While much attention has been given to examining various aspects of poverty, anumber of studies have shown that institutional environment in which the poorexist conditions welfare outcomes, thus highlighting the inherently crucialimportance of institutions for poverty reduction. The institutions of property rightsand collective action are among those identified as playing a major role in thelivelihood strategies of the poor.

This study presents an approach to analyzing decentralized forestry and naturalresource management and land property rights issues, and catalyzing collectiveaction among villages and district governments. It focuses on understanding thecurrent policies governing local people’s access to property rights and decisionmaking processes, and learning how collective action among community groups andinteraction among stakeholders can enhance local people’s rights over lands,resources, and policy processes for development.

Article 1 - Objectives:

"This Decree is issued for the purpose of implementing the Land Law relating to the management, protection, use and development of land in an efficient, peaceful, and fair manner as well as ensuring the compliance with the set-targets and the uniformity of practice throughout the country."

This review focuses on the role of local institutions in adaptation to climate change. It does so under the belief that climate impacts will affect disadvantaged social groups more disproportionately, and that local institutions centrally influence how different social groups gain access to and are able to use assets and resources.

Este artículo entrelaza diferentes aspectos de la transformación del paisaje de Colombia, simbólico y material, desde mediados del siglo XIX hasta las primeras tres décadas del siglo XX. Para ello, describe, evalúa y analiza el sistema jurídico, particularmente, asociado a la regulación y codificación de la propiedad privada de la tierra, así como los aspectos públicos de las leyes de baldíos.

In Ethiopian development policies, pastoralist areas have recently attracted more attention. However, much debate and policy advice is still based on assumptions that see a sedentary lifestyle as the desirable development outcome for pastoralist communities. This paper investigates current practices of collective action and how these are affected by changing property rights in the pastoralist and agro-pastoralist economies of three selected sites in eastern Ethiopia.

The major economic activity for pastoralists is animal husbandry. The harsh environment in which herders raise their livestock requires constant mobility to regulate resource utilisation via a common property regime. In contrast to the mobile way of life characterizing pastoralism, agriculture as a sedentary activity is only marginally present in the lowlands of the Afar regional state in Ethiopia. Nevertheless, this study reveals a situation where the traditional land-use arrangements in Afar are being transformed due to the introduction of farming.

There is growing degradation in sylvo-pastoral lands that were originally under common property regimes, but over which the state now asserts ownership. User associations are being given the right to take charge of regulating how these areas are sustainably exploited by means of use agreements, and are proving an effective instrument in halting the degradation process.

Las élites de los Estados Unidos están profundamente polarizadas. La polarización de los partidos Demócrata y Republicano se encuentra en su punto más alto desde finales del siglo XIX. ¿Cómo puede explicarse este fenómeno a la luz del evidente crecimiento económico de los Estados Unidos? Este ensayo describe el surgimiento de esta tendencia moderna hacia la polarización. Para entender las fuerzas históricas que ha producido la polarización actual es necesario entender la tradición colonial británica del sistema político-económico estadounidense.

Secure land rights are important for development and poverty reduction and the greatest challenges for providing such rights are in urban, peri-urban areas, and the most productive rural areas. This publication updates and revises UN-HABITAT’s 2004 publication ‘Urban Land for All’, and stresses the need for policies that facilitate access to land for all sections of their existing and future populations – particularly those on low or irregular incomes.

Although several institutional and management approaches that address the degradation of the rangelands have been tested in the dry areas of Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA), impact has been limited. Nonetheless, the development of National Action Plans to combat desertification highlights the interest of governments to tackle this issue. Payment for Environmental Services (PES) may be a viable policy option, though, to date, most PES programs have focused on the management of different resources (forests, watersheds).