The paper focuses on the Report on the land policy formulation and implementation. The report presents the findings of the study on developing an institutional and funding mechanism and a monitoring and evaluation framework; the highlights of progress made by the Land Policy Initiative in implementing its five-year strategy and roadmap (2012–2016); and the results of research conducted by the Land Policy Initiative over the past two years on key land issues in Africa.

Despite the increasing acknowledgment of scholars and practitioners that many large-scale agricultural land acquisitions in developing countries fail or never materialize, empirical evidence about how and why they fail to date is still scarce. Too often, land deals are portrayed as straightforward investments and their success is taken for granted. Looking at the coffee sector in Laos, the authors of this article explore dimensions of the land grab debate that have not yet been sufficiently examined.

Over the next 15 years, over Kshs. 89.09 billion will be paid by slum-dwellers to informal service-providers for low-quality and high-cost services. This situation is replicated in almost all informal settlements within the city of Nairobi. Developing affordable shelter for the urban poor, and thereby
realizing the Constitutional right to housing, will require new forms of pro-poor shelter finance
and supportive policies at the urban level. But most of Nairobi’s residential construction

The Constitution of Kenya (2010) has provided the means for confronting new challenges to evictions and access to justice faced by vulnerable groups such as the residents of Mukuru. New jurisprudence has begun to emerge, addressing the human rights implications of evictions. Project researchers along with the Katiba Institute and Strathmore University’s School of Law work closely with the community to investigate different existing tenure arrangements in Mukuru to determine how the Constitution and land laws can be used to address challenges related to insecure land tenure.

This report presents the dissemination and communication activities for the period February – September 2015 of the 2 year IDRC funded action research project entitled “Improving Access to Justice and Basic Services in the Informal Settlements of Nairobi”.

A detailed situation analysis reveals key linkages between meagre services, insecure land tenure, and unjust governance institutions in Nairobi’s informal settlements. In addition to exploring alternative models of service delivery, the analysis examines the “poverty penalty” and the types of service provision specific to Mukuru settlement, where residents are forced to pay for poorer services. Private holdings in Mukuru should be converted to community land, using provisions from the Constitution, Land Act, and the draft community land bill.

Global food production must ramp up in the face of enormous challenges. We are all familiar with many of the key metrics surrounding the central food security challenge: By the year 2050, the earth’s population is expected to soar from the current 7bn about 9.6bn. It is estimated that in the next 40 to 50 years, we will need to produce as much food as was necessary in the previous 10,000.

Without healthy soils, it is not possible to produce healthy food. But soils do not just produce food: they

Bolivia’s distinct characteristics and
aspirations are a key for understanding its development
trajectory. Bolivia is one of the countries with the highest
share of indigenous population, representing a tapestry of
different groups with different historical, cultural and
economic features, with a significant influence in policy
decision making. The country is landlocked and one of the
most sparsely populated in the world. As a result, long

The hub-periphery development pattern of
the Guangdong economy, to some extent, is a miniature of
that of the Chinese economy. The Pearl River Delta, drawing
from its first-nature comparative advantages in factor
endowments and proximity to Hong Kong SAR, China, and Macau
SAR, China, and the second-nature advantages as first-movers
in the reforms in attracting and retaining domestic and
foreign resources, has developed into a regional economic

This note is a summary of a report that
considers urban areas as the complement to rural areas that
will allow the Plurinational State of Bolivia to achieve the
goals set forth in its Patriotic Agenda for the Bicentennial
2025. The report uses data available at the national level
from censuses and household surveys from the National
Statistics Institute (INE) and the Social and Economic
Policy Analysis Unit of the Ministry of Development Planning