At the core of the very rapid growth in the number of urban dwellers living in illegal settlements is the gap between the cost or availability of legal land sites on which housing can be built and what most individuals or households can afford to pay for accommodation. For most cities, the problems are further exacerbated by the high spatial concentration of economic activities (and thus employment opportunities). This paper looks at the many ways in which governments can increase the supply and lower the cost of land for housing.

This issue brief first examines the causes of land-related conflict, then examines how the issues and opportunities change through the conflict cycle: before, during and after violent conflict. This approach gives less attention to staples of the post-conflict land literature such as restitution and dispute management, but provides a more robust understanding of the longer-term challenges that are typically addressed by development rather than relief agencies.
Release Date: Wednesday, March 27, 2013File:  Land Disputes and Land Conflict

Insecure land tenure and property rights for women can contribute to the spread of HIV and to a weakened ability to cope with the consequences of AIDS. Land is a critical asset for the rural poor, and in most countries, men hold the rights to and control over land. As a result, women are often economically dependent on men, do not have secure fallback positions, and, therefore, have very little bargaining power.
Release Date: Monday, May 20, 2013File:  Land Tenure, Property Rights, and HIV/AIDS

The heads of four Rome-based agencies write about the opportunities to align food security initiatives and sustainable development as part of the Rio+20 agenda in a recent post to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs blog, Global Food For Thought. The article mentions the importance of strong tenure systems and notes that countries can use the Voluntary Guidelines for reference in drafting land and other resource administration laws.

In a recent New York Times op-ed Roy Prosterman and Darryl Vhugen of the U.S. NGO Landesa highlight some of what Myanmar’s government will need to do to promote sustainable growth in the country. It certainly needs to attract investment and at first blush things look very encouraging: a variety of investors are interested in a number of projects – particularly building out infrastructure.

Last week, the United States hosted the 2012 Intercessional meetings of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS). The KPCS is a voluntary process that diamond producing and diamond buying countries agree to, in order to prevent ‘conflict diamonds’ from entering the market. Ambassador Milovanovic and the State Department serve as the chair for activities this year; however, USAID is playing a role due to the increasing emphasis on development as a critical component to successful implementation of the KPCS.

Millions of people emigrate every year
in search of better economic and social opportunities.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that emigrants may have
over-optimistic expectations about the incomes they can earn
abroad, resulting in excessive migration pressure, and in
disappointment among those who do migrate. Yet there is
almost no statistical evidence on how accurately these
emigrants predict the incomes that they will earn working

Finds that food insecurity has clearly contributed to outbreaks of social unrest or worse, while conflict has induced situations of food insecurity. The factors of population growth, competitive pressure on land and water use, climate change, and price volatility tend to increase stress, raising the risk of civil unrest or conflict. The most fragile countries often have the least capability to respond, falling victim to the vicious circle of conflict and food insecurity.

This background paper attempts to expand our understanding of the gender-differentiated impact of shocks on assets through a literature review on shocks and gendered asset dynamics and an analysis of new panel data (2007 and 2009) from Uganda and Bangladesh looking at the impact of negative shocks and positive events on men's and women's assets. We take advantage of detailed assets and shocks modules to disaggregate the type of shock between covariate and idiosyncratic shocks and types of assets according to ownership (joint, husband's, and wife's assets).

'Access' is primarily a gendered phenomenon in the developing countries, pertaining to all the subsets of access, i.e. access to information, rights, land, money, education, skills, political participation and voice. It thus becomes incumbent upon the policy makers and development practitioners to shred down the details of these 'constrained accesses' to truly empower women. This study highlights the ways in which constrained (daily) mobility i.e. the element of physical access to different facilities bears upon the issue of women empowerment.

The authors are grateful to a number of people who helped at various states in the drafting of this paper.

Provides a brief assessment of how natural resource scarcity and global climate change may alter the risk of violent conflict in the future. Resource scarcity to meet basic needs such as food and land and water can be worsened by governmental ineffectiveness, and vulnerability of populations, ecosystems, economies, and institutions can outweigh the magnitude of climate or scarcity impacts themselves. Resource availability must be seen not as a stand-alone issue, but rather in the context of the overall political economy landscape.