Includes the context of forced evictions in Luanda; the right to adequate housing; forced evictions and demolition in Luanda; national and international responses; recommendations. Argues that a critical underlying factor was insecure land tenure, which made residents particularly vulnerable and was derived from inadequate land legislation and lack of public information about land rights and urban management policies, inadequate registration procedures, and a consequent false perception of security of tenure by residents.

Includes key concerns and policy recommendations.

Covers introduction; the land question; the land policy framework; institutional framework; land policy implementation framework. Issues include constitutional, land tenure, land administration, land use management, land administration, those requiring special interventions.

Includes key policy concerns and recommendations.

Asks what convincing rationales exist for land reform in the 21st century and for land policies and programmes that have poverty reduction as their key objective? Argues that the economic bases of pro-poor land reform need reformulating in the rapidly changing conditions of the contemporary world. The unequal structures of international agricultural trade regimes need to be made integral to thinking about agrarian reform. Includes a table with arguments for land reform.

Keynote address to International Land Coalition, Entebbe, Uganda

Includes why is secure access to land important; secure property rights, economic growth and social justice; the scale of insecure access to land; political contestation; the role of donors; IIED v FIG, contrasting ways of looking at land issues; governance and corruption; recourse to legal remedies; struggling for urban survival; aid instruments; lessons and recommendations from the literature – the IIED school, FAO and EU guidelines.

Malawi, like other countries in Africa, has a new land policy designed to clarify and formalise customary tenure. The country is poor with a high population density, highly dependent on agriculture, and the research sites are matrilineal-matrilocal, and near urban centres. But the case raises issues relevant to land tenure reform elsewhere: the role of ‘traditional authorities’ or chiefs vis-a-vis the state and ‘community’; variability in types of ‘customary’ tenure; and deepening inequality within rural populations. Even before it is implemented, the pending land policy in Malawi is intensifying competition over land. Discusses this and the increase in rentals and sales; the effects of public debates about the new land policy; a new discourse about ‘original settlers’ and ‘strangers’; and political manoeuvring by chiefs.

Includes the drivers of change; changes in ‘customary’ land management institutions, evidence from West Africa; changes in intra-family relations; changes in land transfer mechanisms, evidence from West Africa; case study of changes in ‘customary’ resource tenure systems in the inner Niger Delta, Mali. Concludes with implications for policy and practice.

Includes key policy concerns and recommendations.

Includes key policy concerns and recommendations.

Includes relevance of the World Social Forum to the Kenyan situation, Kenya’s informal traders and their WSF experiences, Kenya’s fisher folk community and their WSF experiences, news.

Contains entrenchment of Draft National Land Policy (DNLP) proposals in the Constitution, elimination of discriminatory practices in women’s access to land, institutional framework, other issues of concern.

Contains defining gender-based violence; property grabbing as a form of this; HIV and AIDS and property grabbing; women’s property rights: the erosion of customary norms and practice; statutory legal reform � is it the answer?; empirical evidence from Southern and Eastern Africa; responses to property grabbing; conclusion. Argues that the harassment and humiliation that often accompany property grabbing further strip women of their self-esteem, affecting their ability to defend their rights.

The paper discusses the interface of anthropological research on land with policy positions across formative periods – from the colonial period through to the present as land tenure reform has repeatedly become a development priority; and recent research on intensifying competition over land, its intersection with competition over legitimate authority, new types of land transfers, the role of claims of indigeneity or autochthony in land conflicts, and the challenges of increasing social inequality and of commodification of land for analysis and for land reform.

Extracts from a farewell talk. Includes back to the land; engaging with Oxfam International in Zimbabwe; working on the Zambian Copperbelt; supporting post-tsunami, post-conflict land and property rights advocacy in Aceh, Indonesia; helping to create and sustain national land alliances and support awareness campaigns in Africa; women’s land rights in Southern and Eastern Africa; concluding thoughts, some publications.

Provides a socioeconomic analysis of the pre and post fast track resettlement agrarian employment structure in Zimbabwe’s commercial farming sector. Finds that the extent of employment on farms prior to fast track has been overstated, while the re-absorption of former farm workers into the agricultural sector has been greater than previously understood. Job losses have not been as pervasive as widely claimed.

