This paper represents part of an area of work which analyses the linkages between rights to land and water. An initial scoping paper explored the interface between land and water rights (LSP Working Paper 10: Hodgson, S. (2004). “Land and water – the rights interface”). It is complemented by two regional analyses: this Working Paper and LSP Working Paper 25: IIED. (2006). “Land and water rights in the Sahel: Tenure challenges of improving access to water for agriculture”.

This Livelihood Support Programme (LSP) Working Paper is the result of a follow-up on an extensive research study undertaken in Cambodia. Results of the study were the development of a participatory and results-oriented monitoring methodology and suggestions to overcome basic communication gaps between the rural population and decision makers on different administrative levels. The aim of this LSP Working Paper is to provide a simple and hands-on insight into the developed methodology and the suggested strategies to overcome the identified communication gaps.

This paper focuses on legal and institutional aspects of children’s property and inheritance rights in Southern and East Africa. Chapter 2 discusses violations of children’s property and inheritance rights and discusses how the spread of HIV/AIDS has contributed to the violations. Chapter 3 assesses several norms of customary law that aim to protect children’s property and inheritance rights as well as the current practices of customary law that—in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic—serve to complicate and limit children’s ability to maintain their rights.

Issues of transformative change in gender relations have been on the development agenda for four decades and no-one could say that there have not been significant policy initiatives taken to achieve this objective. The enthusiasm generated during the 1975 International Year for Women and throughout the UN international Women’s Decade from 1976-1985 is undeniable and the achievements are clear.

A thematic study on “Urban and peri-urban forestry” focuses on the potentials and constraints for urban forestry development at regional and sub-regional levels considering the current experience and future prospects of urbanization in the region that is expected to take place in the next 15 years. As a complement to this thematic Urban and peri-urban forestry study, a livelihoods analysis of the contribution of forests and trees to urban poor livelihoods has been carried out the Sub-programme on access to natural resources of the Livelihood Support Programme (GCP/INT/803/UK).

Este manual de formación se centra en cómo gestionar y resolver conflictos sobre los derechos de tenencia de la tierra, la seguridad de la tenencia y el acceso a la tierra en el campo del desarrollo rural. Resulta de las actividades complementarias realizadas con el Programa de apoyo a los medios de vida, de la FAO, (LSP) y la Unidad de Gestión y Tenencia de la Tierra y con la Coalición Internacional para el Acceso a la Tierra.

FAO’s Land Tenure Notes provide information on land tenure in a format that can be used by grassroots organizations which work with small farmers and others in rural communities. Improving secure access to land by the rural poor is essential in order to reduce poverty and hunger and to promote sustainable rural development. Improving people’s knowledge of their rights to land is an important part of making rights real, thereby allowing people to improve their livelihoods.

This paper represents part of an area of work in support of enhancing access to land and forest resources in support of rural livelihoods in Mongolia. . This synthesis report draws on field studies undertaken recently in five rural areas of Mongolia, covering all ecological zones from montane and northern taiga forest to arid forest in the Gobi. Our findings document and explain, with case studies and documentation from participatory analysis, the downward cycle of resource depletion and descend into poverty that is in action.

This paper represents part of an area of work in support of enhancing access to land and forest resources in support of rural livelihoods in Mongolia. It is based on learning emerging from an ongoing FAOsupported project called: Support to the development of participatory forest management (TCP/MON/2903). This project has involved the development (through extensive community-level consultations in forest areas) of a detailed Concept Document for the design and implementation of participatory forestry.

The present paper seeks to cover the key issues, trends, constraints, challenges, knowledge gaps and policy options on a range of dimensions of land access. Land access is broadly defined as the processes by which people individually or collectively gain rights and opportunities to occupy and utilise land (primarily for productive purposes but also other economic and social purposes) on a temporary or permanent basis.