ABSTRACTED FROM THE SUMMARY: The impact of land titles on social and economic development and poverty reduction in the rural sector can be optimized by targeting land-titling efforts in areas where government agencies, NGOs, and private investors are actively engaged. The benefits for disadvantaged households can also be increased by policies that specifically link land-titling efforts to pro-poor development objectives.

SUMMARY: Deforestation has become an issue of increasing concern in many tropical countries. In Vietnam, the response of policymakers has been embodied in several policies and programs, including land classification, land use rights devolution and reforestation schemes. Understanding how these state initiatives have affected the farmer’s land use decisions is essential to further guide policymakers in developing national planning strategies.

TAKEN FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This report documents the contemporary ecological, social and economic transformations occurring in one village in Lao PDR’s central Khammouane province under multiple sources of development-induced displacement. Rural development policy in Laos is focused on promoting rapid rural modernisation, to be achieved through foreign direct investments in two key resource sectors: hydropower and plantations.

This paper is part of a collection of five policy briefs was commissioned by the World Bank for the 2009 World Development Report Reshaping Economic Geography. Through relocation policies, the Government of Lao PDR seeks to transform what it considers to be a traditional, rural economy into a modernised market-oriented system by eradicating shifting cultivation, changing the way that land is allocated and by reaching communities.

Over the last two decades, several seed-related programs have been initiated in eastern Kenya to improve farmers’ access to quality seeds of dryland cereals and legumes. They are provided during two occasions, regular and emergency times. But very often, the formal supply mechanisms limit their role in provision of seeds other than maize. In the absence of any formalized systems of seed provision for other dryland crops, such as sorghum and pigeon pea, farmers have preferred local markets for their seed needs, especially during distress periods.

This participatory poverty assessment (PPA 2006) comprises one component of ADB’s Technical Assistance to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic for Institutional Strengthening for Poverty Monitoring and Evaluation. The goal of this PPA, as with the first PPA in 2000, is to complement the statistical analyses of poverty in a meaningful way and to record the experiences and concerns of the poor in order to initiate and identify more effective forms of public and private actions to alleviate poverty.

The paper documents how the implementation of the land tenure policy of the Vietnamese government has affected the agricultural system, livelihood strategies and food self-sufficiency of Thai farmers in a remote upland village, Que, in Nghe An Province, North Central Vietnam. It is shown that the enforcement of restrictions on the area under swidden agriculture has resulted in a strong reduction of swidden agriculture production and shortened fallow periods, not compensated for by the slow increase in paddy rice production.

De presentatie van posters van WOT zijn ingedeeld naar de volgende onderdelen: 1. Bestuurlijke organisatie; 2. Implementatie van beleid; 3. Landschapskwaliteit; 4. Natuur, welzijn en draagvlak; 5. betekenis van de EHS; 6. Ontwikkeling in de landbouw; 7. Waterbeleid; 8. Internationale aspecten van natuurbeleid; 9. Kosten en baten van natuur; 10. Infrastructuur; 11. Milieu

It has been argued that the management of land, whether at the field, farm or regional scale, can benefit from computer-based land use system analysis. As a result, a large number of computer-based models and tools have been produced over the past decades with the aim of providing support to policy and management. Though there is still optimism about the potential of land use modelling to contribute to societal problem solving, a number of scholars perceive the impact as too limited.

Article 1:

"This Law is enacted in accordance with the Constitution for the purpose of strengthening land administration, maintaining the socialist public ownership of land, protecting and developing land resources, making rational use of land, effectively protecting cultivated land and promoting sustainable development of the society and the economy."

The performance of many canal irrigation delivery systems is unsatisfactory in terms of: (i) water resources management; (ii) service to irrigated agriculture; and (iii) costeffectiveness of infrastructure management. In recent years, participatory approaches and management transfer reforms have been promoted as part of the solution for more cost-effective and sustainable irrigation services. Large agency-managed systems have been turned over partially or completely to various types of management bodies. However, the results have usually been disappointing.

This paper is based on the outcomes of a training workshop on modernization of irrigation management organized in 2007 for 40 participants with a focus on the Hemavathi project.