This report evaluates the legal
framework for rural land rights, the regulations of rural
housing sites, the effects of land requisition on farmers
who lose land, and some selected issues affecting urban land
rights. The focus of this report is how to enhance property
rights in a number of different contexts. The report makes a
series of specific policy recommendations for rural
agricultural land, rural housing land, to protect rights in

This study has at its origin the land
question in Paraguay, namely that land ownership is highly
concentrated and has become a source of social conflict in
the rural areas where one-half of the population lives. A
central thesis of the study is that the existing patterns of
land use and ownership, in particular, the very large land
holdings (Zatifundio), are a reflection in part of the
almost insignificant land tax that is charged today on rural

This study has at its origin the land
question in Paraguay, namely that land ownership is highly
concentrated and has become a source of social conflict in
the rural areas where one-half of the population lives. A
central thesis of the study is that the existing patterns of
land use and ownership, in particular, the very large land
holdings (Zatifundio), are a reflection in part of the
almost insignificant land tax that is charged today on rural

There is enough land in the Amazon
region to satisfy Brazilian society's demands for
economic development, environmental management of a resource
base of global importance and the challenges of agrarian
reform. Yet Brazil has been unable to create a fully
coherent and manageable land policy and administration
system for the region which permits sustainable development
goals to be achieved while reconciling special interests and

This paper is motivated by the emphasis
on secure property rights as a determinant of economic
development in recent literature. The authors use village
and household level information from about 800 villages
throughout China to explore whether legal reform increased
protection of land rights against unauthorized reallocation
or expropriation with below-average compensation by the
state. The analysis provides nation-wide evidence on a

This report directly provide
recommendations for improvement of the quality of the
regional master socio-econsomic development plan and
national laud use plans for Vietnam, to the year 2020. It
provides analysis and assessment of the
reviewed-adjusted-ammended socio-economic development plan
for the Mekong Delta, which is aimed at improvement of the
quality and feasibility of regional socio-economic

This report presents the research
findings of the Justice Delivered Locally (JDL) initiative
of Solomon Islands' Ministry of Justice and Legal
Affairs, which was supported by the World Bank's
Justice for the Poor (J4P) program. JDL supports the Solomon
Islands Government (SIG) policy of reinvigorating
local-level justice systems. This is based on an
understanding that developmentally important local

This paper examines the current status
of justice and dispute-resolution mechanisms in Bangladesh,
ranging from the formal justice system to the traditional
shalish (a form of dispute resolution), and focuses on the
costs and benefits of utilizing nongovernmental organization
(NGO)-led legal services programs as an alternative form of
justice delivery and dispute resolution for the poor, with a
focus on women and girls. In particular, this paper takes a

This document provides a gendered
analysis of the horticulture, tourism, and call center
global value chains (GVCs), based on a survey of the
literature and case studies carried out in Honduras, Kenya,
and the Arab Republic of Egypt. The studies focus on export
sectors that have had high female employment and have been
relatively underexplored from the angle of trade and gender
research. The studies show that GVCs and their upgrading

This issue of Handshake focuses on
natural resource PPPs that are making a difference. In
Cartagena, Colombia, a hybrid public-private agency is
profiled that has standardized water service to residents
while restoring the coast, and in the process, contributed
to political stabilization. Around Africas Lake Victoria, an
environmental management initiative with the potential to
reduce the pollution and resource footprint of industrial

Bringing together history and economics,
this paper presents a historical and processual
understanding of women's economic marginalization in
Sub-Saharan Africa from the pre-colonial period to the end
of colonial rule. It is not that women have not been
economically active or productive; it is rather that they
have often not been able to claim the proceeds of their
labor or have it formally accounted for. The paper focuses

Community-based paralegalism has been
active in the Philippines for the past 30 years, and yet its
contribution to access to justice and the advancement of the
rights and entitlements of the poor has been largely an
undocumented. This paper attempts to provide a framework
study on the history, nature, and scope of paralegal work in
the Philippines, based on the experience of 12 organizations
that are active in the training and development of