In economics, land has been traditionally assumed to be a fixed production factor, both in terms of quantity supplied and mobility, as opposed to capital and labor, which are usually considered to be mobile factors, at least to some extent. Yet, in the last decade, international investors have expressed an unexpected interest in farmland and in land-related investments, with the demand for land brusquely rising at an unprecedented pace.

Most literature on land tenure in sub-Saharan Africa has presented women as a homogenous group. This study uses evidence from Ghana, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe to show that women have differentiated problems, needs, and statuses in their quest for land access and tenure security. It illustrates how women-to-women differences influence women’s access to land. By investigating differentiations in women’s land tenure in the three countries, the study identifies multiple and somewhat interlinked ways in which differentiations exist in women’s land tenure. It achieved some key outcomes.

The expansion of oil palm plantations in Papua province, Indonesia, involves the conversion of forests, among other land types in the landscapes, which are a source of clan members’ livelihoods. The way in which this expansion occurs makes it necessary to understand the factors associated with why companies look for frontier lands and what externalities are generated during both the land acquisition and plantation development periods.

We examine collaborations between the state and civil society in the context of land grabbing in Argentina. Land grabbing provokes many governance challenges, which generate new social arrangements. The incentives for, limitations to, and contradictions inherent in these collaborations are examined. We particularly explore how the collaborations between the provincial government of Santiago del Estero and non-government organizations (NGOs) played out. This province has experienced many land grabs, especially for agriculture and livestock production.

Ethiopia has implemented one of the world’s most cost-effective systems to document land holdings, the land certification system. After more than 15 years since its launch, questions have been raised regarding its functionality. Specifically, there are concerns about the process of updating land certificates, thus ensuring the certificates and the registry are up-to-date. This exploratory evaluation seeks to provide formative evidence regarding this question, and, if warranted, give direction as to where additional research is needed.

Our purpose is to present and test a typology of land reform theories as a means of understanding and interrogating the motives behind land reform and to better equip land administrators and policymakers to enact land reform programs that are appropriate for their contexts. Here, land reform is understood to include the related concepts of land redistribution, land restitution, land tenure reform and land administration reform. The theory typology thus has application for land restitution programs specifically operating in the global South.

The use of land consolidation on customary lands has been limited, though land fragmentation persists. Land fragmentation on customary lands has two main causes—the nature of the customary land tenure system, and the somewhat linked agricultural system. Since attempts to increase food productivity on customary lands have involved fertilisation and mechanisation on the small and scattered farmlands, these approaches have fallen short of increasing food productivity.

For historical reasons, Kenya inherited a highly skewed system of land ownership at independence in 1963. British colonialism in Kenya was not merely administrative. Rather, it was accompanied by massive and widespread land alienation for the benefit of settler agriculture. As a result the best agricultural land-the White Highlands and the adjacent rangelands were taken from the Africans, without compensation, and parceled out to white settlers. Colonial legislation was enacted to legalize this process.

Institutional framework for land administration and management being a whole set of services that make the land tenure system within Kenya socially, ecologically and economically relevant and operational has generally failed to operationalise the general functional components of land administration i.e. juridical, regulatory, fiscal, cadastral and adjudicative, efficiently. This is because land administration structures and infrastructures are perceived as factors external to the land tenure system itself.

The Historical Injustices Issues Paper seeks to present the various historical land claims issues and perspective related to them and consequently proffer policy statements for their redress.

The purpose of this Issues Paper is to move the debate and stimulate discussion of issues relevant to women’s land rights and social security beyond the unfulfilled demands for gender responsive land policies and land legal framework. It is based on lessons learned from various research findings, Kenya Land Alliance experience and discussions with colleagues with whom we work with in various capacities on land policy and law reforms in Kenya and others parts of Africa.

This booklet reveals that women only got 103,043 titles representing 10.3 percent, while men got 865,095 titles representing 86.5 percent of the total. The glaring disparity is made clear when looked at against the actual land sizes and titled for women against men. The data sample shows that out of 10,129,704 hectares of land titled between 2013 and 2017 women got 163,253 hectares representing a paltry 1.62 while men got 9,903,304 hectares representing 97.76 percent.