This report presents the results of a mixed-methods study on the role of customary land documentation in strengthening Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE). The overarching purpose was to help fill critical knowledge gaps on if and how strengthening women’s land rights via formalized customary land documentation affects their empowerment and economic growth, with a specific focus on women’s access to credit and other financial services, land investments and income opportunities.

This report presents the results of a mixed-methods study on the role of customary land documentation in strengthening Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE). The overarching purpose was to help fill critical knowledge gaps on if and how strengthening women’s land rights via formalized customary land documentation affects their empowerment and economic growth, with a specific focus on women’s access to credit and other financial services, land investments and income opportunities.

The formalization of community forest tenure rights is expected to promote sustainable community forest management, and is seen as a way to combine objectives related to environmental conservation, livelihood improvement, and local self-determination. However, the formalization of forest tenure rights by itself, does not automatically result in the intended impacts. There is a need to better understand the conditions under which communities are able to use these rights to achieve positive outcomes across multiple dimensions.

The history of land rights in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), hereafter referred to as Laos,  is a history of customary land tenure systems which remain the most prevalent form of land tenure. As social systems, land tenure systems in Laos have been affected by and have adapted to external forces such as neighboring kingdoms, colonialization, geopolitics and war, migration, and global economic trends. Ongoing rapid changes in national socioeconomic conditions and domestic political goals continue to alter the customary tenure landscape.

O presente artigo parte da experiência de delimitação de terras comunitárias, em Cóbuè, província do Niassa, para analisar a interface entre as lideranças tradicionais e os sistemas costumeiros de terras, em Moçambique, enquadrando os debates sobre terra e território, posse e propriedade da terra, bem como os encontros com a história territorial, os impactos das transformações, da legislação e da demanda por terras.

O presente artigo parte da experiência de delimitação de terras comunitárias, em Cóbuè, província do Niassa, para analisar a interface entre as lideranças tradicionais e os sistemas costumeiros de terras, em Moçambique, enquadrando os debates sobre terra e território, posse e propriedade da terra, bem como os encontros com a história territorial, os impactos das transformações, da legislação e da demanda por terras.

Redressing land dispossession in the aftermath of violent conflicts is daunting and complex. While land dispute resolution and restitution are expected to promote return migration, this outcome is contingent upon the changing social, economic and political conditions under which return takes place. Drawing on qualitative data from Makamba Province in southern Burundi, this case study highlights the politically and historically shaped challenges underlying the resolution of competing and overlapping claims on land following protracted displacement.

The Shashamane rural district was selected as a target area and corridor of large-scale agriculture investment (LSAI) to produce surplus agricultural products and ensure local development by the state and private (domestic and foreign) investors. Shalo–Melega private LSAI projects started operation in 2008 in the Shashamane rural district. This farm project comprises a crop production site, construction of a road, a crop storage facility, and developing irrigation in a total of about 24,710.51 acres of land along the central Rift Valley basin, for long-term leases.

National Land Coalitions (NLCs) work towards the recognition, defence, protection and redistribution of land rights at national level. They build upon frameworks on land tenure developed and agreed by different regional and intergovernmental institutions. Platforms are at the heart of protecting and preserving community and customary lands which constitute the major category of landholding in Africa.

This paper highlights how farmers in a northern Lao village transformed their customary land rights – in the face of incoherent overlapping state territorialization attempts – into a territorial strategy to secure their land tenure. By planting rubber, some villagers have engaged in a crop boom to lay claim to land which has recently been zoned for upland rice cultivation (and conservation) as part of a state-led land use planning initiative.

No último boletim SIRAD I de 2021, apresentamos os resultados do mape amento de desmatamento detectados durante este período dentro dos territórios dos povos isolados. O ritmo de desmatamento descreceu em 15 % em relação ao ano passado, entretanto não temos motivos parar comemorar, pois as causas/motores que incentivam a invasão ilegal dessas terras continua forte. A maioria dos alertas de 2021 se concentraram dentro das Terras Indígenas Piripkura, Uru- Eu-Wau-Wau, Arariboia e Munduruku.

In this introductory video to the Global Programme Responsible Land Policy answers are given to what it wants to achieve, how it works and why land rights are so important. The Global Programme is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), co-funded by the European Union and works in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Laos, Madagascar, Peru (completed in 2021), Uganda and Paraguay (completed in 2018).