The laws in the Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic provide limited protection to indigenous peoples and local communities regarding access to land and forest resources. Often, logging concessions overlap their territories, restricting access to lands and resources. However, the development of community forests is gaining momentum in the region. These can help secure customary tenure, sustainably manage resources and improve livelihoods for indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs).

A common misconception about CT systems in Cambodia is that it is confined to indigenous communities in the peripheral uplands of Cambodia and does not exist in their Khmer counterparts. In response, this research compares related studies on customary tenure in Khmer communities, and describes the evolution of customary tenure within them, the different categories of potential resources governed under customary tenure, and the governance regimes of those resources. It then proposes three practical cases/communities for further field-based documentation.

The aim of this policy paper is to present successful approaches to secure land tenure rights in rural and urban areas. To support future programmatic decisions by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), this paper focusses especially on impacts and good practices. It discusses examples from the German technical cooperation but also includes good practices and impacts achieved by other development partners.

Post-war societies not only have to deal with continuing unpeaceful relations but also land-related conflict legacies, farmland and forest degradation, heavily exploited natural resources, land mines, a destroyed infrastructure, as well as returning refugees and ex-combatants. In the aftermath of war, access to and control of land often remains a sensitive issue which may precipitate tensions and lead to a renewed destabilization of volatile post-conflict situations.

In the face of the climate crisis and threats to food security, a safe water supply and biodiversity, GLF Bonn 2019 sought to hear the voices of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women and youth – all of those with the greatest stake in confronting such global challenges. The forum did not avoid identifying hurdles, most of which stem from conflicting rights and interests, that hinder cooperation to rapidly secure the rights to a healthy life for present and future generations.

The Community Land Act of 2016 provides a legal basis for protection, recognition and registration of community lands andhas provisions for management and administration of the land by the communities themselves. However, implementation of the act has been slower than anticipated. This is despite the current  heightened investment interests in community lands for mega development projects.

This policy brief was developed in order to enable a meaningful engagement and policy dialogue with government institutions and other relevant stakeholders about challenges and opportunities related to the recognition of customary tenure in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Customary tenure is understood to be the local rules, institutions and practices governing land, fisheries and forests that have, over time and use, gained social legitimacy and become embedded in the fabric of a society.

Food insecurity has been a major global development concern. Hence, SDG Two seeks to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030. The situation is severe in sub-Saharan Africa, where customary practices deprive women of land ownership and limit their access rights. This paper explores the influences of a gendered land tenure system on food security in Nandom District, adapting conditional assessment modules defined by USDA and FAO. With a list of households categorized under headship, 30 respondents were proportionally selected from each of the four study communities.

Most of the land in sub-Saharan Africa is governed under various forms of customary tenure. Over the past three decades a quiet paradigm shift has been taking place transforming the way such landl is governed. Driven in part by adaptations to changing context but also accelerated by neo-liberal reforms, this shift has created a ‘new’ customary tenure in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper reviews some of the evidence and analyses the ways in which this neo-liberalisation of customary tenure has been transforming relations of production and how land is governed in sub-Saharan Africa.

On July 21, 2011 the then Acting Prime Minister Sam Abal announced the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry to investigate 77 land leases which were issued under the Somare government’s Special Agriculture & Business Leases (SABL). The inquiry, which was later extended by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill in October 2011 for a further five months, discovered that over 90 percent of the leases totalling over 5 million hectares were illegally obtained from traditional landowners (Zealand, 2015).

From January 15 to February 6, 2018, the USAID’s Tenure and Global Climate Change Program and Land Portal Foundation co-facilitated a dialogue on experiences of documenting household and community-level customary rights in Zambia. The dialogue brought together the perspectives of government, traditional leaders, practitioners, civil society, and academics to consider how customary land documentation can contribute to national development goals and increased service delivery in rural and peri-urban areas.

A functioning land administration sector is the foundation for economic growth. Unfortunately, effective land registry and cadastral systems with national coverage exist in only a fraction of the world’s countries. Cadasta Foundation is working to overcome this challenge by developing simple digital tools and technology to help partners efficiently document, analyze, store, and share critical land and resource rights information.