Around the world competitive forces are driving a variety of investors to search for land for agriculture, for mineral exploration, for conservation, for biofuel production, etc. Investment in land is not per se bad. Development can bring important benefits to communities: new knowledge and skills, new connections to markets, in some cases employment, and perhaps other positive spillover benefits related to spending money in the local economy.

In the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake, land and property issues emerged as an area of significant concern in Haiti. Analyses in the weeks following the disaster warned that destruction of property records, massive population displacement and loss of life could contribute to opportunism, land grabbing, conflict and delayed resettlement—particularly in urban areas severely affected by the earthquake.

Here’s a short video (within the blog post) from Landesa that “connects the dots” between securing land rights and improving educational opportunities for girls. The connection may not be immediately clear so teasing out the links – which the blog does – is important:

Is the government of Laos committed to shifting its land policy to enable greater local control? This story suggests that it is. The President of the National Assembly’s Committee on Economic Planning and Finance, Dr. Souvanhpheng Bouphanouvong, is quoted as saying: “For over a year, Lao has been undergoing a process of reviewing and revising various policies and legislation pertaining to land and natural resources.

A recent Poverty Matters post highlights some of the differences that mark the Santos regime in Colombia from that of his predecessor Alvaro Uribe. In some ways the two leaders share a vision for their country. The post puts it this way, both want to “attract foreign skills and investment to expand natural resource exports to pay for social investments.” But, author Jonathan Glennie points out that what distinguishes Santos is his decency and his willingness to embrace modernization.

Here's a nicely done, interesting, and largely on-point, article from the Irish Times about the need to give Chinese farmers more secure rights to land.

In a USAID IMPACTblog post last week, Bureau of Economic Growth, Education and Environment Assistant Administrator Eric Postel shared his observations from a recent trip to South America. While in Cartegena, he heard about the Government of Colombia’s efforts – with the support of USAID’s technical assistance programs - to restitute land, formalize property and implement rural development as the country emerges from a long-running internal conflict.

In countries where a large proportion of
the total land area is held customarily, reform questions
around land and development often tend to focus on the
customary estate. Evidence from Solomon Islands suggests
that a focus on public land holdings, even when they are
relatively small in land area, can yield outsized benefits.
Publicly owned land regularly includes economically valuable
land and urban land on which development pressure is high.

Most of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries has
training institutions that offer corporate governance
courses and programs for directors (e.g., the Institute of
Directors in the United Kingdom, and the National
Association of Corporate Directors in the United States)
that have received independent accreditation. There is a
high demand among corporate governance institutes and

Application of Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) to land related projects is
now a widespread phenomenon, through both donor-supported
interventions and autonomous development. Since the
mid-1990s the World Bank has been increasingly involved in
ICT land project implementations. The advantages have proven
substantial in reducing the time required to complete
transactions, improving access to information by the public,

On August 2, 2012, USAID awarded the Strengthening Tenure and Resource Rights (STARR) IQC. The STARR program is a five-year contract with a shared ceiling of $700,000,000 designed to address resource tenure issues in support of key U.S.

The international community has been
increasing investment in projects that promote trade
facilitation and improve logistics in the developing world,
including in ports. In Africa, a key motivation for such
projects has been a presumption that poor infrastructure and
inefficient border control agencies are the major causes of
extended delays in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) ports. Based on
new data and analysis, this note argues that collusion