Latin American cities have been leaders in the implementation of bus rapid transit (BRT) systems—a transportation mode often characterised by infrastructure improvements that prioritise transit over other vehicles and allow quick vehicle access.

Urban LandMark visited DFID London from 12 to 13 November 2012 to present the organisation' s recent work on and approach to improving access to urban land and property rights.The main objective of the visit was to showcase Urban LandMark's work, impact and lessons learnt over the last seven years to a broader, more global audience, as well as to a larger audience within DFID, Urban LandMark's main funder over the past six years.

Read more at http://www.urbanlandmark.org.za/newsletter/issue/0801/04.php

WASHINGTON, July 22, 2013—Africa is home to nearly half of the world’s usable uncultivated land, some 202 million hectares that can be brought under the plow. Yet it has the highest poverty rate in the world. The continent’s poor development record suggests it has not leveraged its abundant agricultural land and natural resources to generate shared and sustained growth.

Scaling-Up Progress

WASHINGTON, 22 juillet 2013—L’Afrique possède près de la moitié de toutes les terres utilisables non cultivées de la planète. Ce sont environ 202 millions d’hectares qui pourraient être ainsi exploités. Elle affiche pourtant le niveau de pauvreté le plus élevé du monde. Ses piètres performances sur le front du développement suggèrent qu’elle n’a pas tiré parti de ses abondantes terres agricoles et ressources naturelles pour enclencher une croissance partagée et soutenue.

Intensifier les progrès

Women’s access to, use of and control over land and other productive resources are essential to ensuring their right to equality and to an adequate standard of living. Throughout the world, gender inequality when it comes to land and other productive resources is related to women’s poverty and exclusion.

When women hold land title in rural Vietnam, their households are more prosperous, poverty is less and capital investment levels higher than in households where a man holds sole title, new research has found.

While family economic security improves under private land titling regardless of gender, the benefits are more marked when a woman’s name is on the document than only a man’s, researchers at Rutgers and Brandeis University found.

Agricultural investments create risks as well as opportunities, for instance The Case Study of Integrated Tamale Fruit Company (2013) In recent years, Ghana has witnessed increased interest from private companies in developing agricultural investments. This trend is common to many lower/middle income countries.

A Case Study of Selected Agricultural Investments in Northern Tanzania (2013)

For early reports, see FAO’s Corporate Document Repository

The gender and equity implications of land-related investments on land access and labour and income-generating opportunities

>> A case study of selected agricultural Investments in LAO PDR (2013)

In recent years, Zambia has witnessed increased interest from private investors in acquiring land for agriculture. As elsewhere, large-scale land acquisitions are often accompanied with promises of capital investments to build infrastructure, bring new technologies and know-how, create employment, and improve market access, among other benefits

A Case Study of Selected Agricultural Investments in Zambia (2013) 

China’s land policy has been in the news frequently over the last few weeks, since the Chinese government announced it will reform its land policy in the wake of the Third Plenum last November.

For those who do not know the Chinese land system follows a brief introduction: