Social forestry emerged amidst important changes in thinking about the role of forestry in rural development and a growing need for fuelwood. In an attempt to alleviate the fuelwood crisis, the World Bank encouraged the planting of Eucalyptus species in its social forestry programs in the 1980s. Eucalypts were the chosen tree species for the majority of social forestry projects because they survive on difficult sites and out-perform indigenous species and most other exotics in height and girth increment, producing wood for poles, pulp and fuel more rapidly.

There are many commendable successes with respect to relief, recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation to assist the earthquake affected districts of North West Frontier Province3 and Azad Kashmir. The same, however, cannot be said unambiguously about housing reconstruction. Partly, the obstacles are rooted in Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) rigid procedures. In many areas, though, housing reconstruction has also become mired in the traditional land tenure regime.

In this short, polemical article, the author argues that NGO advocacy groups are acting against the interests of the poor and of international development through unreasonable criticism of the World Bank and similar agencies. The author argues that, in a typical situation, the Bank designs a reasonable project, which inevitably has flaws. NGOs seize on these flaws and add a large sprinkling of inflammatory rhetoric.

These Country Profiles represent a new edition of a continent-wide set of profiles prepared and published by the Land Tenure Center in 1986. This new volume reflects a decade of intensive work on the continent by LTC and a very considerable deepening of knowledge and understanding of land tenure issues in Africa. It addresses events of the past ten years, which have been substantial in many of the countries covered. Land tenure continues to be a volatile policy domain. The standard topics from the earlier profiles have been revised to take into account new development concerns.

The current level of per capita production of rice in Bangladesh can be sustained only through increased yields of modern rice varieties.The recent growth of food grain (primarily rice) production in Bangladesh has outpaced population growth largely because of the spread of green revolution technology. The transition from being labeled a "basket case" in the early 1970s to the virtual elimination of rice imports in the early 1990s is particularly remarkable considering the severe land constraint in Bangladesh.

Report finds that land rights in Ethiopia are highly insecure, and higher tenure security and transferability could enhance investment and agricultural productivity. Trying to identify and implement measures to increase producers’ tenure security could have a large pay-off in terms of rural productivity and poverty reduction.The authors use a large data set from Ethiopia that differentiates tenure security and transferability to explore determinants of different types of land-related investment and its possible impact on productivity.

Mexican rural reform has questioned the role of the peasantry and private national producers in agriculture. The reform followed a neoliberal paradigm for incorporating the nation into the global village. As part of a government strategy, land reform in Mexico aims to change entrepreneurial and land tenure patterns in rural areas into an individual, private, large-scale, and capitalist productive structure, and the land market is vital in allowing the land transfers needed to change the land tenure pattern.

The central and southern regions of Malawi predominantly follow matrilineal succession and inheritance and practice uxorilocal marriages. Women, rather than men, own the primary land rights. Colonial government officials and some Eurocentric scholars have argued that the system of uxorilocal marriages and female ownership of land rights are inimical to agricultural development principally because men lose the motivation to make long term investments in land which does not belong to them.

Key findings and policy implications discussed in this document—Promoting Farm Investment for Sustainable Intensification of African Agriculture— include the following: Farmers are much more likely to invest in both productivity and land protection when they can produce cash crops. Livestock husbandry is a boon to farm investments, as it provides cash income, manure, and an insurance policy against crop failures. Land tenure insecurity, political instability, policy caprice, and wildly fluctuating farm prices dissuade investment.

Can land reform have a lasting impact on poverty reduction?

This article discusses the history of land reform in Namibia. The article indicates that at the time of writing (September 1991), it is still too early to comment on the implementation of land reform in Namibia, as it has not yet begun in earnest. Land policy has yet to be detailed and ratified, the institutions for implementing land reform and settlement programmes have to be appointed and in some cases created de novo, and large sums of money have to be found.

Those who led southern African states to independence promised to redress the inequalities of settler colonialism by returning the land to the people. A generation later the rural poor are still waiting. Many lack access and full rights to agricultural land and, as developments in Zimbabwe and South Africa show, they are getting angry. Where did post-independence land reform policy go wrong?