ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: 

In pursuing its aim to develop housing rights jurisprudence in Sri Lanka and in building the capacity of practising lawyers in the field of housing rights, COHRE Sri Lanka initiated a research project on housing and land laws in Sri Lanka. This publication is based on the findings of this project and is intended to provide an introduction to Sri Lanka’s housing and land laws. Its detailed analysis is confined to the main laws relating to land and housing.

Contains introduction, 3 farms – the beginnings of land expropriation in Namibia; the Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act 6 of 1995; the process of land reform in Namibia; the resettlement programme revisited; farm workers and resettlement; conclusions and recommendations. Argues that Namibia has to reconceptualise its agrarian model because the present land reform programme is setting impoverished black farmers up to fail.

In the north-western department of Chocó, near Colombia’s border with Panama, forcibly displaced people have established “Humanitarian Zones” in a bid to hang on to their land and livelihoods. (...)

Contains introduction – the challenge of tenure reform in South Africa; tenure issues in resettlement: redistribution and restitution; tenure security of farm dwellers – securing long-term tenure under ESTA, labour tenants, ways forward; conclusion and recommendations on resettlement and farm dwellers.

Since the 2005 Land Summit, new approaches to land reform have been on the agenda, yet there remains little clarity on the way forward. The main focus has been on means of accelerating the redistribution of land through new modes of acquiring land. Acquisition is an important matter but if treated in isolation risks mis-specifying the core problems evident in land reform in South Africa. A new phase of land reform located within a wider agrarian reform is needed and will require new institutional arrangements.

Contains summary of proceedings, discussions and feedback, and list of resolutions. Topics include the need for reform, the road map to land reform, framework for stakeholder support – funding arrangements, urban land reform.

Includes patterns of land use in land reform; how land use is currently planned; livelihood impacts of land uses in land reform; dynamics in the commercial farming sector; international experiences; towards alternative land uses and livelihoods; conclusions; recommendations.

Includes how land is currently identified and acquired; recognising and responding to demand; what do we know about land needs?; innovative ways of working with needs / demand and supply; land prices; towards alternatives; conclusion; recommendations.

Phuhlisani was the lead agency in a consortium appointed by the Commission on Restitution of land Rights and funded by Belgian Technical Co-operation tasked with the development of a strategy for the provision of effective post- settlement support required for land reform to be successful. While the focus was on Restitution to start with the brief expanded to address land reform as a whole. This document provides an accessible summary of the final proposals. While endorsed by the then Minister of Land Affairs the strategy was never implemented.

This cases study provided the background for a five day field based learning programme in D2007 as part of the learning programme linked to the development of a settlement and implementation support programme for land reform. The Dwesa Cweba land claim involved communities who had been removed to make way for the establishment of the Dwesa Cwebe Reserve - an protected area combining indigenous coastal forest, marine and nature reserves.

This article uses data from household income surveys to look at income structures amongst households in three mountainous regions of Tajikistan: Gorno-Badakhshan, the Rasht Valley and Eastern Khatlon. The structure of incomes demonstrates the dominant role of subsistence agriculture in all three regions although commercial agriculture is important amongst better-off households in Rasht. Relationships between poverty and household characteristics including access to capital, demographic variables and income-generating activities were examined.

Recognition of the potentially deleterious implications of inequality in opportunity originating in a skewed asset distribution has spawned considerable interest in land reforms. However, little attention has been devoted to fact that, in the longer term, the measures used to implement land reforms could negatively affect productivity. Use of state level data on rental restrictions, together with a nationally representative survey from India, suggests that, contrary to original intentions, rental restrictions negatively affect productivity and equity.