The impacts of large-scale agricultural investments on rural communities’ land ownership, food security, productivity, income, and access to education and health differ within and between communities depending on business and government influence. Recent examples of large-scale investment models are dependent on the legal landscape in the investor’s country of origin, the investor-community linkages, and the nature of partnership with governments.

This report outlines administrative ways to harmonise state and traditional institutions in terms of land justice in Uganda. Customary justice within the traditional clan system in Uganda offers big advantages over the state judicial system in terms of physical access and costs. A significant weakness of the state justice system is the heavy backlog of land related cases in courts. Perception of and experiences of corruption in the state judicial system are rife.

This research reviews legislation and policies in Zimbabwe that have a direct or indirect bearing on the relocation of communities. The current model for large-scale investments has changed from previous models, where the majority of investment projects were undertaken by international companies with limited governmental intervention. While relocation of communities may be inevitable, it is argued that such actions should take into account constitutional provisions, regional and international best practices.

Grassroots organizations do not need to wait for the state to implement Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (Tenure Guidelines or TGs). Rural communities can take governance into their own hands and use TGs as a tool for investigation, reflection and action. The challenge is how to take the next step: under what conditions can TGs provide the rural poor with resources to organize and mobilize?

This policy brief presents strengths and weaknesses of state and traditional land justice institutions in relation to access, costs and speed in concluding the process of resolving land cases. In the current legal and institutional framework, strengthening of the customary justice system would bring benefits. With 93% of land in the Northern and Eastern regions under customary tenure, the most important institution is the clan, yet clan rulings are most often ignored by a parallel state system.

Valuations of tenure rights are required by the State and by the private sector for a wide variety of reasons, often forming and informing the basis of transactions, taxation, compensation and accounting. Value and the valuation process form a part of our everyday lives, and yet these are often shrouded in mystery and are not clearly understood.

Rangelands cover a surface area of more than 2 million hectares in Cameroon. Despite their relatively unpredictable climate and unproductive nature they provide a wide variety of goods and services including forage for livestock, habitat for wildlife, water and minerals, woody products, recreational services, nature conservation as well as acting as carbon sinks. Rangelands in Cameroon are predominantly grassland savanna with three types distinguishable: the Guinean savanna, Sudan savanna (also known as ‘derived montane grasslands’), and the Sahel savanna.

This LEGEND bulletin considers the key components for monitoring and evaluating the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT).

Con el fin de visibilizar la situación de las mujeres rurales en la región del Chaco argentino en torno a sus derechos y acceso a la tierra ante la Convención Internacional sobre la Eliminación de todas las formas de Discriminación contra la Mujer (CEDAW) de Naciones Unidas, diversas organizaciones de la sociedad civil trabajaron articuladamente en la elaboración de un informe alternativo que fue presentado en la sesión 65ª de la CEDAW en el 2016.

The purpose of these Voluntary guidelines is to serve as a reference and to provide guidance to improve the governance of tenure of land, sheries and forests with the overarching goal of achieving food security for all and to support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security. This video is produced by PCC in their effort to support the implementation of the VGGT

Women have largely been excluded from the ownership and control of land in Pakistan, which is the single most important source of income and status in the agricultural economy. This systematic exclusion stems from multiple factors at both the policy and societal level, which include multiple and contradictory sources of law that fail to resolve the issue of women’s right to property as well as cultural bias and discriminatory practices that arise from the prevalent male-dominant mindset in rural areas.

This guide provides a simple yet complete resource to help communities to understand the Asian Development Bank’s policies and use them for justice. While it focuses on the ADB, it also contains information that is useful for any campaign against destructive development—even if the ADB is not involved. The guide contains different kinds of information, including:

• Information about human rights and rights-based development

• Information about the Asian Development Bank and its safeguard policies

• Learning activities for community workshops