The overall analysis has generated several reflections for practitioners attempting to establish sound and holistic development policies, and also for theorists seeking a deeper understanding of several old issues but with new dynamics and ramifications. The aim has been to revisit the key reflections generated and to synthesize them into more generalized findings relevant for policy implications and, most importantly, for future research agendas in the areas of governance, land and conflicts, particularly in a post-conflict situation.

The ethnography of this study demonstrates the significance of land for basic survival, as an economic livelihood base, and as a symbol for social and political identification in the majority of rural societies. Livelihoods, identities, wealth, and power are often determined by the ability of stakeholders to access, use and own land resources in their different forms. Thus, issues of land tenure, policies, and politics are becoming critically important in political and public arenas, particularly in rural Africa. Rural Sudan is no exception. The material explored here, from the Nuba Mountains region, shows how the interests and rights of the rural communities are barely harmonized with the state's land policies, practices and development interventions at different stages of the state's formation. The issue here is more than a mere land question. It is about governance, coupled with the state's tendency to exclude its own people from their basic rights and needs.