Notes that a record 212 land and environmental defenders were reported killed in 2019 but believes that the real number was certainly higher. Mining, logging and agribusiness were the main drivers of this. States that ‘verifying cases from Africa continues to be difficult. Limited monitoring of the issue by civil society, media repression and localised conflict mean attacks are probably underreported in some regions.’ Seven were reported killed in DR Congo, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Ghana and Kenya. Makes recommendations to governments, companies and investors.

Covers: land law revision; President starts land law consultation – with battle over privatisation expected; contradictions put a progressive land law under pressure. By 2018 the Norwegian company Green Resources’ land grab had given it 369,000 ha in Mozambique, which it finally admits it cannot handle and now proposes to give most of it back to the communities it was taken from. A consultation on the revision of the 25-year-old land law was launched by President Filipe Nyusi on 16 July 2020 but it will be controversial. Frelimo is divided on the issue and there is potential bureaucratic/political confrontation.

The final part of a blog series is a very preliminary reflection on the changes observed over 20 years and some speculation on what the future might hold for the land reform farmers of Masvingo over the next 20 years. Covers demographic shifts, places of success, accumulation and differentiation, changing patterns of investment, agriculture and local economies, state failure, the future?

A paper from the Agricultural Policy Research on Africa (APRA) programme in Zimbabwe supported by a DFID grant to IDS, Sussex. Explores the intersecting factors that have shifted pathways of commercialisation, mostly of tobacco and maize, in Mvurwi area in northern Mazowe district, Zimbabwe, since 1890. Looks at five periods, starting with early colonisation by white settlers, then examines the consolidation of ‘European agriculture’ following World War II, before investigating the liberation war era from the mid-1970s. The period after Independence is then reflected upon, concluding with the period since 2000 and the major land reform programme that transferred significant amounts of land to resettlement schemes for new farmers. Explores the political economy of state-farmer alliances; the pattern of state investment and subsidy in agriculture; changes in agricultural labour regimes; the dynamics of markets; rural-urban migration; and the role of technology and environmental change, asking how each affects what type of commercial agriculture emerges, and where. A central concern is who gains and who loses in this process. Concludes with a reflection on how pathways of commercialisation have emerged through crises, conjunctures and contingencies.

Land in Cameroon is under growing pressure – powerful commercial interests, changing climate conditions and shifting demographic flows including mass migration and increasing population density. The rights of rural communities and indigenous people to access and use land for farming and grazing have been eroded,  primarily due to failure to recognise customary land tenure rights, land use conflicts and lack of effective local governance. The country’s land legislation is outdated and not compatible with customary law and local realities. To resolve these challenges, since the 1980s governmental and non-governmental organisations have trialled several initiatives. These have had mixed results, reflecting gaps in the legal framework. This briefing assesses these initiatives and draws out recommendations to guide the current land reform process and ensure the rights of all are protected.

Draws from a research report which responded to heightened concerns over rising conflict and antagonism between predominantly herding groups and more settled farming peoples across a wide band of semi-arid Africa. Many increasingly blame ‘farmer–herder conflict’, but neither recent history nor surveys of armed violence support this simplification. Pastoralism is seen as disruptive and backward, fighting an unwinnable battle for scarce resources. Yet in truth it is an under-valued adaptation to variability that can make livelihoods and landscapes more climate-resilient. Understanding the roots, dynamics and meaning of conflict, providing space for listening and negotiating, and supporting livelihood and economic opportunities are key to mapping out pathways to peace for the whole region.

Land reform is a political necessity in South Africa, but since 1994 it has encountered many difficulties and progress has been slow. Elites have captured many of the benefits. A recent CBPEP study chaired by Ben Cousins focused on the potential contribution of redistributive land reform to employment creation. It breaks new ground.

Chapter in a book, “Rethinking land reform in Africa, opportunities and challenges” by the African Natural Resources Centre, edited by Cosmas Milton Obote Ochieng for the African Development Bank. A think piece reflecting on changing commercial pressures on land in low and middle-income countries; the role of law in shaping the ways those pressures manifest themselves; the limits of business standards in driving systemic change; and the case for comprehensive law reform to secure rural land rights. Includes foreign investment, the commodity boom and bust, the spread of special economic zones, understanding the legal structures of dispossession, the case for reform, and moving forward.

Argues that the COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted land governance, which is vital in achieving inclusive economic growth, sustainable development and food security. It is seriously disrupting food systems and causing delays in justice for indigenous peoples and threatening land and environmental defenders. Includes a two minute video.

A nine-minute video. Most rural people in Uganda have rights to their rural land through customary tenure arrangements, representing 75-80% of land holdings: but only 15-20% of the land is formally registered. Often women, especially widows, experience land grabbing, arbitrary eviction and poor access to justice. GLTN and others are working to help vulnerable smallholder farmers in South Western and Elgon regions through the implementation of a ‘Securing Land Tenure for Improved Food Security in select areas in Uganda’ project. The video illustrates some of this work.

