Has 3 main chapters: land tenure security and poverty reduction; access to land problem in Rwanda; a background (land-tenure systems, land scarcity and environmental degradation, land distribution); issues of tenure security in Rwanda (access to land by poor people, formalisation, practicalities of implementation).

Paper for a LandNet Rwanda workshop. Contains a conceptual framework on land and poverty; land attributes and the seeds of poverty including tenure issues; critical challenges to policy makers. Includes a descriptive summary of land problems from a recent university survey. Argues that land policies are fragile when mechanistically determined from the top, and need to involve the people in arbitration of disputes. Concludes that there can be no answer to poverty that does not take account of land.

Contains introduction; conflict in Rwanda; background to the development of the draft land policy; the context: land scarcity and distribution; aims and modalities of the draft land policy – consolidation, access to land for the landless, registration and tenure security, grouped settlements, land use and environmental protection; conclusions and recommendations.

This workshop brought together 75 practitioners from all over Africa. This regional survey covers tenure problems in West Africa, state policy and the problem of tenure security, pilot land use management schemes, and future issues and prospects.

Most francophone African states nationalised the colonial land tenure systems they inherited at Independence and then periodically adjusted them according to the situation in each country. Their citizens have yet to enjoy secure land rights, and there is still a yawning gap between the law and actual practice at both the lowest and highest levels.

Through the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, G8 countries are seeking to mobilise the private sector and multi-national corporations to boost African agriculture. Looks at how African countries are engaging with the New Alliance. Argues that large-scale acquisitions of land for corporate agriculture, which may result from New Alliance projects, pose a serious challenge for local markets and smallholder farmers. Underlying assumptions need to be challenged.

Includes the context of forced evictions in Luanda; the right to adequate housing; forced evictions and demolition in Luanda; national and international responses; recommendations. Argues that a critical underlying factor was insecure land tenure, which made residents particularly vulnerable and was derived from inadequate land legislation and lack of public information about land rights and urban management policies, inadequate registration procedures, and a consequent false perception of security of tenure by residents.

A critical analysis of the draft Land Policy. Contains introduction, land delivery system and accessibility to land, title deeds on customary land, vestment of land, land market, gender issues, allocation to foreigners (with particular reference to white farmers from Zimbabwe), dispute resolution, land management information systems, concluding remarks.

Explores the reconfiguration of rural authority in the aftermath of Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme, particularly the way chiefs were able to deploy ancestral autochthony as a way of contesting state hegemony. Argues that chiefs cannot simply be viewed as undemocratic remnants of colonial rule; instead, a nuanced understanding of their role in rural governance is required.

Includes migration and displacement; the issue of resettlement; policy on resettlement in Zambia; resettlement schemes on the Copperbelt Province; implementation of the resettlement scheme at Kambilombilo.

Paper presented at Surveyor’s Institute of Zambia seminar. Includes the effects of a fragmented customary rural land management system; the need for both land reform and rural land management authorities; the benefits of institutional and land tenure reforms; and a case study example of Botswana.

Why does the delimitation of local authorities’ area of influence cause so many problems in most West African countries? Does decentralization not usually result in the artificial and top-down creation of local administrative units whose entire legitimacy in the area of land management is yet to establish, while village or inter-village authorities have strong anchorage?