Increasingly, geospatial web applications such as www.fixmystreet.com or www.seeclickfix.com are being integrated within citizen participation processes in spatial planning and the provision of communal services. Recently, several of these platforms have been launched in Latin America and other countries of the Global South.

Increasingly, geospatial web applications such as www.fixmystreet.com or www.seeclickfix.com are being integrated within citizen participation processes in spatial planning and the provision of communal services. Recently, several of these platforms have been launched in Latin America and other countries of the Global South.

In 2014 the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing took effect and is being implemented by countries. This is important for fair and equitable sharing of benefits derived from genetic resources. However, scientists are concerned about its effect on non-commercial research, which has scientific, societal and environmental benefits beyond commercial gains. Such research may be delayed by cumbersome procedures and hampered by poor understanding of its scientific purposes and research requirements.

In many developing countries, smartphone and internet usage has become a revolution for the population and has opened up many possibilities to use new services for communication purposes. For researchers and development organizations, it is now possible to engage more directly with beneficiaries during the implementation phase of a project. However, many regions still face the problem of a non-existent or unreliable internet connection, which is why mobile applications have to be able to work offline as well as online.

Contributes to the research gap on host country governance dynamics by synthesizing results and lessons from 38 case studies conducted in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia. It shows how and why large-scale farmland investments are often synonymous with displacement, dispossession, and environmental degradation and, thereby, highlights 7 outcome determinants that merit more explicit treatment in academic and policy discourse.

Training volunteers to help their communities defend their land rights has proved an effective approach for promoting land justice in Tanzania. Report documents how Hakiardhi, a Dar-es-Salaam based research institute working on land governance issues, has established and trained a 600-strong network of male and female ‘Land Rights Monitors’ (LRMs) operating in 300 villages on various aspects of the land law, so they can help people and local governments to exercise and ensure respect for their legal rights in land disputes, particularly in relation to large-scale agricultural investments.

In addition to global events and food policy changes, 2015 also saw important developments with potentially wide repercussions in individual countries and regions. This chapter offers perspectives on major food policy developments across the major regions: Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

The aim of the research was to analyse the urbanized landscape change in Vilnius district. The study covers the period between the years 2009 and 2014. The study used to perform statistical, literary and comparative analysis, inventory, data systematization, graphic modelling and logical abstract methods. The results showed that during the analysed period the urbanized areas of agricultural land increased the most, these areas have increased by 593.26 hectares (30 percent of the total built-up area).

Modern agriculture development possibilities are highly dependent on many factors, including those which are related to the parameters of land spatial structure (including parcels fragmentation and parameters related to their shape). In particular, unfavourable shape of parcels in combination with their small sizes is the most common reason for non-profitability of agricultural production. It is one of the major causes of land abandonment. South Poland is the area of high diversification in terms of the landform, soil quality and spatial structure parameters.