Looks at agricultural leasehold rights, freehold tenure and land markets, foreign land ownership and tenure security, rentals and sharing of redistributed land, modifying customary rights, gender and class relations, farm workers, land administration and tenure security.

Paper reviews the South African experience with land reform, and land redistribution in particular, up to the end of 2005. Looks at various aspects of market-based land reform – landowner veto on participation in land reform; payment of ‘market prices’ for land; self-selection of beneficiaries; focus on ‘commercial’ forms of production; prominent role for the private sector in provision of credit, extension, and other services. The experience suggests that market-based approaches are incapable of effecting a large-scale redistribution of land or restructuring of the agrarian economy, and are likely to be met with growing popular opposition as the crisis of rural livelihoods grows and the limitations of ‘willing seller, willing buyer’ become apparent.

A second report for the World Bank’s Northern Uganda Recovery and Development Program – RDP. The objective is to inform policy processes on post-conflict land policy and administration on likely types of land conflicts and claims, their resolution, gaps in current land policy, resources needed. Survey suggests that Teso’s IDP displacement patterns are unique. Customary tenure has been transformed, with household heads now owners, not trustees, of rights in land, so clans are merely informed of sales. Common property resources are at greatest risk. Recommends integration of traditional and statutory institutions. High suspicion of any titling or certification initiatives. Increase in land rentals. Entire framework of land administration is non-functional and no established institutional framework exists to handle restitution, resettlement and compensation; restoring this should be a priority. None of national strategies and plans for recovery of Northern Uganda consider land issues an essential component – argues this should be first priority.

The law is supposed to protect a woman’s rights to land. The law is failing, and husbands can ignore their wife’s legal rights. Why? And what should be done about it?

The Ugandan government is convinced that only by giving everyone titles to their land will people have security of tenure, and it is investing everything in pushing this through. However, this policy is based on ignorance about how customary tenure actually works, and on some dangerously false assumptions about what happens when ownership of land moves from one tenure system to another. Violence and conflict have already been the result. Looks at less conflictual options to achieve the same goals and ensure that rights are protected.

This paper looks at how married women and children are vulnerable to becoming landless. Should something be done? What can be done?

Reveals some of the common myths held in Uganda about customary tenure and its ’backwardness’. Argues that customary tenure offers opportunities for economic development that remains untapped by policy makers.

Includes key policy concerns and recommendations, the Draft National Land Policy of 2006.

Includes the sources of women’s legal status; women’s rights to land and other natural resources; the rights of women agricultural workers; the rights of self-employed rural women; toward the realisation of women’s rights: legal reform and implementation.

Looks at the institutional framework, at current key land policy and agrarian issues, and at the impact of land and agrarian reform. Makes a series of recommendations. Argues that the resettlement programme has failed with not a single project sustainable after 5 years. Argues the need for clear criteria for expropriation of commercial farmland and for farm workers to be a priority target in land reform projects.

A study of the San, the poorest and most marginalised minority group in Namibia, with little access to existing political and economic institutions. They have been dispossessed of most of their ancestral lands and on lands they still occupy there are major issues of resource overuse, degradation, illegal grazing, unclear legal status and ongoing threats of dispossession. Looks at threats to San lands in 4 distinct parts of the country and the legal issues raised by those threats. Recommendations cover who owns the land, land reform, reforming governmental administration, law, social change and San rights. Argues the need for prompt government action to prevent political and legal chaos.

Issues identified as being of major importance in relation to the land rights and land conflict situation are: questions related to governance; contradictions and lack of harmonisation between recent laws and policies in Tanzania; the existing power relations (including gender relations); and present development priorities. Makes it clear that dealing with land matters is in essence political and presents a series of recommendations for interventions in the field of land rights.

Includes the Draft National Land Policy – a step into land-reform direction, addressing constitutional issues, challenges in addressing security of tenure, reforming land administration and management institutions, key issues and policy recommendations of the DNLP, news.