This document presents results from the 8 April 2020 on-line conference on the impact of COVID-19 on small-scale farming, food security and sovereignty in the East African Community. There were 53 participants from 16 countries. The conference strongly acknowledged the contribution of small-scale farmers towards feeding the population during the time of COVID-19. Governments have tightened borders and restricted gatherings, but small-scale farmers often operate in groups. There is a lot of fear and uncertainty and most are staying away from their gardens in the planting season. More than 65% of food produced in the region is by small-scale women farmers. There is insufficient information about COVID-19, and a high cost of agricultural inputs because of lockdown and new restrictions. Use of communal labour has had to be reduced. Farmers can’t access loans to hire labour. Extension services are paralyzed. There is exploitation by middlemen. Food prices in the markets have skyrocketed. Many of the most vulnerable may struggle with malnutrition. Some businessmen are hoarding agricultural produce and inputs. There is a fear that some might use the opportunity to grab land and other productive resources from small-scale farmers. Land registration offices are closed or restricted. The conference made recommendations to EAC member states, including to continue standing in solidarity with small-scale farmers.

Covers key policy recommendations from a recent study. How can small-scale agriculture be more employment intensive?; identifying potential for employment creation through land redistribution to small-scale farmers; key opportunities for employment creation; rethinking farm size; promoting flexible land tenure options; customising support services; building capacity; complementary policy reforms; key strategic choices and policy trade-offs.

In a pioneering legal case, which began more than 10 years ago, the indigenous Hai//om are suing the Namibian government to have their ancestral land rights recognised. Thousands of Hai//om have been resettled several times. But the government is not supportive of labelling the park as anyone’s ancestral land. The lawsuit was meant to be the first step in getting the government to acknowledge that Etosha park was Hai//om ancestral land and for the group to be included in the decision making and financial gains the park brings to the country’s economy. The case was dismissed but there is an appeal.

A study commissioned by IIED. With less than 20 percent of landholdings in Uganda currently registered, land governance is at the forefront of a profound change as customary land is demarcated and registered. A key challenge is to ensure the equitability of this process involving gender and social equality, the protection of the poor and vulnerable comprising children and the disabled, and the environment. A better understanding of land governance in Uganda will allow the identification and leveraging of opportunities while minimizing or sustainably addressing barriers to customary land tenure security. Covers land governance in Uganda; past and current land interventions; land and resources in the Albertine Sub-Region; land related interventions; coordination challenges; strengthening land tenure registration in the Albertine Sub-Region; proposed ways forward – increase awareness, build capacity, strengthen coordination, establish communal land associations, registration of customary tenure, identify potential partners and leverage established initiatives.

Explores land inequality based on a wide scoping of available information and identifies the main trends and their drivers. What can be seen globally is a growing concentration of land in larger holdings leaving the majority of farmers with less land. Elites and large corporations are appropriating more of the value within the agri-food sector. Political power is used to influence land administration regimes, justice systems and marketing and financial services. Economic elites use their wealth and political power to influence public policy or directly take up powerful political positions in order to maintain their privileges. So landed elites are in a position to promote policies in local, national, and international spaces that will not only protect them and their land and wealth, but also enable further accumulation of wealth and power. Most states are engaged in a ‘race to the bottom’ to try and attract investors by pandering to the demands of corporations and elites, while neglecting the rights and needs of the majority. Land redistribution policies and programmes are needed now as much as ever.

This report seeks to provide an overview of existing data and information on key land issues and uncover the many different sources of land data and information in South Africa, thus providing a basis to substantiate, refute or nuance the often-repeated rhetoric that there is a lack of land data. The authors have developed an original scoping and assessment methodology building on existing internationally recognized and well-known frameworks. They have systematically reviewed and categorized the entire landscape of data and information related to key land topics, assessing over 104 land resources from 59 different sources. They saw trends and gaps in land data collection which helped to provide very practical recommendations to improve visibility and usability of data and information, thus seeking to improve the land information ecosystem in South Africa.

Focuses on innovations in recognition, mapping and documentation of legitimate tenure rights by LEGEND and other pilot projects to address problems that resulted from weak due diligence in the planning of large-scale agricultural investments. Illustrates that legitimate tenure rights in and around investment sites need to be recognised, documented, and as far as possible made secure at the start of a land-based investment project. Includes key findings.

Focuses on adjustments to investment plans and more inclusive approaches to business that engage local communities and small-scale farmers that were adopted by the companies involved in pilot projects. Includes key findings and advancing the debate.

Discusses her new book exploring the many forces and pressures facing people and their families in Dlonguébougou, Mali, which reveal a microcosm of powerful forces playing out across Africa. Life remains highly seasonal. Land which once seemed so abundant is now scarce. The open bush of 1980 is no more. Population growth is part of the story, but so is land grabbing. Several villages were turfed off their ancestral lands in 2010 to make way for a large sugar-cane plantation run by a Chinese company. Land shortage means crop yields have fallen. Grazing has run scarce. Soil fertility has declined. A changing climate has led to poorer harvests which have led some people to leave the village altogether.

