This report develops a framework for evaluating continuum of land rights scenarios. Building on existing evaluation initiatives that focus on land tenure and the associated administrative systems, the report addresses an important gap by providing a framework for evaluating land rights scenarios along the continuum of land rights according to the purposes of a particular evaluation.

The Continuum Of Land Rights Approach To Tenure Security: Consolidating Advances In Theory And Practice

Community sourced land information influencing national upgrading projects in Colombia, Kenya, Philippines and Uganda: Evidences where the top-down and bottom-up approaches meet

Community sourced land information influencing national upgrading projects in Colombia, Kenya, Philippines and Uganda: Evidences where the top-down and bottom-up approaches meet

Application of Geomatics for Mapping Land and Natural Resource Use and Rights: A Case Study of IFAD Programmes in East and Southern Africa

Application of Geomatics for Mapping Land and Natural Resource Use and Rights: A Case Study of IFAD Programmes in East and Southern Africa

Based on the experiences of Amerindian communities in Guyana, this briefing presents some of the main causes of forest conflicts in the country as well as recommendations for how to address these. In particular, the document presents the following points: 

• Lack of full recognition of indigenous peoples’ land rights in line with international law, absence of effective FPIC procedures and limited transparency in forest governance are key underlying causes of forest-related conflicts in Guyana; 

This paper examines land tenancy systems and tenant contracts in Rwanda, with
respect to socioeconomic contexts. Our research in southern and eastern Rwanda produced
data suggesting that land borrowing with fixed rents has been generally practiced, and that rent
levels have been low in comparison to expected revenues from field production. In the western
areas of coffee production, however, the practice of sharecropping has recently appeared. This
system is advantageous to landowners, as they are able to acquire half of the harvests; in

In Rwanda, two factors make land a highly important and contested issue. First,
Rwanda has the highest person-to-land ratio in Africa. This creates tremendous
pressure on land in a country where most of the population lives in rural areas, and
where agriculture remains the central economic activity. Second, Rwanda is recovering
from massive population shifts caused by decades of ethnic strife and the 1994 civil war
and genocide, which resulted in displaced populations and overlapping land claims.

Since the early 1990s, parts of Afri-ca’s Great Lakes Region have expe-rienced political strife, armed con-flict and population displacements withsevere humanitarian consequences. De-spite great progress towards sustainablepeace in all the countries of the region,sporadic violence continues in some ar-eas, particularly in the Eastern DemocraticRepublic of Congo (DRC). Conflicts in theGreat Lakes Region are highly interlinked,with political and military alliances, refu-gee movements, and ethnic solidarities ty-ing the fates of the countries of the re-gion.

All four countries in continental South-East Asia featured in this paper (Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam) are experiencing land conflicts that could potentially destabilise their governments.1 Thailand is in a similar situation in many respects, as it has faced mounting tensions over land tenure since the 1990s (Hall et al., 2011). These conflicts are escalating, sometimes violent, and are attracting more and more attention from the media. They have mobilized numerous local and international NGOs, and often triggered the development of an increasingly visible national civil society.

A new report offers evidence that the modest investments needed to secure land rights for indigenous communities will generate billions in returns—economically, socially and environmentally—for local communities and the world’s changing climate. The report, Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs: The Economic Case for Securing Indigenous Land Rights, quantifies for the first time the economic value of securing land rights for the communities who live in and protect forests, with a focus on Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia.