This paper examines the impact of land reform in Vietnam which gives households the power to exchange, transfer, lease, inherit, and mortgage their land-use rights. The authors expect this change to increase the incentives as well as the ability to undertake long-term investments on the part of households.

Since the early 1990s, the dominant consensus in the debate on land rights reform in sub-Saharan Africa has been that external interventions to privatise land rights are usually inappropriate and likely to remain so.

This paper draws out the key links between land tenure and poverty eradication. The author argues that in countries where land distribution remains highly inequitable, effectively designed and targeted, it could be a key component of anti-poverty strategies, but significant complementary measures, notably agrarian support services, are also required to achieve real impacts, together with investments in employment and economic diversification.

Previous studies of land contracts have focused more on efficiency questions than on determinants of access to land and dynamics of access. By looking closely at the question of access to land, the authors conclude:land rental contracts more friendly to the poor than land sales markets to access land.

This paper discusses the nature of the land problem in the region and tries to situate the general land reform process in Zimbabwe within a regional context.It examines the four key land problems facing the region the discriminatory and insecure forms of land tenure that are found among variouslandownership regimes the increasingly imbalanced landownership structures and factors underlying itthe contradictory tendencies towards irrational land-use patterns through both the over utilisation and underutilisation of land the devotion of most prime lands and resources to production for externa

It has been argued that many of the poverty reduction strategy papers pay insufficient attetion to the role of land access and land distribution in rural poverty. Redressing the inequalities between small-scale and large-scale farming sectots is likely to be an important element of an effective rural poverty reduction strategy in countries such as Zimbabwe and Kenya.

It is estimated that up to 84% of Malawians earn their livelihoods directly from agriculture - it contributes over 90% to export earnings, 40% to GDP and accounts for 85% of total employment.

This paper investigates how HIV/AIDS affects land access, utilisation and control in Malawi, with a particular focus upon vulnerable groups. It presents findings on the effect of HIV/AIDS on land holding, household responses to HIV/AIDS (to ensure their ability to continue using land as a resource), implications for tenure, effect of HIV/AIDS on land administration institutions, and the role of national legal and policy frameworks.The paper recommends:Firstly, that there is a need to raise the profile of the challenge posed by HIV/AIDS to poverty reduction.

This study examines the situation of farm workers on five commercial farms in Mashonaland East and West, Zimbabwe, in March 2001.The paper finds that:farm workers’ livelihoods are inextricably linked with the fate of the farm itselfalmost all of the workers’ food and cash income comes from activities on the farm, their houses are on the farms and they pay relatively low or subsidised prices for foodstuffs from the farm storesome are assisted with access to health and education servicesordinarily the workers are reasonably food secure, however their scope for coping with unexpected shocks is

The Indian state of West-Bengal saw two major turnarounds in its rural sector in the eighties. The growth rate of rice production jumped from 1.8 per cent during 1960-80 to 4.7 per cent during 1977-94, and rural poverty fell from 73 to 31 per cent between 1973 and 1999, greatly surpassing achievements of other Indian states.This coincided with the 1977 election of a coalition of left-wing parties, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM, which held uninterrupted power for the following 26 years.

Although many African countries have adopted highly innovative and pro-poor land laws, lack of implementation hinders their potentially far-reaching impact on productivity, poverty reduction, and governance. To assess the effects of these pro-poor land laws and analyse whether the existing doubts are justified, this report draws on the experience of Ethiopia which, over a period of 2-3 years, registered the majority of rural lands in a rapid process at rather low cost.

Concentrates on the black smallholder farming sector. Policy objectives should include:Resource Conserving Technologies: re-orientation away from large scale farmers, consideration of goals other than high input/output (risk management, labour input, gender).