Although many African countries have adopted highly innovative and pro-poor land laws, lack of implementation hinders their potentially far-reaching impact on productivity, poverty reduction, and governance. To assess the effects of these pro-poor land laws and analyse whether the existing doubts are justified, this report draws on the experience of Ethiopia which, over a period of 2-3 years, registered the majority of rural lands in a rapid process at rather low cost.

This is a desk appraisal of the Alliances for Religions and Conservations (ARC) done for the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) by the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Noragric, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).

With examples from throughout Southern Africa, this paper examines the objectives, impetus, importance, principles and important elements of a land policythe policy development process and policy implementationthe relevance of a national land policy for Uganda and emerging lessons [author]Paper presented at the Uganda Land Alliance Workshop on Land Tenure and Land Use Policy, Kampala, Uganda

An overlap in the regulation of access to land and resources between customary and state management systems is causing problems of contradiction and conflict. This report analyses the pros and cons of both systems and makes a series of recommendations.State administration of land is found to have worked against poorer elements in Ghana. Whilst the Lands Commission and other institutions have made some positive achievements there is no evidence of practical benefits for the majority. Compulsory acquisition has resulted in displacement, landlessness and social unrest.

A useful debate is developing over carrying capacity and the degradation of communal rangelands in sub-Saharan Africa. With a few lonely exceptions, scientists and policy-makers have in the past claimed that degradation is universal and livestock productivity lowered because of overstocking on communal range. This position has been mainly dogmatic. More recent research has not supported dogmatists; hence the debate, which impinges on livestock development policy in Botswana.A new livestock development policy is being promoted by the Government of Botswana (Ministry of Agriculture 1991).

Land degradation in the Philippines is a serious environmental problem with long-term implications for the sustainability of agricultural production. Protection of the resource base has thus become a policy priority, whether in terms of improving crop management in the lowlands or more urgently, arresting soil erosion in the uplands. This review aims to compile and evaluate estimates of the costs of land degradation; then analyze the costs, benefits, and equity implications of priority measures to protect soil resources; and lastly, draw implications for policy.

The Kumasi peri-urban area is characterised by high rates of conversion of agricultural land to private housing. Kumasi, Ghana, is also situated across a major drainage divide, resulting in a range of water quality and supply problems. Collaborative DFID-funded research by Royal Holloway, University of London, with government and NGO partners in Ghana, aims to develop and pilot a sustainable co-management approach to peri- urban watersheds.

Based on worldwide experience and encouraging evidence from country pilots in African countries such as Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania,and Uganda, this new report suggests a series of ten steps that may help to revolutionise agricultural production and eradicate poverty in Africa. These steps include improving tenure security over individual and communal lands, increasing land access and tenure for poor and vulnerable families, resolving land disputes, managing better public land, and increasing efficiency and transparency in land administration services. 

This report discusses the potential benefits of, and the current challenges for, agricultural land investment in Tanzania and Mozambique. The paper finds that there is little, if any, development potential in these investments. Indeed, the economic growth potential of investments in agricultural land is questionable due to an inadequate regulatory framework governing foreign direct investments (FDI) in the sector.

This article begins with an investigation into woodland management in Mali and moves onto a discussion of some of the fundamental practical problems associated with a major part of forest policy in Mali.

Angola, like Mozambique, inherited its legal framework from the Portuguese Civil Code, which was not based on a traditional African concept of community occupation under customary law. With Portuguese settlement, large areas of land were appropriated for and incorporated into the colonial cadastre (the formally surveyed and officially recorded land boundaries of the land concessions granted by the state). After winning independence from Portugal in 1975 the new Angolan government, influenced by socialist principles, affirmed the constitutional role of the state as the owner of all land.

Built on earlier quantitative assessment of the socio-economic drivers of the above changes, this paper focuses on the role of national level policies implemented in the area over the past decades, and how these have affected the traditional institutional setting that determines land use, property rights and pathways of livestock development.The paper uses a literature review combined with in-depth key informant and group interviews to identify key policies and interventions, assess their impacts and explore the responses and strategies adopted at both individual and community levels to cop