Focuses on legal and institutional aspects of children’s property and inheritance rights in Southern and East Africa. Discusses violations of those rights and how the spread of HIV and AIDS has contributed to this. Assesses some norms of customary law that aim to protect these rights and some which complicate and limit children’s ability to maintain their rights. Reviews and assesses selection of international and national laws. Identifies several gaps in law and policy. Reviews National Plans of Action for orphans and vulnerable children. Looks at effectiveness of government structures, emphasizing institution of the public trustee. Outlines and evaluates some stakeholder initiatives. Presents eight case studies of children whose rights were violated. Makes recommendations on preventive and corrective methods to protect children’s rights and on future research and development priorities.

A working draft which ‘should not be quoted and interpreted as the policy of the Government of Zambia or any other government ministry or department until it has been finally agreed and adopted’. Has a brief background section and a brief section on vision, rationale, guiding principles, and objectives. The bulk is devoted to ‘situation analysis, challenges and policy measures’. These cover the following issues: (1) international and internal boundaries, (2) vestment and land tenure, (3) customary tenure, (4) leasehold tenure, (5) land administration, including land allocation and land registration, (6) the Land Development Fund, (7) institutional framework, (8) legal framework, (9) surveys, (10) geo-information, (11) land information, (12) land value and property markets, (13) tax and non-tax revenue, (14) spatial planning, (15) dispute resolution, (16) private sector participation, (17) transparency and accountability, (18) cross-cutting issues, including decentralisation, gender, HIV/AIDS and other terminal diseases, persons with disabilities, youth, empowerment of citizens, environment and natural resources, tenure insecurity.

Sub-title is Investing in Rights – lessons from rural Namibia. Has 4 main chapters: the mosaic of land and rights issues; land rights initiatives (Affirmative Action Loan Scheme, resettlement, conservancies, communal registration); threats to rights (groups with limited rights, farm workers, small-scale farmers, and illegal fencing); strengths and weaknesses in rights reform.

Has 6 main chapters: the nature of land rights; public land administration and registration (implications for rural land occupiers); formalizing DUATs by occupation – participation and registration (local-level consultations and bargaining power); formalization in practice – 3 case studies; implications for formalizing DUATs and how they can be used (awareness of rights, attitudes, and citizenship); new challenges to implementation (making consultations work, the need to educate, conflicts and access to justice).

Has 3 main chapters: modes of access to land and natural resources and the tenure situation of the poor and marginalized groups (customary rules, statutory law, development of commercial transactions); some ways of securing land rights for the poor and other vulnerable groups (local resource management agreements, formalization of collective rights and of land transactions, access to justice); can the necessary reforms be carried out?

Sub-title is Towards the Improvement of Tenure Security for the Poor in Ghana: Some Thoughts and Observations. 3 main chapters: the regime of land tenure in Ghana – an overview; insecurity of tenure in Ghana – a gender perspective (also includes pastoralists); insecurity of tenure in rural mining communities – a case study.

Examines critical land issues and land related problems; the National Land Policy in the context of the national development agenda; global experiences and best practices in land reforms and implementing land policies, especially in post-conflict situations; implementation challenges; towards developing a comprehensive framework for implementing the NLP and the Organic Land Law (including a check list). Section on insights and lessons from global experiences.

Has 3 main chapters: land tenure security and poverty reduction; access to land problem in Rwanda; a background (land-tenure systems, land scarcity and environmental degradation, land distribution); issues of tenure security in Rwanda (access to land by poor people, formalisation, practicalities of implementation).

Sub-title is Formalization and its Prospects. Has 3 main chapters: background and context; tenure security for the poor in East Africa – the issues; formalization is not new in East Africa; conclusions and recommendations.

Main chapters cover access to land and poverty reduction, land redistribution, and securing land rights. The last includes the role of land markets, women’s land rights, securing local resource rights in foreign investment projects, protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and pastoralists, conflicts.

Argues that there are 5 shortcomings in both the old (World Bank) and contemporary (Hernando de Soto) arguments for formalisation of land title. First, legality is constructed narrowly to mean only formal legality. Therefore legal pluralism is equated with extra-legality. Second, there is an underlying social-evolutionist bias that presumes inevitability of the transition to private (conflated with individual) ownership as the destiny of all societies. Third, the presumed link between formal title and access to credit facilities has not been borne out by empirical evidence. Fourth, markets in land are understood narrowly to refer only to ‘formal markets’. Fifth, the arguments in favour of formalisation of title as the means to secure tenure ignore the fact that formal title could also generate insecurity.

