In countries where a large proportion of the total land area is held customarily, reform questions around land and development often tend to focus on the customary estate. Evidence from Solomon Islands suggests that a focus on public land holdings, even when they are relatively small in land area, can yield outsized benefits. Publicly owned land regularly includes economically valuable land and urban land on which development pressure is high. In Solomon Islands, as much as 10 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) may be affected by how effectively urban public land is governed.

Review comprises an introduction and country surveys of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Reflects on countries’ experiences up to the first part of 2010 and highlights lessons for land policy and practice.

This report provides an overview of the conflict in Loliondo, reviewing historical information, current land uses and tenure arrangements. 

Agricultural investments made by developing countries and multilateral development banks (MDBs) have declined in recent decades. This decline is associated with a slowdown in the growth of agriculture productivity. Most development institutions have recognized the damage caused by this past neglect, in part evident in rising food prices, and renewed attention to agriculture and agribusiness is emerging. But this renewed interest will need to deliver results, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the MDBs have had the least success but where the needs and opportunities are enormous.

The lack of balanced development where economic, social and environmental dimensions are given due consideration for long term sustainable development has led the international community to consider different paradigms of development. The multiple challenges to development in Africa have necessitated the use of a holistic approach that integrates economic, social and environmental dimensions, and generates new knowledge, policies and actions.

In the paper short data on the results of implementation of pilot land consolidation projects in 6 villages of the Republic of Moldova in 2007-2009 are presented. As a result it became possible to accumulate the experience necessary for extension of these works in scales of all country. Simultaneously a number of difficulties and problems have been identified. It will be difficult to realize these works without elimination of them.

This article estimates the poverty reducing impact of the recent land reforms and land transfers in the different land tenure systems of Uganda. Using balanced panel data for 309 households in 2001, 2003, and 2005, models that control for unobserved household heterogeneity and endogeneity of land acquisition and disposition are employed to measure the poverty-reduction effect of land on household expenditure per adult equivalent. Significant poverty reduction effects of increased land access in form of owned, operated and market-accessed land were found.

The caste system is an intricate part of the institutional structure as well as class formation, political instability and conflicts in Nepal. The most severely discriminated group in the caste system is the Dalits, the so-called “untouchables”. Dalits faced religious, occupational and even, territorial discrimination. They were traditionally excluded from receiving education, using public resources, and had no rights to own land.

The question of land and agrarian reform has become the most pertinent post-conflict agenda at this historical juncture while the country is undergoing a restructuring process. State restructuring is about the restructuring of the economic and political power. In Nepal, the land ownership pattern still determines the economic prosperity, social status and the political power of any individual or family. Therefore, the question of land and agrarian reform has been so critical issue at this point of time.

Land, and its proper management, is a central issue in developing countries. Efficient use and management of land are key contributors to maximizing the potential benefits of sustainable socioeconomic development. Accurate and accessible land information is a necessary requirement for sustainable rural and urban development, which will contribute to the elimination of poverty. A well-functioning land market is crucial for achieving these goals and a prerequisite for a land market to function properly includes easy, rapid and cost-effective access to land information.

This paper aims to describe the status of land reform in Cambodia by looking at the background information, general approaches and basic types of land reform from the world’s views and experience, and the efforts taken thus far on land reform in Cambodia. The paper also reflects on key elements, principles, good and bad experiences, innovations, achievements and challenges around the issues of Cambodia’s land reform.