This training course from the Global Land Tool Network is part of the Network’s activities on Islamic dimensions of land. In most Muslim countries, Islamic law, principles and practices make an important contribution to shaping access to land. GLTN therefore has as one of its objectives the identification and development of Islamic land tools and case studies through a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary and global process, owned by Muslims, but also including other civil society and development partners.

The following recommendations are made in this report:
1. The continuum of land rights is a metaphor, not a theory. A metaphor can be applied in a number of theoretical contexts, whereas a theory has an ideological perspective.

The crisis that engulfed the Central African Republic (CAR) in the end of 2012 resulted in the perpetration of gross human rights violations, including the widespread looting and destruction of homes. As people fled the violence they left behind land which others occupied illegally. More than a year after the height of the crisis, approximately 440,000 Central Africans continue to be internally displaced. Almost half a million are refugees in neighbouring countries.

Palestinian women living in refugee camps and gatherings in Lebanon have little opportunity to realise their HLP rights. They face the double discrimination, challenged by both formal Lebanese law and familial Palestinian social systems.

In 2001, the Lebanese Government passed a law forbidding people who do not hold citizenship to a recognised state from getting property rights in the country. This has left many Palestinian refugees either losing property that they owned, or unable to inherit property from family members.

Land is of tremendous importance in South Sudan. It represents community, belonging and place as well as provides a source of income, subsistence and survival. Control of land and resources was at the centre of the conflict that lasted five decades, leading to South Sudan’s independence in 2011.

Around the world, in both developed and
developing countries, policy makers use a variety of tools
to manage and accommodate urban growth and redevelopment.
Government officials have three main concerns in terms of
land policy: (i) accommodating urban expansion, (ii)
providing infrastructure, and (iii) managing density.
Together, the planning for infrastructure and urban
expansion, land use, and density policies combine to shape

Evidence is mounting that secure
property rights have positive effects for poor people in
general and women in particular. The aim of this report is
to review what is known about women s access to and control
over land and real property in urban settings, identifying
approaches to strengthening property rights that enhance
women s agency, and sharing key lessons. Section two
synthesizes the evidence on urban women s priorities with

Unequal land distribution and the
negative social and economic implications resulting from
such polarization in Colombia have long been of concern to
policymakers. A 1950 World Bank mission identified unequal
land distribution as a key impediment to economic and social
development in the country. Since then, a wide range of
policies has been adopted to deal with this issue and its
consequences. Numerous studies show that the success of

This note lays out the rationale for
including land administration quality index in the standard
‘registering property’ indicator by doing business and
discusses initial evidence from the global sample, showing
that many countries, including some that have performed well
on Doing Business’s traditional ranking, have a long way to
go to establish a system of land administration that is
reliable and transparent, achieves sufficient coverage, and

Cities emerge from the spatial
concentration of people and economic activities. But spatial
concentration is not enough; the economic viability of
cities depends on people, ideas, and goods to move rapidly
across the urban area. This constant movement within dense
cities creates wealth but also various degrees of
unpleasantness and misery that economists call negative
externalities, such as congestion, pollution, and

The policy reforms called for in the
transition from a socialist command economy to a developing
market economy bring both opportunities and risks to a
country's citizens. In poor economies, the initial
focus of reform efforts is naturally the rural sector, which
is where one finds the bulk of the population and almost all
the poor. Economic development will typically entail moving
many rural households out of farming into more remunerative

Land and property rights, migration, and
citizenship are complex issues that cut across all social,
economic, and political spheres of West Africa. This paper
provides an overarching scoping of the most pressing
contemporary issues related to land, migration, and
citizenship, including how they intersect in various
contexts and locations in West Africa. The way issues are
analytically framed captures structural challenges and sets