Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) failed to meet most Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require knowledge-intensive actions that weigh development goals against sustainability options with several possibilities in various contexts. Land resources are the mainstay for most African communities and the basis of achievement of most SDGs. The “transformation imperative” in Africa will only take place in a differentiated set of resource management and use. The baselines in African countries are rather low in terms of internal policy and economic functions.

Since 2016, the Thai Government has pursued a twenty-year national economic growth policy, Thailand 4.0, promoting innovation and stimulating international investment through the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) project. The EEC project involves significant land acquisition resulting in the need to relocate villagers with potential impact on food security in a major food production area.

Maize has become the second most produced crop in the world. Specifically, in sub-Saharan Africa, global statistics show that more and more land is being used for (small-scale) maize production to meet future food demands. From 2007 to 2017, the area on which maize is grown in sub-Saharan Africa has increased by almost 60%. This rate of expansion is considered unsustainable and is expected to come at the expense of crop diversity and the environment.

This document compiles four short reports and reflection pieces produced by Natural Habitats Group (NHG) during their involvement in a LEGEND project in Sierra Leone implemented by Solidaridad, which aimed to ensure that an NHG land based investment, undertaken by group member company Natural Habitats Sierra Leone Ltd (NHSL) to develop a large oil palm plantation respected existing community members and land holding families’ land rights.

Introduces a new IIED blog series looking at principles to strengthen women’s land rights. Over the past 15 years pressures on land across sub-Saharan Africa have increased and these have tended to affect women more severely as they have little control over the land they traditionally use. Awareness of the importance of women’s land rights is higher than ever and global commitments to women’s land rights have never been stronger;yet there is no consensus on which strategies most effectively strengthen women’s land rights in practice.

Land tenure, or access and rights to land, is essential to sustain people’s livelihoods. This paper looks at how farm households perceive land tenure (in)security in relation to food (in)security, and how these perceptions evolve throughout different policy periods in Laos. The paper highlights the centrality of farmers’ strategies in configuring the dynamic relationships between tenure (in)security and food (in)security, by demonstrating how farmers’ perceived and de facto land tenure insecurity shapes their decisions to diversify livelihood options to ensure food security.

This commentary highlights the importance of land tenure security for women and indigenous peoples. Land titles are often used as a proxy for women’s land security;but focusing on titling alone does not lead to greater tenure security for women. To ensure tenure security;the development community;policymakers and practitioners must expand the range of interventions that address constraints women face when exercising their land rights.

The Support to Responsible Agricultural Investments project (S2RAI) promotes internationally recognised principles and guidelines such as the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT), and Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI) to ensure food security and secure land tenure rights for communities in the context of large-scale commercial land investment as well as strengthen the institutional frameworks and coordination structures at federal and regional levels in relations to responsible agricultural investment in Ethiopia.

Effective reform pathways for addressing women’s access to land and tenure security in Africa are yet to be found despite their role in feeding the population. With the adoption of the AU Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges in Africa (2009) and the launch of the African Land Policy Centre (2017), hopes were high that existing precarious women’s access to land, tenure and food security might be transformed to opportunities. Prevailing discourses, however, still advocate for land reforms attuned to gender equality with a neo-classical chord.

La SNE Albanie est appuyée par des OSC, des députés, des établissements universitaires, la Banque mondiale et l’Agence suédoise de coopération internationale pour le développement. Le gouvernement la considère comme un point de référence crédible et digne de confiance, qu’il est possible de consulter sur les questions de gouvernance foncière et forestière. Comment la SNE Albanie y est-elle parvenue ?

This case study reviews available literature on the land tenure situation of women in Sierra Leone and analyses the impact of an FAO project in two rural villages in ensuring that women are better able to claim their customary rights to land.