On 18 October 2014 the Myanmar government released a much-awaited draft national land use policy. Land and how it is governed is of fundamental importance for Myanmar society. The current laws mainly benefit private companies and not small-holder farmers in the country, who represent more then 75% of the population. The current laws also do not respect traditional and customary practices of the country's ethnic minority groups. This new TNI briefing examines the draft national land policy and assesses whether it is pro-business or pro-poor.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: In recent years, various actors, from big foreign and domestic corporate business and finance to governments, have initiated a large-scale worldwide enclosure of agricultural lands, mostly in the Global South but also elsewhere. This is done for large-scale industrial and industrial agriculture ventures and often packaged as large-scale investment for rural development.

ABSTRACTED FROM WEB INTRODUCTION AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In order to inform Myanmar’s first multi-stakeholder national dialogue workshop on land tenure and user rights (held November 24th & 25th, 2012), Forest Trend’s Senior Law & Policy Advisor Rob Oberndorf was asked to conduct an in-depth analysis of recently enacted land legislation in the country, and suggest ways in which the legal frameworks relating to rural land management could be improved. This report is the result of that research and analysis assignment.

This report is the fruit of collaboration between ILC, IFAD and FAO. It provides information on the historical background of the Convention and its Optional Protocol, the working methods of the Committee, as well as a summary of information provided in reports of selected countries. NOTE: See also the 2010 update of this document.

"The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph," writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital, the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up the question that, more than any other, is central to one of the most crucial problems the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail? In strong opposition to the popular view that success is determined by cultural differences, de Soto finds that it actually has everything to do with the legal structure of property and property rights.

In a world of food abundance, millions of people suffer from poor nutrition. In some parts of the world, the poor have inadequate access to energy from food to meet their energy requirements. In these locations, food shortage is often a seasonal phenomenon and micronutrients are also generally lacking in the diet. Elsewhere, there is a stable supply of energy but the poor have monotonous diets lacking in essential micronutrients.

This year´s annual State of Food Insecurity in the World report takes stock of progress made towards achieving the internationally established Millennium Development Goal (MDG1) and World Food Summit hunger targets and reflects on what needs to be done, as we transition to the new post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda. The report reviews progress made since 1990 for every country and region as well as for the world as a whole.

During the 20th century hunger has become a problem of poverty amidst plenty rather than absolute food scarcity. The question is whether this will remain so or whether the hunger of the poor will once more be exacerbated by rising food prices. In this paper we discuss biophysical conditions, social forces and non-linear interactions that may critically influence the global availability of food in the long term.

Malnutrition costs the world trillions of dollars, but global commitment to improving people’s nutrition is on the rise, and so is our knowledge of how to do so. Over the past 50 years, understanding of nutrition has evolved beyond a narrow focus on hunger and famine. We now know that good nutrition depends not only on people’s access to a wide variety of foods, but also on the care they receive and the environment they live in. A number of countries and programs have exploited this new understanding to make enormous strides in nutrition.

There are 1.4 billion poor people living on less than US$1.25 a day. One billion of them live in rural areas where agriculture is their main source of livelihood. The ‘green revolution’ in agriculture that swept large parts of the developing world during the 1960s and 1970s dramatically increased agricultural productivity and reduced poverty. Many of the productivity gains accrued to smallholder farmers, supported through research and extension services.

Halving Hunger examines current world progress towards eliminating hunger, and calls for the implementation of seven recommendations in the areas of: political action, national policy reforms, increased agricultural productivity for food insecure farmers, improved nutrition for the chronically hungry, productive safety nets for the acutely hungry, improved rural incomes and markets, and restoration and conservation of natural resources essential for food security. 

Given its vast land resources and favorable water supply, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC’s) natural agricultural potential is immense. However, the economic potential of the sector is handicapped by one of the most dilapidated transport systems in the developing world (World Bank 2006). Road investments are therefore a high priority in the government’s investment plans and those of its major donors.