The note looks at poverty in Ecuador,
assessing macroeconomic developments through its policies to
maintain stability with fiscal discipline, and increase
economic productivity and competitiveness, in particular,
the 1998/99 crisis, the 2000 dollarization and their effect
on poverty. From 1990 to 2001, national consumption-based
poverty rose from 40 to 45 percent, and the number of poor
people increased from 3.5 to 5.2 million. Poverty increased

This article addresses the problems of
governance in municipalities in Africa. The concern has been
to adapt traditional systems of governance to the needs of
modern urban management. This article investigates the need
for a new analysis of the twin problems of urban land and
urban management in sub-Saharan Africa. This need is based
on the apparent paradox between the dynamic, city-creating
activities of civil societies in all of these countries, and

Buying, selling and mortgaging farmland
are still rare in Eastern and Central Europe. Not
surprisingly, given the level of risk in many of these
countries, short-term transactions, especially leasing, are
more common. These short-term transactions do almost as well
as land sales in allocating resources. Making them more
secure by improving simple registration and enforcement
systems and increasing public access to information on what

A community land titling initiative designed to protect community lands from land grabbing. Supported communities in Liberia, Mozambique and Uganda to follow their countries’ community land registration laws. Sought to understand what type and level of support was most effective. Concludes that community land documentation may be a more efficient method of land protection that individual and family titling, and should be prioritized in the short term.

In the 1980s the Thai government tried to legalize squatters by issuing special titles that restricted the sale and rental of the land. Using data from 2,874 farming households collected in 1997, the author finds that in places where these government titles where issued, leased plots are more likely to be titled than those that are self-cultivated. For these areas, he uses a model to estimate a 6 percent risk premium in the rental rate for untitled plots.

This report is a synthesis of information gleaned from four case studies of World Bank-financed land programs in Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Ghana, and the Lao People's Democratic Republic. The case studies were designed to both broaden and deepen our understanding of how land policies affect women and men, with an aim to applying this knowledge in very practical ways to World Ban-supported land projects.

To implement the vision of fostering
economic development, social equity, and a transparent and
effective government, the Government of Liberia has outlined
key transitions that need to be accomplished. These include
the development of infrastructure (roads, electricity),
schools, job creation and transition from war, civil
conflict and social polarization to a well functioning
society in which economic opportunities are fostered and

The 2003 land law defines that the Land
Tenure Certificate (LTCs) carries both the wife's and
husband's names. Theoretically, the requirement of both
the wife's and husband's names on the LTCs aims at
enabling the wife to participate more actively in household
economic production for poverty reduction, and to protect
the rights of the woman in the event of civil disputes over
the land that has been provided with a LTCs. A field-based

This book examines issues at the
forefront of the debate on land law reform, pays particular
attention to how reform options affect the poor and
disadvantaged, and recommends strategies for alleviating
poverty more effectively through land law reform. It reviews
the role of the World Bank in land law reform, examining
issues of process as well as substance. It also identifies
key challenges and directions, and stresses the need to

Although many African countries have
recently adopted highly innovative and pro-poor land laws,
lack of implementation thwarts their potentially
far-reaching impact on productivity, poverty reduction, and
governance. The authors use a representative household
survey from Ethiopia where, over a short period,
certificates to more than 20 million plots were issued to
describe the certification process, explore its incidence

This study examines the constraints on
the housing sector in Afghanistan. It evaluates government
policy on housing, looks at the state of housing finance,
and examines legal and regulatory barriers with a bearing on
the housing market. The report provides policy
recommendations aimed at helping to develop a private-sector
led housing market. To assist in formulating policies and
implementing actions, the study recommends forming a housing

This paper provides evidence from one of
the poorest countries of the world that the property rights
matter for efficiency, investment, and growth. With all land
state-owned, the threat of land redistribution never appears
far off the agenda. Land rental and leasing have been made
legal, but transfer rights remain restricted and the
perception of continuing tenure insecurity remains quite
strong. Using a unique panel data set, this study