Tanzania’s land reform from 1999 has been evaluated as among the most gender-sensitive of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. However there is a gap between the legal framework and what is happening on the ground. This paper analyses the challenges related to the protection of women’s rights to land in rural areas. It provides detailed information on reform implementation experiences so far by analysing a number of government and NGO interventions.

Starting in the 1990s, the Vietnamese state sought to expand and modernise the country’s urban system after four decades of anti-urban policies. This paper examines the reworking of the socialist land regime that followed from this shift. It begins by explaining how new legislation and institutions combined market and socialist principles to lure domestic enterprises into realising the state’s new urban ambitions. It then shows how this hybrid reordering of policy triggered local experiments with periurban land redevelopment and new forms of alliances between the state and private capital.

Het hoofddoel van China’s landbouw- en plattelandsbeleid is behoud van voedselzekerheid in eigen land en bijdragen aan de voedselzekerheid in de wereld door duurzaam gebruik van natuurlijke hulpbronnen en verbetering van de landbouwproductiecapaciteit voor de lange termijn. In veel gebieden in China gaat de landbouwproductiecapaciteit op lange termijn echter achteruit door intensieve landbouw en de daarmee gepaard gaande degradatie van de hulpbronnen land en water.

Keywords: Innovation system, Soil fertility management, Land reform, Participatory technology development, Social change, Agroforestry, Land access rights, Fallow, Agricultural intensification, Africa

This thesis deals with the politicized struggles for land in South Africa’s Limpopo Province. With land having been an essential part of colonial and apartheid segregation policies and practice – with 87% of land appropriated by whites –, a land reform programme was imperative after the African National Congress came to power in 1994. One of the three branches of the land reform programme, land restitution, is a key focus of this thesis.

This article highlights the continued significance of pre-capitalist formations in shaping the trajectory of economic transition in peripheral regions, even in an era of neo-liberal globalisation. There is a tendency for Marxist scholars to assume the inevitable “dominance” of capitalism over older modes of production. Using a case study from Nepal's far eastern Tarai, this paper seeks to understand the reproduction of feudal social relations in a region which is both accessible and integrated into regional and global markets.

Research and policy debates over natural resource management in developing countries have largely focused on identifying the set of institutions that best supports resource sustainability and poverty alleviation. We argue that beyond finding the right institutional fit for a social-ecological system, it is equally important to understand how context affects the design and outcomes of institutional reforms. We propose a refined conceptualisation of context, based on a revision of the Institutional Analysis and Development framework.