Senior food and agriculture officials from China and OECD countries met in Paris for discussions on domestic and trade policy issues in June 2005. The meeting assessed the challenges facing the agriculture and agri-food sectors of China as an increasingly important player in the global trading system.

In June 2005, OECD members met with senior government officials from Brazil to discuss Brazilian agricultural policies and future directions, as a part of a comprehensive agricultural policy review. Ongoing dialogue with Brazil on policy issues is important to fostering a better understanding of global challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

The paper explores whether the post-Cold War rule of law reform agenda in sub-Saharan Africa has enhanced or impeded gender equity. Argues that a large part of the gender equality agenda remains unaddressed by the legal and institutional reforms undertaken so far. The section on reforms to property laws suggests that they have at worst deepened gender inequality and at best left biases intact.

Report divided into 5 themes: legal issuers of women’s rights to land and property in Namibia; traditional institutions on women’s land and property rights; HIV/AIDS, land and property rights, and livelihood strategies; Namibian experiences; regional experiences (Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe).

The EU Land Policy Guidelines (November 2004) are intended for EU donors when supporting interventions in rural land policy and administration. They are divided into Part I policy framework, Part II operational guidelines. Part I includes what is land policy and why does it matter?; links between land policy and other major policy areas (e.g.

Examines (1) what is the issue and why is it important? – equality and economic growth, tenure insecurity, governance and institutions; (2) current evidence: what do we know?

An independent newsletter providing details of current developments in land reform and land conflicts in the Horn, East and Central Africa. Covers Burundi, Eastern DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan (including origins of the Darfur crisis), Tanzania and Uganda. As in Southern Africa, land is a highly contested and contentious issue right across the region.

Civil society formations in Africa have historically played an important part in the establishment of organising people in the pursuit of common goals. The majority of Africa’s people reside in rural areas where they derive their livelihoods from land, and for this majority secure access to land is the foundation of any efforts to alleviate poverty.

Contains gender and land rights; gender and poverty; importance of gender to land rights; current policy and legal reforms on gender and land in Uganda; recommendations for strengthening gender in policy and law reform.

How do we measure the success of agrarian transformation? Land reform, in- terpreted in the transition context as privatization of land with the associated is- sues of land market development and the restructuring of traditional large farms, is only one facet of a multi-dimensional process of transition to a market-oriented agriculture.

Highly condensed paper on gendered land rights, written principally for Oxfam staff and partners, and summarising some of the literature on Africa and elsewhere.

An examination of land tenure arrangements in the former homelands of South Africa and of post-apartheid attempts to deal with them. Includes a critique of the new Communal Land Rights Bill.