Broad-based economic growth is essential to sustainable, long-term development. It creates opportunities for raising living standards, provides countries with the resources to expand access to basic services and enable citizens to chart their own prosperous futures. Despite incredible progress that has reduced poverty and improved livelihoods around the world, global economic growth since 2008 has slowed and in some cases regressed. Today, three quarters of the world’s poor don’t have a bank account and access to capital remains a significant barrier throughout the developing world.

The concept of land consolidation is new in Latvia. Its main tasks are to eliminate land fragmentation and to facilitate farms of optimal size. One of the most important preconditions of land consolidation is forming of optimal size farmland plots in property and use, and land fragmentation, which has a major impact on both the operating conditions and other rural development processes. Land fragmentation affects not only land management, but it also increases transport costs.

This paper addresses the amelioration of the impact of AIDS on land tenure and livelihoods. The author argues that, in Lesotho, land policy development should be informed by the status of community support and welfare for those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. He offers three main policy recommendations as follows: Land administrators should be fully informed about the epidemic and various legislations that govern the rights of the affected households. This will help to ensure uniform implementation of measures to support affected households.

This paper looks at the dynamics of land and violent conflict. It states that conflict situations in rural societies deeply affect the politics of land, and that land requires a careful approach by policy makers because it is a central element in the evolution of societies. As a result, policies pertaining to land are not neutral in terms of conflict management.The paper argues that donors seeking to promote peace and development should tackle land issues in recipient countries more systematically, more carefully and in a more coherent manner.

South African president Mbeki has characterised the developmental challenge in his country in terms of integrating the structurally disconnected ‘two economies’. On the one hand the modern industrial, mining, agricultural, financial and services sector, and on the other the ‘third world economy’ found in those urban and rural areas where the majority of poor people live.This draft chapter challenges this characterisation and focuses on the rural dimensions of the ‘two economies’ debate.

Implementing the land reform, territories of farms were quite often formed of several - up to 20 - land plots, frequently with disadvantageous borders. With reorganization of production of the farms, rural development and activities of land market, importance and tasks of rational territory organization will grow. Besides, it can be forecasted that, as a result of land rent and further buy-sell and other transactions, many new farmland properties and land uses are going to appear which might not correspond to the requirements of rational territory organization.

The sustainable development of rural areas nowadays faces the challenges of global changes. This paper aims to review the concept of land use and landscape multi-functionality in order to help adapting land and landscape use to the new social, economic and ecological demands. In this respect, the paper utilises the findings of a case study conducted in Bulgaria.The authors illustrate that multi-functionality as a qualitative characteristic combines economic with ecological principles in production and improves the end economic results in the given rural area.

Rural landscape of the southern part of Lithuania as well as its use is analysed in the article. The defects of land reclamation system cause the rise of deserted lands. Dampness and bagged up soils are a large obstacle for the proper use of deserted lands. One more reason is lands of low productivity. The third reason of the rise of deserted lands is the shortage and default of perspective farmers and agricultural companies who are able to lease and cultivate land.

A sample of 24 districts (1/3 of the Czech Republic) was used to evaluate the land market. Land prices depended on the area, culture and region of the plot. Sales of small plots (up to 1 ha) prevailed. These plots were usually purchased for non-agricultural use and their prices were many times higher than prices of large plots (above 5 ha) which are usually bought for agricultural purpose. Land market is not well developed, only 0.2-0.4% of the monitored area was sold each year. Compared with land prices in the west EU countries, land market prices in the Czech Republic are low.

In the research was submitted agricultural land market in Poland, in the political system transformation conditions, with consideration it function, stimulating the structural change of farming including territorial structure. There were characterized changes occurring in polish country with indication of the following processes: growing strength of agricultural land market, increasing role of agricultural lands' lease and also progressive process of land concentration and changing ownership relations.

Almost two decades have passed since China first enacted legislation to protect farmland from conversion to nonagricultural use. Yet hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land are still developed to urban area each year, raising the question of whether the legislation is effective in preserving farmland from development. This paper examines the effectiveness of the Basic Farmland Protection Regulation in protecting high-quality farmland from urban development in China in the first decade after it came into effect (1995‒2005).

This research has been undertaken to improve our understanding of stakeholders’ knowledge and perception about ecosystem services (ES), which provides a valuable means of gaining insight into the opportunities and constraints that face ES management in a multiuser landscape. Land use preferences are influenced by a variety of motives, attitudes, and values intrinsic to every individual’s decisionmaking. Knowledge can affect attitudes and behavioral intentions, and a positive attitude toward the environment has been found to predict conservation practices.