By Samuel Gebreselassie

Assesses the process of rural land registration in Ghana and its outcomes for poor and marginalised groups.In Ghana, deeds registration has been in place since colonial times, and enables right holders to record their land transactions. However, very little rural land has actually been affected by this registration process. The research shows a general lack of awareness of the registration process among the majority of cash and food crop farmers. High monetary and transaction costs and a long and cumbersome process also constrain use of deeds registration.

This paper examines the introduction of Restitution Act No 22 of 1994. The main aim of the Act was to provide for the restitution of land rights to persons or communities dispossessed after 19 June 1913 as a result of past racial discriminatory laws or practices.

This PhD thesis provides an econometric analysis of various aspects of the rural economy in Northern Ethiopia.The thesis consists of five papers:an in-depth analysis of poverty, its distribution, dynamics and its correlates within the framework of the role of economic reforms on poverty reduction in a remote, unstable and environmentally troubled regionlooks at the issue of the efficacy of a micro-finance program in reaching out to the poor and measures the impact of program participationexamines the efficacy of food-for-work (FFW) programs in targeting the poor by emphasizing the role of F

This policy brief argues that the time, funding and institutional support required to carry out tenure reform in South Africa have been seriously under-estimated. Reformed tenure rights are ineffective and vulnerable if isolated from other entitlements such as training, finance and integrated development initiatives.

The economic advantages of improved agro forestry fallow systems over traditional continuous cropping systems are important tools that can be used to influence the choice of land use options at household levels. In Kigezi highlands Uganda, the upper parts of farmers’ crop field terraces are degraded due to continuous cropping. Improved fallows are being promoted in order to increase soil productivity while increasing fuelwood production.

There are many commendable successes with respect to relief, recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation to assist the earthquake affected districts of North West Frontier Province3 and Azad Kashmir. The same, however, cannot be said unambiguously about housing reconstruction. Partly, the obstacles are rooted in Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) rigid procedures. In many areas, though, housing reconstruction has also become mired in the traditional land tenure regime.

This study compares the contributions of climate change and socioeconomic development to potential future changes of agricultural land use in West Africa.

It uses a prototype land use projection (LandPro) algorithm which is based on a balance between food supply and demand, and accounts for the impact of socioeconomic drivers on the demand side and the impact of climate-induced crop yield changes on the supply side. It considers the impact of human decision-making on land use.

These Country Profiles represent a new edition of a continent-wide set of profiles prepared and published by the Land Tenure Center in 1986. This new volume reflects a decade of intensive work on the continent by LTC and a very considerable deepening of knowledge and understanding of land tenure issues in Africa. It addresses events of the past ten years, which have been substantial in many of the countries covered. Land tenure continues to be a volatile policy domain. The standard topics from the earlier profiles have been revised to take into account new development concerns.

The central and southern regions of Malawi predominantly follow matrilineal succession and inheritance and practice uxorilocal marriages. Women, rather than men, own the primary land rights. Colonial government officials and some Eurocentric scholars have argued that the system of uxorilocal marriages and female ownership of land rights are inimical to agricultural development principally because men lose the motivation to make long term investments in land which does not belong to them.

Report finds that land rights in Ethiopia are highly insecure, and higher tenure security and transferability could enhance investment and agricultural productivity. Trying to identify and implement measures to increase producers’ tenure security could have a large pay-off in terms of rural productivity and poverty reduction.The authors use a large data set from Ethiopia that differentiates tenure security and transferability to explore determinants of different types of land-related investment and its possible impact on productivity.

Mexican rural reform has questioned the role of the peasantry and private national producers in agriculture. The reform followed a neoliberal paradigm for incorporating the nation into the global village. As part of a government strategy, land reform in Mexico aims to change entrepreneurial and land tenure patterns in rural areas into an individual, private, large-scale, and capitalist productive structure, and the land market is vital in allowing the land transfers needed to change the land tenure pattern.