The full Report, covering evolution of land policy and law, overview of land problems, current land tenure systems, systems of inheritance and land administration, settlement of land disputes, towards a new land policy and legal framework, and strategy for policy development.

This 78-page Policy (replacing with small but significant changes earlier versions) was approved by Cabinet on 17 January 2002. A summary of main policy recommendations is followed by 10 chapters: 1. Introduction; 2. Historical evolution of land policy; 3. Overview of land problems; 4. Land tenure reforms, acquisition and disposition; 5. Land administration and resettlement; 6. Land use planning and development; 7. Surveying, mapping and cadastral plans; 8. Titling, registration and dispute settlement; 9. Environmental management; 10. Inter-sectoral coordination.

Ensuring gender equality with respect to land rights is hailed as a key element of the recent land reforms, but actual results are limited. Achieving gender equality requires a comprehensive focus on land, family and other laws, including customary, and on their implementation on the ground. Summarises the findings from a series of reports reviewing progress made and challenges remaining to achieve gender equality with respect to land rights.

Zimbabwe today has an agrarian structure made up of small, medium and large farms, all under different forms of land ownership. A landscape once dominated by 4,500 large-scale commercial farmers is now populated by about 145,000 smallholder households, occupying 4.1 million hectares, and around 23,000 medium-scale farmers on 3.5 million hectares. Knowing exactly who has land and where is difficult. Illegal multiple allocations combine with unclear boundary demarcations and an incomplete recording system.

Vital that the new Land Commission looks at the range of land issues in the round. Need comprehensive district by district approach, attuned to local circumstances and flexible. Enormous challenge to recreate a land administration system. Outlines vital elements and how they must work together.

In Mozambique, changes in land access and use are shaping new landscapes, often at the expense of the poor. Despite progressive land legislation, elite groups and vested interests are consolidating land holdings while peasant producers are being dispossessed of their land and access to fertile plots is becoming increasingly difficult. As national and foreign investors seek land for housing, real estate, agriculture, tourism, mining and forestry, what is the state’s role in responding to these increased demands?

Includes colonial rule and land frontiers, late colonialism and modernisation, post-colonial nation-building and state-led development, community participation and community-based solutions, harmonising and devolving land administration, women’s land rights, pastoral land rights, market-led land redistribution in Southern Africa, foreign direct investment in land.

Issa Shivji is Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Executive Director of the Land Rights Research and Resources Institute (LARRRI) or Hakiardhi (in Swahili). He is an acknowledged authority on land law in Africa and chaired the 1991-2 Presidential Commission of Enquiry into Land Matters. Here he examines the new Land Acts, including fundamental principles, land administration and allocation, village titling, land grabbing, dispute settlements, gender, youth and children, and concludes with the ’virtues’ of the Acts.

Research findings include: land rights in marriage and during cohabitation; daughters and inheritance rights; land disputes; land administration and registration; education and monitoring implementation of the Land Law.

This was a major and highly successful workshop on women’s land rights in Southern and Eastern Africa, organised by FAO and Oxfam GB. It attracted an unusually diverse range of participants. This official report summarises the papers, presentations and discussions in the original order of the programme.

Includes the issue of gender in access to land, a major source of inequality; FIG declarations and guidelines are gender sensitive; why mainstreaming and what is it about?; ideas for an action plan including – gender disaggregated land data and gender sensitive indicators; understanding and working with gender roles under plural legal regimes; making socio-economic studies a part of planning land reforms and cadastral systems; developing simple, local methods of land administration; improving the gender balance at all levels in land administration; ensuring participation of women in impleme

Includes the Draft National Land Policy – a step into land-reform direction, addressing constitutional issues, challenges in addressing security of tenure, reforming land administration and management institutions, key issues and policy recommendations of the DNLP, news.