An overlap in the regulation of access to land and resources between customary and state management systems is causing problems of contradiction and conflict. This report analyses the pros and cons of both systems and makes a series of recommendations.State administration of land is found to have worked against poorer elements in Ghana. Whilst the Lands Commission and other institutions have made some positive achievements there is no evidence of practical benefits for the majority. Compulsory acquisition has resulted in displacement, landlessness and social unrest.

Land degradation is a serious problem in Sub-Saharan Africa, where up to two-thirds of the productive land area is reported to be degraded to some extent.  Local communities suffer the most from the degradation of their land and they are therefore fundamental to the widespread adoption of sustainable land management (SLM) techniques.

This article begins with an investigation into woodland management in Mali and moves onto a discussion of some of the fundamental practical problems associated with a major part of forest policy in Mali.

Angola, like Mozambique, inherited its legal framework from the Portuguese Civil Code, which was not based on a traditional African concept of community occupation under customary law. With Portuguese settlement, large areas of land were appropriated for and incorporated into the colonial cadastre (the formally surveyed and officially recorded land boundaries of the land concessions granted by the state). After winning independence from Portugal in 1975 the new Angolan government, influenced by socialist principles, affirmed the constitutional role of the state as the owner of all land.

Overview of a conceptual definition or sustainable land management policies

With land being the main source of income for many people in the developing world, security of access or ownership rights is imperative to the alleviation of rural povety. Past polices of land redistribution, prohibition of land renting and later legalisation of short-term contracts only, may have prevented or undermined tenancy markets in Ethiopia. This paper examines the allocative efficiency of the land rental market in Northern Ethiopia, and the extent to which adjustment in the tenancy market is constrained by transaction costs.

The study was conducted to determine whether the gender difference in wealth and land allocation between male and female farmers in male-headed households is manifested in soil fertility indicators. It determined chemical fertility levels (fertility indicators) in the composite topsoil samples from 5 woman-owned plots and 5 man-owned plots in Ntanzi village, Uganda, on a Rhodic Ferralsol. A similar study was conducted on 8 woman-owned and 8 man-owned plots in Buggala Island, Uganda, on a Ferralic Arenosol.

Land Management embraces systems of land administration, land use management, land information management, and land taxation. Land management is generally understood in South Africa as the manner in which land is controlled, managed, planned for, utilised and transacted.

This report looks at possible ways for policy-makers and decision-takers to combat and/or prevent land degradation in the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) region, both generally and specifically in the following countries: Egypt, Jordan, Syria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

This toolkit provides a framework for main-streaming gender in rural development activities.It addresses the lack of conceptual and practical tools in the area of sustainable land management. Its modular design allows for individual approaches and targets development staff at the project and programme levels, with the aim of helping them to find practical ways of dealing with gender issues in rural development activities.

Sierra Leone has recently emerged from a long period of political instability and civil war, and is ranked among the world’s poorest countries. Thousands of displaced people are in the process of returning totheir villages to rebuild their mainly farming-based livelihoods, and many are growing food crops for the first time in a decade.

For the last 60 years, the Korean economy has achieved an astounding development that is called “the Miracle of the Han River.” Korea was one of the world’s poorest countries at the time of the national liberation in 1945 and it went through a three-year long Korean War from 1950. However, it grew into one of the world’s leading trading powers. Its per capita income, which was merely 255 USD in 1970, reached 22,000 USD as of 2012.