The land question in Kenya has never been solved. Land is a pertinent source of livelihood, the problem has persisted and in a number of years caused chaos as people grow impatient. Over time, there have been complaints from various communities and recently, the past governments have sought to listen the ailing communities. The National Land Policy and the National Land Commission characterize efforts to remedy the continued situation bedeviling the African communities.

This guide provides tools to understand the Voluntary Guidelines on the responsible Governance of Tenure, which sometimes uses technical language that is not easy to understand for those who are not used to reading this kind of text.

The “Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security” (VGGT), endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in 2012, set out principles and internationally accepted standards for responsible practices and is the first comprehensive intergovernmental global instrument on tenure and its administration.

Guide to determine if monitoring is actually a viable activity that can be undertaken by their organisation. Choosing to undertake monitoring is dependent on considerations such as evaluating the sufficiency of resources, capacity to design a sound monitoring system, and availability of political windows to effect change, amongst others.

This report draws on 10 case studies of recent large-scale land deals and aims to improve understanding of the investment chains that underpin the deals, and to identify ‘pressure points’ for effective public action to ensure that investments respond to local and national development agendas and promote inclusive sustainable development. The findings of this research demonstrate the wide scope for strategies to be targeted at diverse actors, by a wide range of players, to ensure that investments uphold the Voluntary Guidelines (VGGT).

ABSTRACT ORIGIN UNKNOWN: This report provides a recent update on land policies in the ethnic regions of Burma following the 2010 national elections and the beginning of the ceasefire with the Karen National Union in 2012. The authors argue that, while military conflict and associated abuses have declined, the Burmese government’s commitment to foreign investment and export-led economic growth is making traditional land tenure even less secure than before.

The series of studies of which this is the overview are a contribution to the third year of this process. The aim of the studies has been to pull together in a simple form, updated information about large-scale land acquisitions in the region, with the aim of identifying trends, common threats, divergences and possible solutions. As well as summarising trends in investment, trade, crop development and land tenure arrangements, the studies focus on the land and forest tenure and human rights challenges.

While there is ample evidence of state and corporate complicity in the serious and systematic human rights violations that have surrounded the development of industrial sugarcane plantations in Cambodia, nobody has been held accountable and those affected have been denied access to an effective remedy at the local and national levels. Unable to obtain redress through Cambodian institutions, affected communities have turned to Europe in search of accountability.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Of the many challenging issues that will require resolution within the peace processes currently underway between the government of Myanmar and various ethnic groups in the country, few will be as complex, sensitive and yet vital than the issues comprising housing, land and property (HLP) rights.

In light of the increasingly volatile nature of the land conflict in Cambodia, this Report aims to describe the sources, forms and impact of the conflict throughout the country. The Report offers an overview of the land conflict throughout the country and provides recommendations to the RGC. Chapter 1 (Introduction) provides a brief overview of the status of land rights and the different ownership system throughout Cambodia’s history and of the land situation in today’s Cambodia, before discussing the scope, methodology and purpose of this Report.

Under Vietnam’s State land ownership regime, the Government holds supreme authority over compulsory land acquisition. The results show that many improvements in land acquisition policies have been made, but poor implementation measures largely cannot prevent or even mitigate the adverse impacts on displaced persons. In particular, ineffective compensation measures and a lack of production land and livelihood alternatives accelerate the resistance of communities displaced as a result of hydropower development.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Burma has entered a pivotal stage in its political and economic development. The advent of a new quasi-civilian government has raised the prospect of fundamental reforms. This has sparked great investment interest among governments and the private sector in the region and beyond, to extract the country’s natural-resource wealth, and to develop large-scale infrastructure projects to establish strategic ‘corridors’ to connect Burma to the wider economic region.