This study focuses on the gender dimension of agriculture-related legislation, examining the legal status of women in three key areas. The result is an analysis identifying the main legal and some non-legal factors that affect the existence and exercise of women’s agriculture-related rights.

This guide on Land tenure and rural development has been prepared to familiarize readers with key issues in land tenure, especially as they relate to food insecurity and rural development situations. Land tenure issues are frequently ignored in rural evelopment interventions, with often long-lasting, negative results. Analysis of how land tenure works in practice – as evidenced by who has what type of access to land and under what conditions – is essential.

This report identifies FAO’s activities concerning access to natural resources (ANR), and identifies other organizations that use explicitly or implicitly a sustainable livelihoods approach in relation to ANR. The report constitutes Output 2.1 of the work plan of the FAO LSP Sub-programme 3.1 ("Building Stakeholder capacity to improve access to natural resources for the rural poor").

This publication contains the final report and background documentation of the Expert Consultation on Catalysing the Transition away from Overcapacity in Marine Capture Fisheries held in Rome, Italy, from 15 to 18 October 2002. The Expert Consultation was intended and designed to develop a set of general recommendations to assist in addressing the difficult subject of overcapacity in marine capture fisheries.

This guide on Rural property tax systems in Central and Eastern Europe has been prepared to support governments in the design and implementation of systems to raise revenues at local levels. An increasing number of countries are introducing policies to decentralize the provision of rural services but very often local levels of government have insufficient funds to carry out these newly decentralized responsibilities. Raising revenues through property taxes on rural land represents one way to improve the capacity of local levels to deliver services.

This guide on Gender and access to land has been prepared to support land administrators in governments and their counterparts in civil society who are involved in land access and land administration questions in rural development. It is frequently the case that gender issues are left out or misunderstood in such situations, often with negative results. This guide is designed to show where and why gender inclusion is important in projects and programmes that aim at improving land tenure and land administration arrangements.

Land and land reform cover a great range, both in terms of the geographical and development status of the countries considered, and of the variety of perspectives on the issues. The articles in this issue of Land Reform, Land Resettlement and Cooperatives reflect this breadth in a variety of ways. The articles range geographically from the paper addressing land and agrarian reform in Colombia, by Professor Darío Fajardo, to a consideration of the land reforms currently under way in Scotland, by Douglas Macmillan, Ken Thomson and Bill Slee.

The ten years following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) have been years of intense activity in the reformation of national and international laws. Over the last decade, sustainable developmetn has become a universal watchword, and a major catalyst for the reorientation of legal texts. Profound legal changes have been triggered by the transformation of socialist economies and the accelerating globalization of trade and economy.

Land is again the subject of debate in Mozambique, five years after the passage of a land law following wide-spread consultation in one of the most democratic processes in Mozambique in the 1990s. The law has won praise for protecting peasant rights while creating space for outside investment. The new debate is about two issues:

Quando a Lei de Terras 19/97 estabeleceu que o direito de uso e aproveitamento da terra é adquirido por ocupação por pessoas singulares e pelas comunidades locais, segundo as normas e práticas costumeiras que não contrariem a Constituição, criou-se a ruptura com a prática legislativa em Moçambique e em muitos outros países africanos.