A framework to strengthen land rights, enhance productivity and secure livelihoods. Includes background; the context of the land question; land in the national development process; the process of land policy development; land policy implementation; tracking progress in land policy development and implementation; overall conclusion.

The lobby to industrialise food production in Africa is changing seed and land laws across the continent to serve agribusiness corporations. The end goal is to turn what has long been held as a commons into a marketable commodity that the private sector can control and extract profit from at the expense of smallholder farmers and communities. This survey aims to provide an overview of just who is pushing for which specific changes in these areas – looking not at the plans and projects, but at the actual texts that will define the new rules.

Covers workshop organization, the opening session, reports by consultants from East, West and Southern Africa, presentations by resource persons; group sessions, mission statement, closing remarks.

Includes timeline of events, key findings and recommendations, understanding the legacy of Lancaster House, the impact of land reform, recommendations for recovery – land reform goals, Britain’s role in future land reform programmes.

Includes historical perspective – native land settlement scheme, Lifa land purchasing programme, Rural Development Areas Programme, some lessons learned, prospects for land reform, Land Policy objectives and principles.

AFJN travelled to Brewaniase, a town in Ghana’s Volta Region, to learn more about a potential land grab deal by Herakles Farms, a New York based agribusiness. Informed that Herakles Farm had acquired a large tract of land in the Volta Region. Less than a year ago the property was sold to a British company, Volta Red. This story is a warning to landowners in Africa and irresponsible African leaders who are carelessly mortgaging future generations’ inheritance during this global rush for land in Africa.

Chapters cover access to and distribution of land; land tenure, resource control, and conflicts; non-agricultural production strategies; agrarian labour processes and social relations; social services and reproduction strategies; local ‘grievances’ and social organisation; agrarian structure and class formation; emerging agrarian questions and politics.

The Guiding Principles are designed to help a number of stakeholders develop larger-scale agricultural investments that are more likely to prove sustainable, beneficial, and successful for communities, investors and governments.

Analyses the World Bank’s Policy Research Report (PRR) from a gender perspective and is critical of the consultation process on it thus far. It has important implications for women in Africa. The Bank believes land should be viewed not as a source of subsistence but of capital. It ignores women’s unpaid labour as a factor in agricultural productivity. It treats the household as an undifferentiated unit and ignores that the family often functions as a site of oppression. The Bank stresses ‘motivated’ family labour but ignores that much of women’s labour is far from voluntary.

Includes poverty reduction and land reform, profile of farm dwellers, access to land, the creation of farm dwellers, the National Question and land reform, non-market v. market land reform, the East Asian and Latin American experiences, consequences of reform, South Africa and the land question, can the problems be overcome?, the prospects for South Africa.

Includes inheritance: a key way women access land; local mechanisms: ‘custom’, power dynamics and lack of engagement; formal justice system: community pariah status and systemic barriers. The lack of access to land cannot be framed as a failing of formal or informal systems, but rather as issues with both. The key to increasing access to justice at both formal and informal levels is to address power dynamics and understand how they operate to the detriment of women.

Includes official land rights in Kenya; refusing inheritance – widows and daughters in the patrilineage, dispute trajectories; institutionalizing women’s exclusion – local control boards, local dispute tribunals, formal courts; shifting the debate; working with constructive values in this context. The problem needs to be tackled using the avenues that currently promote the marginalization of women; the socio-cultural value systems that determine which behaviour, arguments, and actions are legitimate in a community.