This study briefly summarizes the development experiences of special economic zones in China and Africa, the lessons that Africa can learn from China, and the preliminary results of the Chinese investments in special economic zones in Africa. The study makes recommendations on how to unleash the power of special economic zones and industrial zones in Africa through strategically leveraging the Chinese experiences.

The North Eastern Region (NER) in India is endowed with rich energy resources but faces significant bottlenecks in electricity access and availability levels. The per capita power consumption in NER is one-third of the national average. The region has a shortfall of about 500MW installed capacity against peak demand of about 1950 MW. No significant generation capacity has been added in the recent past. Therefore, inadequate power supply continues a critical constraint to sustainable growth and economic development in the NER.

In celebration of this year's Earth Day, we sat down with World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Chris Weaver over Skype to discuss the links between secure land and resource rights and WWF's conservation work in Namibia. Mr. Weaver has been the director of WWF’s Namibia program since 1993, providing guidance and assistance to Namibian partner organizations in the development of one of the world’s most highly regarded community conservation programs. During the discussion, Mr. Weaver shared four key ingredients to achieve positive conservation outcomes:

Each quarter we will interview an expert whose work touches on aspects of land tenure and resource management. These will include evaluation specialists, country experts or USAID staff.
Our first interview is with Dr. Lauren Persha, Assistant Professor in Department of Geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Persha is a member of the core research team of the Impact Evaluation of USAID’s Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC) project in Zambia. The Impact Evaluation team’s work was presented at this year’s World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty.

USAID works to improve land and resource governance and strengthen property rights for all members of society, especially women. Currently, USAID is working in 24 countries on land tenure issues and has committed US $300 million to these programs.

Based on more than 240 real-life
examples in over 60 countries, Developing Value is the first
large-scale study analyzing the business case for
sustainability in emerging markets, the opportunity for
businesses to achieve benefits such as higher sales, reduced
costs and lower risks from better corporate governance,
improved environmental practices, and investments in social
and economic development. It pinpoints the many

This paper quantifies the misallocation of manufacturing output and factors of production between establishments across Indian districts during 1989-2010. It first distills a number of stylized facts about misallocation in India, and demonstrates the validity of misallocation metrics by connecting them to regulatory changes in India that affected real property. With this background, the study next quantifies the implications and determinants of factor and output misallocation.

With the Minister of Public Works in attendance, the Deputy Minister gave a briefing on the Expropriation Bill (B4-2015). He said that expropriation is an essential mechanism for the state to acquire property in certain instances. Section 25 of the Constitution provides that property may be expropriated only in terms of general application and to that no law may permit arbitrary deprivation of property. The Constitution states that expropriation may occur only for a public purpose or in the public interest and subject to payment of compensation.

Guest commentary by Amanda Richardson, Resource Equity, and Ailey Kaiser Hughes, Landesa.
A growing body of evidence shows a correlation between gender-based violence (GBV) and land rights. Awareness of the possible GBV implications of land interventions is critical to understanding impacts on women.

Tim Fella, Land Tenure and Conflict Advisor - USAID, moderating the panel discussion.

Despite numerous studies on townships, research into township economies and related commercial real estate markets is limited. The majority of studies refer to the economy only as part of a broader discussion about other themes such as housing. And, while the information in these studies is useful, it is not captured and discussed within an overarching conceptual framework, which would allow the relationships and causal factors that shape and drive such economies to be understood. 

From colonial to modern times, Brazilian agricultural property has remained immersed in a chaotic vortex of deregulation. Attempts of institutional reform - such as the Lei de Terras (Land Law) of 1850 - have been largely unsuccessful, whilst providing legal grounds for land grab by large estates and narrowing the scope of possibilities open for legitimate reevaluations of the first institutional landmark on land use and ownership in the country - the sesmarias.