Land Degradation Neutrality is a new way of approaching land degradation that acknowledges that land and land-based ecosystems are affected by global environmental change as well as by local land use practices. Achieving the target of a land degradation neutral world encourages adaptive management during planning, implementation, and monitoring of LDN-related activities and follows the LDN response hierarchy of avoiding, reducing, and reversing land degradation.

In advance of the release of the World Bank’s 2019 Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) report;the Oakland Institute exposes the Bank’s new scheme to privatize land in the developing world. It details how the Bank’s prescribed reforms;via a new land indicator in the EBA project;promotes large-scale land acquisitions and the expansion of agribusinesses in the developing world. Initiated as a pilot in 38 countries in 2017;the land indicator is expected to be expanded to 80 countries in 2019. The project is funded by the US and UK governments and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

This primer provides an introduction to some of the key issues that arise in the negotiation of contracts linked to investments in agriculture, and practical guidance for how to approach common issues. First, it outlines the typical goals of three important stakeholders – the government, companies, and communities who live on or near land on which a project will take place – along with the risks that each type of stakeholder faces. Then, it discusses the role of contracts and lawyers, provides tips for negotiations, and includes resources for further reading.

The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) call for governments to clearly define the term ‘public purpose’ to allow for judicial review of the goals of expropriations of property. However, recent research indicates that national-level legal frameworks that govern expropriation decision-making not only vary greatly from country to country but also often fail to comply with the VGGT standards on expropriation. This creates the potential for unpredictable and, in some cases, arbitrary applications of expropriation law in practice.

In fulfillment of his manifesto promise to the people of Malen Chiefdom, Pujehun district  and in consonance with the new direction government's determination to tend to the needs and aspirations of its people generally and to promote foreign direct investment, in a peaceful just and inclusive society, His Excellency the president ,Retired Bragadier Dr. Julius Maada Bio, commissioned a mediation committee, headed by no less a person, than the Honourable Vice President Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh,   on the recurrent land dispute in Malen Chiefdom Pujehun district.

This paper analysed land governance and crop commercialization in Nigeria. General Household Survey (Living Standard Measurement Survey) panel data for the post-planting and post-harvest periods of 2015 and 2016 cropping seasons were used. Descriptive statistics, Crop Commercialization Index (CCI) and Tobit regression model were used to analyse data.

This document is the Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF) for the second Lao Road Sector Project Additional Financing (LRSP2-AF, AF, or the Project) and is being proposed for possible financing from the World Bank (WB). The proposed Project (LRSP2-AF) builds on the achievements of the second Lao Road Sector Project (LRSP2) and is being prepared to support the Government of Lao PDR (GoL) in the management of the Lao road network. The Project will finance civil works in the form of routine and periodic maintenance and spot improvement to strengthen road climate resilient.

Land restitution carries implicit recognition of some previous claim to ownership, but when are first claims recognized? The concepts of first possession and original acquisition have long been used as entry points to Western concepts of property. For Austronesia, the concept of precedence is used in customary systems to justify and describe land claims and Indigenous authority. Conflict and political change in Timor-Leste have highlighted the co-existence of multiple understandings of land claims and their legitimacy.

Uganda’s oil and gas sector has transitioned from the exploration phase to the development phase in preparation for oil production (the operations phase). The extraction, processing, and distribution of oil require a great deal of infrastructure, which demands considerable acquisition of land from communities surrounding project sites. Here, we examine the social impacts of project land acquisition associated with oil production in the Albertine Graben region of Uganda.

We examine collaborations between the state and civil society in the context of land grabbing in Argentina. Land grabbing provokes many governance challenges, which generate new social arrangements. The incentives for, limitations to, and contradictions inherent in these collaborations are examined. We particularly explore how the collaborations between the provincial government of Santiago del Estero and non-government organizations (NGOs) played out. This province has experienced many land grabs, especially for agriculture and livestock production.

Post-war societies not only have to deal with continuing unpeaceful relations but also land-related conflict legacies, farmland and forest degradation, heavily exploited natural resources, land mines, a destroyed infrastructure, as well as returning refugees and ex-combatants. In the aftermath of war, access to and control of land often remains a sensitive issue which may precipitate tensions and lead to a renewed destabilization of volatile post-conflict situations.

This manual illustrates a monitoring scheme for monitoring large-scale agricultural investments. It aims at providing orientation for establishing a monitoring scheme and implementing monitoring activities in the framework of LSAI with the collaboration of the authorities responsible for leasing out land to agricultural investors and supervising related activities. While focused on Ethiopia, it will be a useful resource for other countries too.