One of the guiding mandates within the FAO Constitution is the following: “The Organization shall promote and, where appropriate, shall recommend national and international action with respect to: … the conservation of natural resources and the adoption of improved methods of agricultural production ...”. In many African countries, in addition to low yields, food production is limited by the availability of land and water resources.

La globalización y la localización, entendidas como la integración a la economíamundial y la crecienda demanda de autonomía local, son identificadas como las dosfuerzas que, en la actualidad, más influyen en la forma que adopta el desarrollo en cadasociedad (The World Bank, 1999) Las ciudades adquieren indiscutiblemente un nuevoprotagonismo, con una tendencia cada vez mayor a que sean centro de decisiones, deestrategias propias, de políticas innovadoras, artífices de relaciones comerciales punto apunto sin intermediación de jurisdicciones provinciales o nacionales (Batley, 1998;Daughters, 1

What evidence is there of gender inequalities in life outcomes between women and men? This report provides facts and figures that expose gender inequalities, providing evidence of the need to engender development. It offers an insight into the available gender statistics in the following areas: poverty, health, access to resources, education, globalisation, governance, conflicts and emergencies, and human rights. The Beijing Platform for Action (1995) highlighted the different needs of women and men, girls and boys.

As in most low-income countries, the majority of the poor population in Viet Nam is found in rural areas, where agriculture provides the primary means of livelihood. It has been argued that an agriculture-based development (ABD) strategy is more appropriate for Viet Nam at the present time than both import-substitution and export-led industrialization, considering its effectiveness in generating income opportunities, directly and indirectly, for the rural population.

Reviews recent practices relating to displacement, resettlement, rehabilitation and development of people negatively affected by the construction of dams, in order to locate the global experiences in dam induced displacement and understand the socio-political context of displacement and resettlement. Further, the assessment focuses on how legal and regulatory instruments facilitating displacement and involuntary resettlement have performed in safeguarding the rights of affected people.

This paper initially highlights the general characteristics of rangelands and pastoral production systems of the Tibetan Plateau.The article finds that:given the realities of life in a heterogeneous and marginal environment, the issue of secure resource tenure, both customary and legal, is fundamental for effective rangeland managementa simple shift in tenure from the communal (traditional and subsistence) to individual household level (ranching and commercial) will not be enough to facilitate a change in behaviour toward "rational" livestock operationsmany institutional mechanisms must be

This case study deals with the South African government policies for restitution and redistribution of land to people in rural areas who were deprived of it due to racially discriminatory laws and practice. Its main focus is on how the interactions between civil society and the state in the several phases of land reform through the 1990s reflect some key issues of governance, eg.

Describes the main features of the new Eritrean land law and its operative assumption that the legislation is meant to extend state control over land.The legal devices employed by the law are widely used in sub-Saharan Africa (and were largely inspired by colonial policies). The State of Eritrea frequently asserts that its recent independence gives it the opportunity to learn from other developing countries' mistakes and to avoid them.The basic patterns of the new land law, however, are common to the rest of Africa, notwithstanding the evident poor results.

Looks at location, natural resources, and different policies toward the elite's preemption of unused land shaped the historical development of different agrarian structures across Southeast Asia, conditioning agricultural growth performance until today.Aims to give a broad perspective on the process by which different agrarian structures developed in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, along different historical paths under different ecological conditions.

Between March 1997 and February 1998 three tests of Criteria and Indicators (C&I) for assessing the sustainability of community-managed forests were conducted by the Center for International Forestry Research. The tests, each lasting approximately one month, were sited in humid forest in Central Province, Cameroon; Sanggau, West Kalimantan, Indonesia; and in the Arapiuns river basin, Para, Brazil.

Developments in the international institutional context and in the capacity of governments to ensure sustainable forest management in Central Africa lead to new approaches to participatory management being explored. The author reviews current initiatives in this field in Congo Brazzaville, Gabon, Cameroon, Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea. Such initiatives are still in an experimental stage and aim at answering issues linked with conventional forest management as well as meeting prerequisites imposed by international organisations for granting aid to development.