The first of 7 Working Papers presented at an FAO regional technical workshop for sub-Saharan Africa on legal empowerment of the poor (LEP) in Nakuru, Kenya, in October 2006. Divided into 7 issues: land markets, individualised land tenure, and land titling; pluralism; informal settlements in urban and peri-urban areas; gender; decentralisation and institutional development; pastoralism; dispute settlement. Each issue is examined through four dimensions: the international, the colonial, the national, and the social.

The thesis offers a sociological understanding of intermediary NGOs in the modern world through a study of NGOs and land reform in contemporary Zimbabwe. Since 2000, a radical restructuring of agrarian relations has occurred, based upon the massive redistribution of land. Local empowering initiatives have dramatically asserted themselves against globalizing trajectories. These changes have posed serious challenges to land NGOs involved in land reform either as advocates for reform or as rural development NGOs. Shows how a range of diverse land NGOs has handled the heightened contradictions in their social field in ways that maintain their organizational coherence and integrity.

The report discusses the approach and methods underlying the study and offers conceptual clarifications. It presents the legal framework and historical context in relation to political economy and identity politics. The bulk of the report is devoted to the analysis of significant case studies: on boundary conflicts linked to decentralisation and development programmes, the conservation issue, autochthons/migrants relations, the ‘youth factor’. A final section outlines policy orientations.

A report commissioned by the World Bank’s Northern Uganda Recovery and Development Program (RDP). Contains chapters on internal displacement in Uganda; review of policy and laws on IDPs and land in Uganda; review of existing studies on land and IDPs; best practices, experiences, and lessons from Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, Cambodia, El Salvador, Bosnia; emerging issues and research questions. Annexes on international conventions and covenants, and UN guiding principles on internal displacement. Argues that land is a critical element in peace building and economic reconstruction, and that one of the main challenges is to create institutions that meet claims for property restitution.

Research findings include: land rights in marriage and during cohabitation; daughters and inheritance rights; land disputes; land administration and registration; education and monitoring implementation of the Land Law.

Explores the relationship between HIV/AIDS and land rights in Kenya, with a particular focus on women. The study examines three village case studies in different parts of Kenya (Embo, Thika and Bondo) and attempts to distinguish the role of HIV/AIDS in precipitating or aggravating tenure insecurity from other influences. The primary objective is to understand the relationship between the AIDS-affected status of households and individuals and changes in their land tenure status, if any. HIV/AIDS emerges as a significant but not primary cause of tenure insecurity.

Part of a series produced by KNCHR and KLA to enhance the protection of public resources and help the public demand greater accountability and transparency. Focuses on the plunder of Karura, Ngong Road, and Kiptagich Forests. Suggests a loss of public resources of Ksh.18.47bn. Offers an account of the human rights dimensions of land grabbing. Attempts to unmask those who did particularly well from the plunder. Urges the recovery of all monies unjustly got through illegal allocation of public land.

Paper examines current trends in land tenure and sources of insecurity, describes innovative policy and practice to secure various kinds of tenure rights. Seeks to gather insights and lessons from seven case studies (Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Uganda, Niger). Aims to inform current policy debates and initiatives to support land tenure security for low-income, resource-poor and vulnerable groups who make up the majority of Africa’s population.

Contains three stories, ‘good governance’, a focus on governments, civil society, international NGOs, donors (including critical thoughts on DFID and FAO), cites the works of Kaori Izumi, some concluding thoughts. Argues that there is no culture of genuine democratic political engagement in modern Africa, with governments and civil society deeply distrustful of each other, and that space is being diminished.

Paper for FAO Expert Meeting on Good Governance in Land Tenure and Administration

Divided into 7 sections: introduction – tenure insecurity, poverty and power relations; the subordination of customary land rights; attempts to make amends; an end of century turn-around – towards the liberation of customary land rights; launching reform through new policy and law; the need to assure success; how to make land reform work? Argues that dramatic improvement in the legal status of customary land interests is globally on the horizon. There is need for a more action based and community driven evolutionary process to bring threatened commons to the centre of reform and facilitate the protection of collective rights in Africa, where 90 per cent of the rural population access land through indigenous customary mechanisms.