Redistributive land reform in southern Africa is reviewed against the background of the recent land crisis in the region. The dilemmas created for governments and donors are described, as are attempts to grapple with them. Answers are sought to four questions: What has been the experience with land redistribution in the region over the last decade or so? What has been the impact on people's livelihoods? How are redistribution programmes expected to develop in future?

Results from this study show that the over-used but under-researched association between grazing and land degradation in the Kalahari has been oversimplified. In typical Kalahari conditions, the ecological changes that have been brought about by grazing cannot be linked with more fundamental changes in ecosystem function. Basic soil processes appear relatively unaffected by grazing pressure outside the sacrifice zone, and there is no evidence to suggest that the resilience of the system has been affected through soil degradation.

Recently, new community-level institutions have emerged in Zambézia province, Mozambique, through land rights registration. Numerous rural groups have delimited their acquired land rights and established community-level management systems. This paper assesses the rise of these ‘new’ institutions and whether they have replicated, replaced, or been added on to the existing pattern of state and nonstate institutions and processes.The new communities have registered large swathes of land, but have had had a limited impact on development processes.

This paper examines the current wave of land tenure reform in eastern and southern Africa. It discusses how far tenure reform reflects a shift in powers over property from centre to periphery. A central question is whether tenure reform is designed to deliver to rural smallholders greater security of tenure and greater control over the regulation and transfer of these rights.Policy conclusions include:

The author explores the socio-economic dimension of forest resource use and management in the Mahabharat hill track of Arghakhanchi district in west Nepal.Analysis focuses on:various attributes of forest resources use and variation between regions, socio-economic and demographic groupslocal forest management systems and practices forest resource use and its related managementeconomic status of households focusing on the poverty-environment nexus.Major findings and conclusions from the overall study include:the extent, depth and severity of poverty is high - the incidence of poverty is foun

Land distribution and access to land are key issues in Zimbabwe. In recent years, nearly all of the country's commercial farm land has been re-designated, leaving most farm workers dislocated from their farm villages. The government of Zimbabwe argues that the land reform programme is needed to achieve historical and social justice. However, this article concludes that the government is engaged in serious human rights violations and is appropriating land to distribute to its followers for political not social justice ends.

This study attempts to analyse changing patterns of land transfer and ownership, as well as school investments by gender over three generations in customary land areas of Ghana's Western Region. Traditional inheritance rules deny land ownership rights to women. Yet the increase in the demand for women's labour due to the expansion of labour intensive cocoa cultivation has created incentives for husbands to give their wives and children land. Through this and other gift mechanisms, women have increasingly acquired land, thereby reducing the gender gap in land ownership.

While the majority of women in Sub-Saharan Africa and particularly Eastern Africa provide a living for their families on land, they largely do not own it. This comprises one part of a study on women and land in five countries in Eastern Africa - and was commissioned by the Eastern African Sub-Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI).

Indigenous land tenure arrangements in South Africa have generally consisted of communal ownership. In this system, who benefited from the land depended on their status as family or clan head. The colonial regime dispossessed Africans of land in favour of European arrivals, or defined family property as ancestral property in which the senior males of the head family were taken as the owners with the rights to inherit. The post-apartheid government conceptualised acess to land for the previously disadvantaged as a human right.

Women's access to land is a fundamental factor in food security. Yet women all over the world suffer under discriminatory property and inheritance laws and customary practices which restrict their rights over the land on which they live and work. Articles 15 and 16 of CEDAW state the rights of women to property and inheritance. This report is a tool to help non-governmental organisations and multilateral agencies in advocacy and policy dialogue using CEDAW and the Optional Protocol (which allows individuals and groups to make complaints directly to the CEDAW committee).

How can the abstract principles of the human rights-based approach (HRBA) be translated into practical strategies to improve women's ownership and access to land? In Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Kenya, despite changes in national law and policy aiming to improve women's land tenure, none of the land reforms meet human rights standards. This is because legal regulation of land blurs with customary laws mostly relating to land transactions and family, marriage or inheritance.

The Women Advancement Trust (WAT) in Tanzania carries out various initiatives related to land rights, affordable housing, and inheritance rights. This report presents lessons learned from a housing and shelter development initiative. The goals of the initiative were to empower low-income communities, particularly women, to participate fully and actively in all aspects of human settlements development, including the improvement of their living and housing conditions.