Includes a long history of land-related injustice; land and conflict in the colonial period: Mau Mau and land; land policies at independence; migration and settlement within Kenya; recent political violence and contested claims to land; conclusion.

Includes the dimension of poverty and the need for land; colonisation and decolonisation; the imposition of globalization; indispensable but sufficient; constructing/ building the institutional framework in Mozambique. Cites the key issues cited by Mozambican civil society – no to landless people in Mozambique; no to absentee landowners, those who let the land and do not invest; recognition of testimonial proof of land occupation by the poor; incorporation of common law systems into the legal framework; and stop the bi-modal approach for agricultural development.

One of the new government’s major policy priorities has to be to get agriculture moving as a motor of growth. The long-running issue of outstanding compensation payments has meant that international donors and financiers have not engaged with land reform areas, missing out on supporting major development opportunities. People on the resettlement farms are producing significant quantities of food and other agricultural products. Recent figures make it clear how vital they are to Zimbabwe’s struggling economy. So quick resolution of the compensation issue is essential.

Land tax has long been neglected in West Africa and is regarded as a taboo subject. Yet contrary to received wisdom it is possible to introduce a basic annual land tax without a land register or a computerized system. While certain precautions need to be taken, it not only generates revenue for the locality but also discourages the unproductive retention of unused land, and in the long term helps secure the land rights of producers or residents by proving written proof of their occupancy.

Zimbabwe today has an agrarian structure made up of small, medium and large farms, all under different forms of land ownership. A landscape once dominated by 4,500 large-scale commercial farmers is now populated by about 145,000 smallholder households, occupying 4.1 million hectares, and around 23,000 medium-scale farmers on 3.5 million hectares. Knowing exactly who has land and where is difficult. Illegal multiple allocations combine with unclear boundary demarcations and an incomplete recording system.

Includes ProSavana strategy plan published: increased government role and fertiliser subsidies, but no word on land grabs. Claim $4.2 bn farm plan for Rio Lurio. Argues that neither new plantations nor outside investment in large farms have succeeded since independence in 1975. So time for the elite and key donors to realise that plantation or industrial farming does not work in Mozambique and encouraging giant foreign-owned farms will not end poverty. Instead need to encourage foreign investment elsewhere in the value chain and let Mozambicans do the farming.

Drawing on 18 years of research, offers these 10 priorities for getting agriculture moving again: land tenure, finance, partnerships, government loans, access to marketing, value addition, smart support systems, irrigation, mechanisation, local economic development.

Land is again the subject of debate in Mozambique, 5 years after the passage of a land law which won praise for protecting peasant rights while creating space for outside investment. The new debate is about whether land, or at least land ’titles’, should be able to be sold and mortgaged, are whether more emphasis should be put on improving conditions for would-be investors rather than delimiting and protecting peasant land and capacitating communities to deal with investors. Argues that the debate on land is actually a proxy for a debate about rural development.

The challenges are: the methodology for valuation, the state’s capacity for valuation, the process for dispute resolution, and the funding of the process. The backlog created by lack of action in the past 17 years must be dealt with urgently.

Looks at how the ESRC STEPS Centre intervened in debates on land grabbing following the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008, and how its work led it on to explore the impacts of ‘green grabs’ and ‘water grabs’, carbon offsetting, the green economy, the financialisation of nature, the Anthropocene and other aspects of ‘resource politics’.

Contains review of land policy formulation and implementation, land tenure challenges and activities in poverty reduction programmes and projects, stakeholder perspectives, lessons learned for mainstreaming land tenure security in poverty reduction.

Vital that the new Land Commission looks at the range of land issues in the round. Need comprehensive district by district approach, attuned to local circumstances and flexible. Enormous challenge to recreate a land administration system. Outlines vital elements and how they must work together.