The objective of this policy note on
land is to assist the Government of Moldova in improving the
effectiveness of land management in agriculture, with a view
to enhancing the sector's contribution to
Moldova's economic growth and poverty reduction
objectives. The note reviews the progress that has been
made to date on land reform in Moldova, and provides
rigorous economic analysis of the impacts of the reforms 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

Mixed evidence on the impact of formal title in much of Africa is often used to question the relevance of dealing with land policy issues in this continent. The authors use data from Uganda to assess the impact of a disaggregated set of rights on investment, productivity, and land values, and to test the hypothesis that individuals' lack of knowledge of the new law reduces their tenure security. Results point toward strong and positive effects of greater tenure security and transferability.

This report centers on the problems
stemming from land issues in Nicaragua. The report's
main recommendations deal with four priority actions:
institutional reform; adjustments to the legal framework;
systematic regularization of land rights; and, firmly
addressing previous land invasions, and preventing future
invasions. The issue of land distribution, and ownership is
especially critical in Nicaragua; indeed, the country

Policies that enable rural communities
to participate in expanding economic opportunities can be
central to inclusive growth in Myanmar. Rural communities
are home to the majority of Myanmar’s population, the
majority of its many ethnic groups, and 70 percent of its
poor. Development in rural areas is constrained by low
returns to agriculture, and significantly lower levels of
public service delivery and human development outcomes

The importance of land rental for
overall economic development has long been recognized in
theory, yet empirical evidence on the productivity and
equity impacts of such markets and the extent to which they
realize their potential has been scant. Representative data
from China's nine most important agricultural provinces
illustrate the impact of rental markets on households'
economic strategies and welfare, and the productivity of

The urban land policy reforms implemented in Peru since 1996 aimed at the creation of a system able to assure formal rights to real property in large urban settlements. This case study looks at the factors that motivated reform, how the reform process itself was managed, the results, and lessons learned.

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

When it comes to strategy, the Chinese
have a saying: 'think big, start small, but move
fast.' This has been our guiding philosophy for the
pilot land reforms of the World Bank-Department of
International Development (DFID) sub national Investment
Climate Program (ICP) in Nigeria. The challenge was to find
a 'small' reform entry point from which to
'move fast' on this sensitive and difficult topic,

India's Uttar Pradesh Sodic Lands
Reclamation Project has two objectives. First, it seeks to
reverse the decline of productivity through sustainable
reclamation of sodic lands. Second, it is intended to
prevent additional increases in sodicity through
strengthening local institutions and enabling effective
management of such programs with strong beneficiary
participation and nongovernmental organization (NGO)

An issue which has generated much
concern has been the potential link between low incomes and
resource degradation. This report presents the results of a
study which investigated this question. Machakos District is
a relatively low income and agriculturally marginal district
in Kenya. Before World War II the colonial administration
was concerned that land degradation was becoming severe
under the pressure of population, aggravated by drought. The

On December 26 2004, a 9.3 magnitude
earthquake struck the Indian Ocean and unleashed a blast of
energy, creating a tsunami three stories high. The disaster
which claimed more than 228,000 lives had an impact on the
lives of more than 2.5 million people causing close to US$
11.4 billion of damage in 14 countries. The highest price
was paid in Aceh, which had the greatest death toll of
130,000 confirmed dead and a further 37,000 reported