Articles in this edition develop several areas and introduce specific experiences relating to land reform. The main thread running through the articles is that of change; how we can help to understand what change means and how it can be managed.
It has been argued that many of the poverty reduction strategy papers pay insufficient attetion to the role of land access and land distribution in rural poverty. Redressing the inequalities between small-scale and large-scale farming sectots is likely to be an important element of an effective rural poverty reduction strategy in countries such as Zimbabwe and Kenya.
This study examines the situation of farm workers on five commercial farms in Mashonaland East and West, Zimbabwe, in March 2001.The paper finds that:farm workers’ livelihoods are inextricably linked with the fate of the farm itselfalmost all of the workers’ food and cash income comes from activities on the farm, their houses are on the farms and they pay relatively low or subsidised prices for foodstuffs from the farm storesome are assisted with access to health and education servicesordinarily the workers are reasonably food secure, however their scope for coping with unexpected shocks is
This paper first introduces the concept of land redistribution of land through agrarian reform, that would allow for a more inclusive model of development. The author then demonstrates how land concentration leads to displacement (migration) of rural populations, and as a consequence increased pressure in urban centres.
This article discusses the World Bank's efforts to reform land and real estate markets. It argues that World Bank supported efforts at land and real estate reform have had too narrow a technical focus, at the expense of institutional reform.
Articles in this edition develop several areas and introduce specific experiences relating to land reform. The main thread running through the articles is that of change; how we can help to understand what change means and how it can be managed.
The objective of the research that this policy brief reports on is to analyse different mechanisms of access to land for the rural poor in an era when redistribution through expropriative land reform is largely inconsistent with the forces of political economy. The roads of access to land which are explored are intra-family transfers, access through community membership, land sales and rental markets, and government programmes including decollectivisation and land-market assisted land reform.
The paper offers proposals for integrating understanding of and response to the pandemic into land reform-related development activities.
Redistributive land reform in Namibia is widely regarded as a precondition for sustainable rural development and poverty alleviation. This paper briefly discusses the development of thinking on land reform and the development of land reform models prior to Independence.
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?
"The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph," writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital, the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up the question that, more than any other, is central to one of the most crucial problems the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail? In strong opposition to the popular view that success is determined by cultural differences, de Soto finds that it actually has everything to do with the legal structure of property and property rights.
