Short (4-page) report on this workshop covering why a successful workshop?, why this workshop?, what were the main themes?, key issues raised in presentations, discussions and working groups, the follow up, website links to the full report of the workshop.

The papers contained in this issue have been selected from those presented at a series of workshops, held in 2002 in Hungary, Uganda, Mexico and Cambodia, that were organized by the World Bank jointly with the Department for International Development (DFID), the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and with FAO, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the African development Bank (AfDB), the European Union (EU), the International Land Coalition, Oxfam, and other bilateral an

Land Tenure Service (SDAA) of the Rural Development Division embarked on the preparation of a land tenure "Thesaurus", mainly covering the following sectors: legal, institutional, historical, description of space, traditional or written land tenure regulations, topographical, land management, as well as land tenure related information techniques. It is expected that the Thesaurus will serve as reference material both for the normative divisions at FAO Headquarters as well as for field experts engaged in the implementation of projects with a land tenure component.

La temática relativa a la tenencia y explotación de tierras está de nuevo a la orden del día. Así, son muchos los países que manifiestan un renovado interés por los diferentes modos de acceso a los recursos naturales en un marco de posibles reformas territoriales, ya sea en el contexto de la seguridad alimentaria, de la lucha contra la pobreza en el mundo, de la preservación del ambiente o de la calidad de la vida.

In recognition of the problem of land tenure security and its effect on sustainable development, a study on Land tenure systems and sustainable development in Southern Africa was included in the ECA-SA work program. A draft publication on the findings of the study has been prepared. The publication addresses two core land tenure topics: (1) Land tenure security, and (2) Land rights of women and other groups.

Background paper for an IDS Sussex workshop on new ideas on the rights to land, housing and property. Contains a renewed focus on poverty and, within that, a new focus on land rights; livelihoods and rights-based approaches; the World Bank and received orthodoxy in land policy; DFID’s focus on land rights in Africa; Francophone perspectives; recent World Bank thinking; the mysteries of capitalism (a discussion of de Soto); lessons learnt.

This was a major and highly successful workshop on women’s land rights in Southern and Eastern Africa, organised by FAO and Oxfam GB. It attracted an unusually diverse range of participants. This official report summarises the papers, presentations and discussions in the original order of the programme.

The renovation process in Vietnam in the past decade has enabled significant economic growth as well as and greater rights and more important economic roles of farming households. However, much of this reform has focussed on men as head of households, meaning men have benefited more from economic reform, both economically and in terms of their power within the household. Inequalities continue in access to and control of key resources such as land, water, credit and rest time, as well as in access to public services.

Background: