This report summarise the research findings of a project to examine the current processes of land rights registration in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Mozambique and assess their outcomes for poor and vulnerable groups. It examines the design and process of registration, the governance of those processes and the equity of the outcomes.This research finds that land registration is not inherently anti-poor in its impacts and that the distributional consequences of land registration depend on the design of the process and on the institutions responsible for its management.

The need for large-scale land redistribution in Southern Africa is undisputed. In order to redress centuries of dispossession, this highly complex process has the potential to encourage economic growth and poverty reduction. Based on a 2004 conference in Cape Town, this publication details the major themes in the de-racialisation of land ownership in South Africa.The book covers the work of ten key voices on the issue of land reform both regionally and in South Africa. The first section of the book establishes a historical, theoretical and comparative context for the South African debate.

Review and analysis of national legislation believed to be representative of the available choice of mechanisms or options and illustrative of emerging best practices and attendant issues. It is worth noting that the countries whose legislation has been reviewed for the purposes of this paper are representative of a variety of climates - from humid England to arid Niger - and of different legal systems, notably, common law and civil law.

What have we learned about land markets in South Asia about land reform, land fragmentation, sharecropping, security of tenure, farm size, land rights, transaction costs, bargaining power, policy distortions, and market imperfections (including those associated with gender)?Faruqee and Carey review the literature on land markets in South Asia to clarify what's known and to highlight unresolved issues. They report that: We have a good understanding of why sharecropping persists and why it can be superior to other standard agricultural contracts.

This paper is motivated by the observation that children in land-rich households are often more likely to be in work than the children of land-poor households.The vast majority of working children in developing countries are in agricultural work, predominantly on farms operated by their families. Land is the most important store of wealth in agrarian societies and it is typically distributed very unequally. These facts challenge the common presumption that child labour emerges from the poorest households.

The analysis of land investment and tenure security usually assumes land scarcity. However, some developing countries have communities with land abundance. This article therefore examines the effects of land abundance for investment and tenure security. The author finds that in contrast to the literature, area farmed is a determinant of investment and tenure security. However, no link exists between investment and tenure security.

This report gives a description of the financial life of residents with a limited basis for cash-crop and off-farm opportunities, hence restricting them to size of landholding as a critical indicator of wealth and status and influences access to cheap bank finance.The authors demonstrates that the use of informal mechanisms like reciprocal gifts, interest-free lending and borrowing and taking credit in kind from shopkeepers, is widespread and does not decrease with increasing wealth.

In Accra, as in other cities where rural-to- urban migration has added to the pressure on land, methods for the management and storage of land registry data are inadequate. How can land administration processes be automated through the introduction of information technology (IT) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)? What institutional changes must be put in place?

This paper estimates the poverty reducing impact of land access in rural Uganda. The paper firstly states that land acquired through markets or otherwise may play an important role for rural household welfare. Conversely, there are concerns that poverty reduction effect of access to land through the market may be inadequate, due to land markets that can increase land concentration among the rich and inefficient producers.

This article discusses the World Bank's efforts to reform land and real estate markets. It argues that World Bank supported efforts at land and real estate reform have had too narrow a technical focus, at the expense of institutional reform.

This study analyses the links between risk and the kinds of property rights that have evolved to provide the mobility needed to raise livestock where rainfall fluctuates, and it evaluates the impact of cooperation on resource management in these environments.Three interesting conclusions emerge from the analyses with respect to economic vulnerability and natural resource management in these environments.