Land consolidation can be an important tool for increasing agricultural competitiveness and improving rural conditions. Farmers can become more competitive when they decrease fragmentation and increase the size of their farms, and rural communities can benefit when consolidation projects include components to improve local infrastructure and the environment.

Throughout the rural world, land provides a primary source of income, food security, cultural

identity and shelter. It also serves as a fundamental asset for the economic empowerment of

the poor and provides a safety net in times of hardship.

This technical report is one of a series of reports prepared during the of the course of the FAO/UNOP project (ETH/02/012) preparing the Assistance to Settlement Project Phase IV.

This study attempts to identify the main obstacles to progress and the developments possible. It would therefore be wrong to consider it as a first agricultural plan for Africa, similar to the one called for recently by the Ghanaian Ministry of Agriculture.

This paper focuses on East Africa: development trends and problems. The East African sub-region onglobes a total area of about 5.5 million kilometers or about 18 percent of the continent’s area.

The paper deals with land tenure and economic development in Upper Volta. .The entire country lies within the savannah zone which runs down West Africa, from Cape Verde, to Chad, from the Saharan. Sahel in the North to the forest zones bordering the Atlantic in the South.

The objectives of the Centre were to give an opportunity to officers of credit institutions and policy makers in the fields of agricultural credit, including cooperative and supervised credit, and in agricultural development programming in Africa to exchange views and experiences, to examine the needs for credit facilities' for farmers and the kind of facilities likely to be most effective.

This paper focuses on the statistical field survey in Ghana office of the government statistician. Sample investigations in Ghana have shown a steady expansion, but it is only recently that it has been possible to propose plans for developing them as a permanent part of the statistics organization.