This publication has been developed by UN-Water as an advocacy guide ahead of the World Water Day 2011 (WWD 2011).

The position paper provides an updated insight on the role that urban agriculture can play in pursuing the Millennium Development Goals and more specifically MDG 1 and 7, related to poverty reduction, food security, and environmental sustainability. It intends to raise awareness and inform decision makers and planners of the different aspects of urban agriculture, which entails a broad range of activities, related to the food production and distribution chain, within natural resources planning and use including urban and peri-urban forestry.

The United Nations predicts that over the next 25 years nearly all population growth will be in the cities of the developing world. At current rates, 60% of the world’s total population will live in cities by 2030. As the cities grow, so does the number of urban poor. Unemployment, hunger, and malnutrition are commonplace. In the big city, most of any cash income the poor might bring home goes to feeding themselves and staying alive; any food that does not have to be bought is a bonus.

The United Nations predicts that over the next 25 years nearly all population growth will be in the cities of the developing world. At current rates, 60% of the world’s total population will live in cities by 2030. As the cities grow, so does the number of urban poor. Unemployment, hunger, and malnutrition are commonplace. In the big city, most of any cash income the poor might bring home goes to feeding themselves and staying alive; any food that does not have to be bought is a bonus.

The position paper provides an updated insight on the role that urban agriculture can play in pursuing the Millennium Development Goals and more specifically MDG 1 and 7, related to poverty reduction, food security, and environmental sustainability. It intends to raise awareness and inform decision makers and planners of the different aspects of urban agriculture, which entails a broad range of activities, related to the food production and distribution chain, within natural resources planning and use including urban and peri-urban forestry.

Enormous improvements in human welfare have taken place over the past two centuries, but these have been unevenly distributed and have come at a lasting cost of degradation of our natural environment. At the same time, we cannot stop the engines of growth, because much more economic progress is still needed in order for people in developing countries to have a decent living. But using the traditional environmentally irresponsible development paths is no longer defensible.

LAND DISPUTE RESOLUTION IN MOZAMBIQUE:
EVIDENCE AND INSTITUTIONS OF AGROFORESTRY
TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION
Jon Unruh
This paper was also released as CAPRi Working Paper No. 12 and is available at
http://www.capri.cgiar.org/wp/capri.cgiar.org/wp/capriwp12.asp.

The aim of this Proclamation is to improve management and utilization of land and land resources for agricultural purposes. It applies to all land that lies outside of municipal borders. The Proclamation defines the right to acquire, free of charge, rural land by adult residents of the region, whose livelihood depends on agriculture, and other subjects. It also defines land use rights of peasants, pastoralists and semi-pastoralists and provides for the protection of such rights.

Shalmali Guttal looks at shifts in agriculture policy in Cambodia and Laos as governments aim to transform the structures of their agriculture towards greater commercialization and markets. She argues this has far reaching impacts on rural social structures, and rural peoples’ access to land and security of tenure.

from the Land Research Action Network

This lesson brief discusses the dangers and opportunities of increasing biofuel cultivation in Ghana and provides recommendations for a national policy governing this sector. It is part of the Focus on Land in Africa: Land Tenure and Property Rights online educational tool.

This lesson brief discusses projects developed to reinvigorate the process of land registration formalization in peri-urban Ghana, their impacts, and the risks of unintended consequences for women, pastorlaists and the poor if their rights are explicitly taken into account.