Short critique of Burmese land and agricultural policy, as implemented in recent years by the military government (State Law and Order Restoration Council - SLORC)

Recent food security crises in Africa have revived the debate on whether current land tenure systems constrain farmer innovation and investment in agriculture. Both direct and indirect linkages between land tenure and food security have been suggested. This study aims for a better understanding of these linkages.

This paper examines the paradoxes of land governance in Brazil by putting them in their historical context, highlighting in particular the continuing subordination of peasant farmers’ interests to those of large landholders. It traces the development of the country’s regional divisions and systems of land-holding back to colonial times, when Portuguese settlers began carving up the territory.

A new land law went into effect in January 1998 in Mozambique. The impetus behind these actions was the belief that a new legal and regulatory framework was necessary to reduce the frequency of land conflicts between largeholders and smallholders while simultaneously promoting much-needed investment in the agricultural sector.With empirical evidence presented in this report, based on smallholder survey data collected from 1994 to 1996, the authors challenge widely held beliefs about land tenure and access in the smallholder sector in Mozambique.

Secure property rights to land and well-functioning land rental and sales markets are essential for creating investment incentives, improving the allocation of land, and developing financial markets. Yet regulatory restrictions on land rental and sales and regulatory frameworks providing inadequate tenure security are common. This paper looks at the impact of imperfections in other factor markets and the costs and benefits of government intervention to improve the security of property rights and the functioning of land markets and draws conclusions about land policy issues [author]

Through an analysis of the right to adequate food and the right to land, this civil society report, argued that achieving food sovereignty requires agrarian reform.

Considers the cultural dimension of applying the land information system (LIS) concept to lands held under customary land tenure. The article recognizes that the LIS concept has been developed primarily to serve the needs of countries with a western-style land market where individual land rights are the norm. However, many countries where customary landholdings exist, or predominate, are also interested in establishing LISs to manage their land resources better. The article has three main sections.

This article estimates the poverty reducing impact of the recent land reforms and land transfers in the different land tenure systems of Uganda. Using balanced panel data for 309 households in 2001, 2003, and 2005, models that control for unobserved household heterogeneity and endogeneity of land acquisition and disposition are employed to measure the poverty-reduction effect of land on household expenditure per adult equivalent. Significant poverty reduction effects of increased land access in form of owned, operated and market-accessed land were found.

Most land-based livelihoods rely on having secure access to land, a precondition for sustainable agriculture, economic growth and poverty reduction. This working paper examines the state of knowledge with regard to aspects of land reform- redistributive reform, land tenure reform, and the issue of land markets. It also addresses issues that remain unknown in areas of land and social equity, land administration, and land tax.Redistributive land reform aims to bring about an equitable distribution of land and the political power emanating from it.

The purpose of this guide is to provide support to those who are assessing and designing appropriate responses to food insecurity and rural development situations. This guide aims to show where and why land tenure is an important issue in food security and sustainable rural livelihoods. The main objective of these guidelines is to provide detailed suggestions for consideration of land tenure issues in rural development policy.

This paper assesses factors related to local land border conflicts and how low cost land registration and certification has affected land conflicts during and after land registration and certification using data from northern Ethiopia. Border conflicts were more common near district centers, further away from markets, and where property rights had been redistributed more recently.

This paper explores the dualities in the coexistence within Zimbabwean politics of constitutionalism and legality versus a complex combination of paralegal, supralegal, oppressive and brutal political action, especially as this pertains to elections and land. The analysis is set in the period 1999-2002.