Humanitarian organizations need to consider land issues for three sets of reasons. First, land crises are central to why humanitarian crises happen, and why they take the form that they do. Second, humanitarian responses, both during the height of crisis and during the rehabilitation or recovery phase, have an impact on land tenure and settlement patterns, and thus on the future prospects of the people affected. Third, humanitarians should seriously consider how to support secure access to rural and urban land. Drawing upon the livelihoods framework and an approach to humanitarian crises as traumatic, accelerated transitions, this chapter analyses how humanitarian crises derive from and impact upon land crises. It also discusses how humanitarian responses including establishing camps, organizing resettlement or return, or allowing market forces to operate in the land market, all have impacts on land tenure.
