Paper examines current trends in land tenure and sources of insecurity, describes innovative policy and practice to secure various kinds of tenure rights. Seeks to gather insights and lessons from seven case studies (Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Uganda, Niger). Aims to inform current policy debates and initiatives to support land tenure security for low-income, resource-poor and vulnerable groups who make up the majority of Africa’s population.

Ensuring security for farmers is a fundamental economic, social and citizenship issue, raising institutional questions. There needs to be a break with inherited colonial legal dualism. Local management of land and resources is needed. There is no automatic link between land title and security of tenure. Looks at the main approaches adopted in West Africa in the recent past. Fully confirm the role, dynamism and adaptability of family farms. Positive recognition needs to be given to local land arrangements and informal contracts. Decentralisation offers valuable opportunities.

Includes key policy concerns and recommendations.

Argues that the debate over land reform in Africa is embedded in evolutionary models, in which it is assumed that landholding systems are evolving into individualised systems of ownership with greater market integration. This process is seen to be occurring even without state protection of private land rights through titling. Gender as an analytical category is excluded in evolutionary models. Women are accommodated only in their dependent position as the wives of landholders in idealised ’households’.

Contains chapters on formalisation of land rights; women’s land rights – a human rights-based approach; a market-based approach to land rights, followed by country studies on Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

A second volume in this series covering this region, building on that of August 2004. Designed to be useful for planners, programme designers, advocates, practitioners, citizens and subjects engaged in land reform. Contains an introduction, followed by land reform highlights in Burundi, Eastern DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

An independent newsletter providing details of current developments in land reform and land conflicts in the Horn, East and Central Africa. Covers Burundi, Eastern DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan (including origins of the Darfur crisis), Tanzania and Uganda. As in Southern Africa, land is a highly contested and contentious issue right across the region. A short case study in Apac, Northern Uganda, symbolises the dilemmas of land reforms across the continent in an era of privatisation. Some are very clearly gaining at the expense of others.

An independent newsletter providing news of new developments in land reform in Southern Africa in 2003-4. Covers Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Comprises notes from an informal meeting in Pretoria addressing the impasse on land reform in Southern Africa. The main focus is on overcoming problems and constraints, including on redistribution, tenure reform, the land rights of women, HIV/AIDS and donor support. Has sections on the viability of small-scale farms, post-transfer support, mobilising support for land reform, and proposed follow up. There are two main appendices; one on the status of land reform in each of the countries in the region, the other a matrix of current land issues in each country.

Looks at land use planning challenges in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) of Kenya – lack of coherent vision, disconnect between political and technical planning processes, urgent needs of ASALs not being considered, lack of investment, National Land Commission under-resourced, conflicts over land use, lack of tenure security. Need to enact the Community Land Bill and for refocussing as a bottom up and participatory approach.

Includes the legacies of colonial and apartheid rule; policy dilemmas; key controversies – private ownership or customary land rights?; the nature and content of ‘customary’ land rights; transforming gender inequalities; land rights, authority and accountability; processural or rule-bound versions of ‘customary’ law; was the appropriate procedure followed in enacting the Communal Land Rights Act?

Fresh clashes over land in a cocoa plantation in Cavally Region in the west left 7 dead and 5,000 fleeing their homes. An increasing polarisation of ethnic identity. At least 100 cases of land occupations since 2013.