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Issueslegal empowermentLandLibrary Resource
There are 547 content items of different types and languages related to legal empowerment on the Land Portal.
Displaying 85 - 96 of 292

Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security

Reports & Research
November, 2012
Global

ABSTRACTED FROM THE OBJECTIVES SECTION: These Voluntary Guidelines seek to improve governance of tenure of land*, fisheries and forests. They seek to do so for the benefit of all, with an emphasis on vulnerable and marginalized people, with the goals of food security and progressive realization of the right to adequate food, poverty eradication, sustainable livelihoods, social stability, housing security, rural development, environmental protection and sustainable social and economic development.

Towards Improved Land Governance

Policy Papers & Briefs
December, 2009
Global

This paper starts from the assumption that the process of reform is as important as the content of the reform. Many excellent land policies, laws and technical reforms have been developed, yet, in many cases, implementation has slipped, stalled or has even been reversed. The paper argues that an understanding of land issues and the reform process from a governance and political economy perspective offers insights that can not only improve the design of reforms, but can also offer tools to support implementation.

Legal Empowerment in Practice. Using Legal Tools to Secure Land Rights in Africa

Journal Articles & Books
December, 1969
Ghana

Land lies at the heart of social, political and economic life in much of rural
Africa. It provides a major source of livelihoods, income and employment; a
basis for social and political relations; and has major historical, cultural and
spiritual significance. In many places, rapid socio-economic changes are
undermining the security of land access for poorer and more vulnerable
groups – particularly in high-value lands such as peri-urban areas, irrigated
schemes and fertile lands. Securing land access for these groups is

Protecting Community Lands & Resources in Africa: Grassroots Advocates' Strategies & Lessons

Journal Articles & Books
February, 2016

In 2013, a group of 20 expert advocates from across Africa gathered for a three-day symposium to share experiences and practical strategies for effectively supporting communities to protect their lands and natural resources. The symposium illuminated many similarities between the types of threats to communities’ land and natural resource claims, as well as underlying factors that drive and exacerbate the threats.

Foreign investment, law and sustainable development: A handbook on agriculture and extractive industries

Journal Articles & Books
December, 2014
Global

Foreign investment in agriculture and extractive industries is increasing pressures on land and natural resources. This handbook is about how to use law to make foreign investment work for sustainable development. It aims to provide a rigorous yet accessible analysis of the law regulating foreign investment in low and middle-income countries – what this law is, how it works, and how to use it most effectively.

An analysis of the impact of land-related corruption on women: case studies from Ghana and Zimbabwe

Policy Papers & Briefs
February, 2016
Africa
Ghana
Zimbabwe
This paper, presented at the 2016 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, explores the intersection between land corruption and women's access and ownership of land. Through analyzing a series of case studies, the paper notes that land access and ownership is increasingly defined by


variables such as power, patronage and politics.

What shall we do without our land? Land Grabs and Resistance in Rural Cambodia

Institutional & promotional materials
December, 2011
Cambodia

Political dynamics of the global land grab are exemplified in Cambodia, where at least 27 forced evictions took place in 2009, affecting 23,000 people. Evictions of the rural poor are legitimized by the assumption that non-private land is idle, marginal, or degraded and available for capitalist exploitation. This paper: (1) questions the assumption that land is idle; (2) explores whether land grabs can be regulated through a ‘code of conduct’; and (3) examines peasant resistance to land grabs.

Losing Ground: Forced Evictions and Intimidation in Cambodia

Reports & Research
December, 2009
Cambodia

As shown in this report, harassment of local activists in Cambodia, including defenders of the right to housing, is widespread. Cambodia’s rich and powerful are increasingly abusing the criminal justice system to silence communities standing up against land concessions or business deals affecting the land they live on or cultivate. Many poor and marginalized communities are living in fear of the institutions created to protect them, in particular the police and the courts. As forced evictions increase, public space for discussing them is shrinking.

Law for State Land Management in Cambodia

Institutional & promotional materials
December, 2009
Cambodia

Access to land empowered by law is a crucial issue for sustainable development of a modern, prosperous Cambodia where the social and ecological responsibilities are well developed and embedded in a State Land Management. The State is the main actor in the land sector and has to guarantee State public property which cannot be transformed into private property. Cambodia shows still a high rural poverty rate, land concentration and anarchy in illegal land possession, illegal claim of State land and protected areas as privately owned and unlawful logging.

Land Grabbing in Cambodia: Narratives, Mechanisms, Resistance

Institutional & promotional materials
December, 2012
Cambodia

Rural areas in Cambodia have been the target of large-scale land acquisitions since the late 1990s. As of March 2012, economic land concessions in Cambodia covered more than 2 million hectares, equivalent to over half of the country’s arable land. In this paper, we discuss the policy narratives and discursive strategies that are employed by various actors to justify and legitimize large-scale land acquisitions. We then analyze the underlying mechanisms of such acquisitions and investments and examine how they are entangled with donor-assisted land use planning efforts.