  We investigate the connections between several recent methods for the
discretization of anisotropic heterogeneous diffusion operators on general
grids. We prove that the Mimetic Finite Difference scheme, the Hybrid Finite
Volume scheme and the Mixed Finite Volume scheme are in fact identical up to
some slight generalizations. As a consequence, some of the mathematical results
obtained for each of the method (such as convergence properties or error
estimates) may be extended to the unified common framework. We then focus on
the relationships between this unified method and nonconforming Finite Element
schemes or Mixed Finite Element schemes, obtaining as a by-product an explicit
lifting operator close to the ones used in some theoretical studies of the
Mimetic Finite Difference scheme. We also show that for isotropic operators, on
particular meshes such as triangular meshes with acute angles, the unified
method boils down to the well-known efficient two-point flux Finite Volume
scheme.
