This Report presents the findings of this research effort. A comprehensive consideration of the many aspects of land ownership in Nepal, including the related issues of agricultural development, the impact of nonstate actors in newly-formed special economic zones, and the claims of landlords returning to land seized during the Maoist conflict is beyond the scope of this project. The Report and study focused on documenting the impact that inadequate access to land has on the human rights of landless people, including rights to housing, food, water, work, and access to justice.

This country profile is a summary of key information that gives an overview of the water resources and water use at the national level. It can support water-related policy and decision makers in their planning and monitoring activities as well as inform researchers, media and the general public.

The OECD e-learning Academy on Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) provides operating companies, investors and buyers with an opportunity to advance their knowledge on responsible business conduct and OECD risk-based due diligence.

The Malaysian economy decelerated as solid domestic demand was not sufficient to offset a weakening external environment. Private consumption growth continued at a healthy pace. Favorable rubber and palm oil prices drove up incomes of smallholders while continued employment and wage growth supported urban incomes. In contrast, fixed investment was more volatile, with private investment showing signs of picking up while public investments lagged.

The global financial roller coaster, with the Euro zone as its lead car, has hit economic prospects across the globe. The South African economy, with its close links to the world economy, has suffered, too, resulting in weakened growth prospects, lower fiscal revenues, lower and more volatile valuation of the rand, and dampened external financing. This further compounds the policy challenges facing the authorities, on top of their preoccupation with unyielding unemployment, which requires higher and more inclusive economic growth.

Reforestation measures for degraded lands, strategies for the sustainable management of forest resources, and agroforestry practices that incorporate trees into farming systems are increasingly demonstrating their promise for producing commercialized tree products. Although the level of investment so far has remained modest, the challenge is to find ways to scale up promising investments in a way that will have a clear impact at the landscape level.

Set against the backdrop of escalating food prices
and worsening food insecurity, the issue of land
becomes more relevant and urgent. The facts and figures
speak of a great irony. More than half a billion people
in Asia suffer from hunger and food insecurity, and too
often these are the small food producers, who comprise
farm laborers, tenants and small farmers. The region is
home to 75% of the world’s farming households, 80%
of which are resource-poor, and lack access to productive
land.

Unprecedented pressures on land and its governance have been created. As evident around the globe, where land governance is deficient, high levels of corruption often flourish. Under such a system, land distribution is unequal, tenure is insecure, and natural resources are poorly managed.

Baseline Research Report 

What rural dwellers in the Global South experience as land grabbing, tends to be seen in the Global North as ‘agricultural investment’. The World Bank has been at the forefront of a drive to legitimate these investments, convening to win support for a code of conduct based on Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI) principles. Many key civil society groups reject the proposal for a code of conduct, objecting to the top-down process by which it was formulated and arguing that it was more likely to legitimate than prevent land grabbing.

Climate change is increasingly being recognised as a global crisis, but responses to it have so far been overly focused on scientific and economic solutions. How then do we move towards morepeople-centred, gender-aware climate change policies and processes? How do we respond to the different needs and concerns of women and men, and also challenge the gender inequalities that mean women are more likely to lose out than men in the face of climate change? This In Brief sets out why it is vital to address the gender dimensions of climate change.

Climate change is increasingly being recognised as a global crisis, but responses to it have so far been overly focused on scientific and economic solutions. How then do we move towards more people-centred, gender-aware climate change policies and processes? How do we both respond to the different needs and concerns of women and men and challenge the gender inequalities that mean women are more likely to lose out than men in the face of climate change? This report sets out why it is vital to address the gender dimensions of climate change.