Contracts, Land Tenure and Rural Development in Timor-Leste

As in other societies in Southeast Asia
and the Pacific, customary social organization features
strongly in rural Timor-Leste. As well as providing avenues
for conflict resolution, the influence of customary systems
extends to land tenure. As the state, development partners,
private investors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
and others seek to promote rural development in Timor-Leste,
they will be forced to engage in some way with customary
ownership and use claims which prevail in the districts. A
further dimension of the subsistence nature of the
Timor-Leste economy is the fact that the use of contracts in
connection with agribusiness transactions is rare. This
presents a further challenge to the objective of increasing
private sector investment in the rural economy. Based on
field visits, this Justice for the Poor (J4P) briefing note
looks at the rural economy of Timor-Leste and considers
approaches that could help promote productive and equitable
relationships between communities and other rural
development partners and contribute to mutually beneficial
rural development outcomes.