This brief summarizes findings of relevant IFPRI research on land management and governance to promote strategies and policies targeted toward the achievement of gender equity, poverty reduction, and sustainable resource management.

Towards a Common Platform on Access to Land has evolved through an extensive process of global consultation that was launched in 2000 at the eighth session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. It aims to stimulate and support public policies and country-level activities that improve access by the poor to land and productive requirements in order to improve their production and household incomes. Its global scope means that it can gather and disseminate knowledge and lessons learned from and to different countries and regions.

Creating food security, dealing with climate change and promoting economic growth are the challenges facing rural regions of developing countries. Raising agricultural production and making it sustainable are keys to success in coping with these challenges. Land is a pivotal factor of strategies to develop rural areas.

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) encouraged FAO at its VII Session to promote the recognition of indigenous peoples’ territorial rights.

Territorial Development: an innovative approach

If 2009 was the end of the hinterland and the beginning of a new globalized forest era, 2010 was a year of pushback. Worldwide, the news was full of reports of forest communities and Indigenous Peoples pushing back at land grabs and shaping policy at the national and global levels, and of governments countering and trying to contain community rights. Some governments and private investors accepted or even embraced the new players at the table and began to promote fairer business and conservation models.

This lesson brief examines the law and practice of allocating land in the protected estate for private investment. It is part of the Uganda module on the Focus on Africa: Land Tenure and Property Rights online educational tool. Private investors need land to conduct their business.

This lesson brief explores alternative biofuel production schemes in Tanzania and their impacts on rural land rights and local livelihoods.

This lesson brief explores the decentralization of wildlife user rights and their impact on local communities in Tanzania.

This lesson brief follows the modernization of pastoral livestock production in Kenya. This lesson brief is part of the Focus on Africa: Land Tenure and Property Rights online educational tool. Rangelands and pastoralists in Kenya have received considerable attention from government.

This lesson brief looks at the government's control of private land use in Kenya. It is part of the Focus on Africa: Land Tenure and Property Rights online educational tool. Like other governments around the world, Kenya’s government has the authority to extinguish or restrict property rights over land and natural resources, including the authority to restrict the use of privately-held land for national and public interest purposes. Private land use restrictions have been used for environmental management and are increasingly being considered for biodiversity conservation purposes.