efforts.

This case study was documented by the Arab Land Initiative of UN-Habitat and the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) in partnership with the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (APN) and with the financial support of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ). It forms part of a broader effort to analyze land-related conflict dynamics across the Arab region.