Includes modernisation and agricultural development in Southern Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia) past and present; framing viability: frameworks for assessing land and agrarian reform; viability in redistributive land reform in Southern Africa; rethinking viability in Southern African land reform.

Based on experiences gained by the 3 authors through previous research activities and assignments in different parts of Africa and reading of existing literature. Identifies and discusses what is seen as being the most important issues in the ongoing debate about African land rights and land conflicts. Presents and discusses various policy approaches being adopted on the continent to solve land tenure problems and related conflicts.

Collection of 12 short policy briefs arising from collaborative work between CGIAR, UNDP’s Drylands Development Center and the International Land Coalition.

Includes communal tenure reform – a contested terrain; impacts of the legal challenge to CLARA; ‘rights’ as a medium of local struggle, advocacy, litigation, mobilisation and research agendas. Farm tenure reform – policies and progress since 1994; declining priority and shifting politics; why the slow progress on realising rights?; ‘rights’ as a medium of struggle among farm dwellers and owners and civil society strategies; agendas for litigation, research, activism and advocacy. Evaluation – potential and limits of a rights framework.

Asks why is it still so hard to know how many women have rights? Covers which rights?; what is ownership?; security of rights; land or people?; aggregate measures or nuanced details?; property rights within marriage; where to now?

A critical assessment of 22 years of land reform policies in South Africa. Concludes that land reform has been captured by elites. The most powerful voices are those of ‘emerging’ black capitalist farmers (often with non-farm incomes), traditional leaders, large-scale white commercial farmers and agribusiness corporates, who are all benefiting more than the poor.

Examines relationships between inheritance, marriage and asset ownership. Land the most important asset in rural Uganda. The majority of couples (both married and those in consensual unions) report owning land jointly. Men who report owning a parcel of land are much more likely than women to say they inherited it. Inheritance not an important means of acquisition of other assets, e.g. livestock, business assets, financial assets, consumer durables, which are acquired through purchase, for both men and women.

Report assessed the financial relationships of 17 companies involved in land grabbing, human rights abuses or environmental pollution with 17 selected Swiss banks and institutional investors since January 2011. Financing categories include shares, bonds and loans. Countries involved include Cameroon, Liberia and Uganda.

Identifies disputed control over land as a root cause of conflict in Eastern DRC. Focuses on conflicts between customary and state-run land tenure systems, and claims by some communities to ‘indigenous’ status which are used to relegate others to ‘migrant’ or ‘foreigner’ status. Waves of population displacement have created overlapping claims to land, and an ongoing process of refugee return is currently increasing tensions over these claims in parts of Eastern DRC. Examines efforts to manage this return process and offers recommendations for action by local and international actors.

Includes large-scale concessions and oil palm growing in Liberia, international attempts to qualify big land concessions, the FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines, national law and its relevance, the national legal framework concessions in Liberia, Sime Darby and Golden Veroleum in conflict.

Includes the globalisation of food production and consumption – structural changes within the international food regimes and contract farming and global commodity chains; contemporary land acquisition; conceptual frameworks – human rights and corporate social responsibility perspectives; case studies of Rwanda and Kenya.

Examines the literature on Uganda’s tenure systems, including the legal and administrative frameworks and their implementation at the local level, analyses the relations between these elements and tenure security and discusses ways in which land may relate to economic activities. Implementation of reforms has been slow and partial. The literature shows that the division of labour between land administration institutions at the different administrative levels is not clearly spelled out and that they are often inaccessible at the local level.