USAID programs and Missions implement activities that improve land rights, support inclusive land and resource governance, build resilient livelihoods, and promote women’s empowerment. This brief explores the relationship between gender norms and women’s land rights, introducing key social norms concepts and tools to identify and shift harmful norms in the context of land and natural resources.

In the western Algerian steppe, the public authorities have carried out actions aimed at rural development (agricultural development programs) and combating desertification (grazing reserves) to counter the significant and rapid loss of vegetation cover of pastures by overgrazing, and the consequent impacts on local livelihoods. In the Rogassa area, these actions have impacted land tenure and the ancestral and collective way of land use and access. These changes have caused transformations in lifestyle and pasture management.

Ordinary Malawians who live in customary land have been suffering from land grabbing due to their weak and ill-defined land rights. Although Malawi has experienced a number of land reforms that should have contributed to strengthening customary land rights, many people in customary land still suffer from land grabbing. Accordingly, it is important to understand the factors that lead to land grabbing in customary land in Malawi.

Redressing land dispossession in the aftermath of violent conflicts is daunting and complex. While land dispute resolution and restitution are expected to promote return migration, this outcome is contingent upon the changing social, economic and political conditions under which return takes place. Drawing on qualitative data from Makamba Province in southern Burundi, this case study highlights the politically and historically shaped challenges underlying the resolution of competing and overlapping claims on land following protracted displacement.

The Shashamane rural district was selected as a target area and corridor of large-scale agriculture investment (LSAI) to produce surplus agricultural products and ensure local development by the state and private (domestic and foreign) investors. Shalo–Melega private LSAI projects started operation in 2008 in the Shashamane rural district. This farm project comprises a crop production site, construction of a road, a crop storage facility, and developing irrigation in a total of about 24,710.51 acres of land along the central Rift Valley basin, for long-term leases.

Since the global crises in the 2000s, many foreign and domestic actors have acquired large tracts of land for food and biofuel crop cultivation and other purposes in Africa, often leading to the displacement of the African people living on customary land. The weak customary land rights of ordinary African people have been viewed as one of the main factors making it possible for various land-grabbers to exploit customary land with different purposes.

Due to the nature of available land as one of the main attractions for investment, land lease marketing in Sub-Saharan Africa is appearing on policy agenda. This paper describes critical land-related institutional and governmental frameworks that have shaped the contemporary land governance and land lease contracts in Ethiopia. It also examines the effectiveness of the land lease process regarding economic, social, and environmental expectations from agricultural outsourcing.

In August 2017, Botswana’s parliament passed the Tribal Land Bill, which became the Tribal Land Act no. 1 of 2018. It shall come into operation once the minister sanctions. Until then, the 1994 Act shall be operational. The new Act is aimed at addressing the challenges that cannot be effectively addressed by the operational Act. Some hail it as progressive, but this article argues that the Act has some limitations. Its insistence on the registration of customary grants with the Registrar of Deeds may lead to unintended consequences, such as family conflicts.

The adoption of modern Land Administration Systems (LAS) in Sub Saharan Africa is done with the expectation that principles of equity, non-discrimination, efficiency, transparency, productivity and sustainability among others may be achieved to meet societal needs in those countries.  However, a lack of functional systems to document land through the provision of proper documentation particularly in Sub Saharan Africa has led to a high tenure insecurity in local communities, landlessness and a lack of proper investment in the land they hold.

The Global Programme 'Responsible Land Policy' (GPRLP) is part of the Special Initiative 'One World, No Hunger' of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), which aims to reduce extreme poverty and hunger.

L’un des problèmes cruciaux auxquels font face les peuples africains est celui de la gestion des terres fertiles. C’est le cas du peuple akposso. Dès les origines, ce peuple avait établi sa tradition dans le domaine foncier et n’était pas prêt à partager ses terres avec autrui. Mais pendant la colonisation, l’Allemagne et la France ont eu leurs propres codes fonciers. De même, en 1974, l’Etat togolais a entrepris une réforme agro pastorale. L’étude de cette évolution du droit foncier montre des différences entre le droit foncier coutumier akposso et le droit foncier moderne.