This paper discusses the role of FAO support to the Government of Mozambiques Land Commission since 1995, through three consecutive projects. While each has had a relatively short duration, all have been planned and implemented within a single conceptual framework with a much longer time horizon. This has allowed a difficult and complex issue to be progressively developed and nurtured within a realistic time scale, while building up a strong sense of national ownership of the process.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the economic effects of land reform policies in

Tajikistan on the country’s agricultural sector and rural households. There is a conspicuous

lack of evidence-based policy dialogue with the government on the effectiveness of land and

agricultural policies in Tajikistan. Though the majority of rural inhabitants live in poverty and

many are food insecure, a scientifically proper evaluation of the effects of land and farm

policy reforms has yet to be done. The present study is an attempt to fill this void by offering

The articles in this issue supplement the recent publication "Good governance in land tenure and administration" (Land Tenure Studies No. 9), which provides practical advice for land professionals on improving governance in a land administration system or other land tenure arrangement.

The papers contained in this issue have been selected from those presented at a series of workshops, held in 2002 in Hungary, Uganda, Mexico and Cambodia, that were organized by the World Bank jointly with the Department for International Development (DFID), the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and with FAO, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the African development Bank (AfDB), the European Union (EU), the International Land Coalition, Oxfam, and other bilateral an

The former socialist countries of Eastern Europe (that is, Europe east of Germany and west of the Urals, but including all of Russia) began a transition to a market economy in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. This paper looks at one aspect of that transition: the transition from state ownership to private ownership of agricultural land and the accompanying transition to a land market for agricultural land.

Issues relating to land and land reform have been moving up the agenda of rural poverty and food security in recent years with the increasing acceptance that the prerequisites for broad-based and equitable development include the essential need for people to have access to land and other natural resources. Access needs to be on an equitable basis allowing the poor and the disadvantaged, including women, to secure the assets needed for them and their families to generate sustainable livelihoods.

This article brings together key lessons from the Northern Cape Land Reform Project in which FARM-Africa works with the South African Government to support six poor Northern Cape communities that have benefited from the Government's Land Reform Programme.

Fil: Zyla, Ramón Argentino.