International standards can help businesses fill gaps in national law but addressing issues at scale requires systematic governance reform. Law is part of the problem as often are governments. In many countries features of the law facilitate dispossession. It is often not technical capacity that is missing but the political power to confront vested interests. The challenges are steep but need to be confronted.

This commentary highlights the importance of land tenure security for women and indigenous peoples. Land titles are often used as a proxy for women’s land security, but focusing on titling alone does not lead to greater tenure security for women. To ensure tenure security, the development community, policymakers and practitioners must expand the range of interventions that address constraints women face when exercising their land rights.

Covers the land policy context; piloting new approaches to documenting tenure rights; key lessons from local land documentation pilots; and policy proposals. Mozambican nationals can acquire tenure rights through inheritance, via peaceful occupation or through customary channels. These usufruct tenure rights, known as ‘DUAT’ (Direito de Uso e Aproveitamento da Terra), can be held individually or jointly. This paper captures the lessons from recent initiatives that have attempted to turn this situation on its head and leverage the capacities of local institutions to provide land administration services. These include the local mapping and certification of acquired DUAT rights, resulting in the issuance of locally registered certificates, rather than formal titles. The paper concludes that local documentation and maintenance of customarily acquired land rights, based on central roles for communities, could increase tenure security for millions of people. This could be done based on current law, without the need for formal titling or immediate registration in official land registries. Experience shows it can be done effectively and sustainably deliver tenure security at scale.

Looks at the dynamics of environmental displacement, land rights and conflict in the aftermath of the Cyclone Idai in Mozambique in March 2019, and at the role of international and national legal frameworks in addressing land-related problems caused by this displacement. Land rights issues such as the need to displace people from high-risk areas bring another layer of problems to climate change adaptation.

This report focuses on Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO), which is listed on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange. The authors found EPO had violated local people’s right to their land, had broken promises, used violence and threats, are pushing people further into poverty and have not been made to account for it. The report argues that the UK should create a law that will compel British companies to respect human rights and environmental sustainability in countries in which they operate, or be made to account for not doing so. The report includes a response from EPO.

The author has now run this site as an absolute dictator for 20 years, first in Oxfam space (2000-12) and since 2012 in Mokoro space. The article covers the origins of the site, the various motivations and the important role of changing technologies. The site is essentially a place to disseminate arguments in favour of pro-poor land reform and against simple solutions to complex issues. After the 2008 global financial crisis it included work on the impact of the global land grab on Africa. The article discusses the contents of the site, which now has just over 1,200 entries, including books, articles, films, videos, blogs, and a few PhDs. The site covers a diverse range of subjects including women’s land rights, the role of paralegals, and the work of national land alliances.

Pressures on land and natural resources are growing, and many communities affected by land rights violations struggle to assert their rights. In this interview Rachael Knight talks about how IIED’s legal tools team supports grassroots advocates and communities impacted by large-scale land acquisitions. Includes a 5.40 minute video on drafting community by-laws.

Discusses the work of Barefoot Law, founded in 2012, which aims to find new ways to teach Ugandans about their land rights and how to claim them. It handles about 100 legal matters each day and reaches 350,000 people per month through phone, text messages, social media and public meetings.

Covers laws that devalue women, how the state is failing Zulu widows, and equal roles in drafting policies. In many rural areas local customary laws take precedence over the Constitution. In Kwa-Zulu-Natal’s rural areas women are often significantly devalued. Most traditional leaders have normalised discrimination against widowed women in terms of land and other property inheritance and ownership. The women affected are not allowed to report this dispossession of property. Government departments operate in silos.

Offers an account of the experiences of three LEGEND projects in addressing land tenure and government issues that emerged in large-scale investment projects which stemmed from insufficient attention to pre-existing legitimate land rights held by local people. Includes red lines for due diligence on agricultural land investments.

This data story covers South Africa’s long and difficult history with spatial segregation. Apartheid-era legislation in South Africa led to both insecure land rights and a lack of housing for the majority of South Africa’s population, that continues to this day. The story takes readers through a history of 100 years of informal settlements in South Africa, giving insights into: Informal settlements before a during apartheid: a look at the past; The post-apartheid response to informal settlements: rethinking housing challenges; and The current understanding of informal settlements: moving on up.

Land investments involve the acquisition of land and natural resources, usually by companies, for business ventures, agriculture and other purposes.  This paper presents eight practical lessons on cross-cutting issues in land investment derived from pilot projects that took place from 2016–19 in Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. The pilots, supported by DFID and USAID, sought to (i) test how private companies and civil society organisations could collaborate in the implementation of agribusiness investments and (ii) develop innovative tools and approaches that could be adopted and implemented at greater scale. The pilots reviewed have had numerous positive outcomes, including significant increases in tenure security for community members, reduction of land-related conflicts, improved relations between project-affected people and companies, and in various cases rapid creation of new economic opportunities and community organisational capacity and significant benefits for women. The paper makes suggestions for how these benefits might be realised at greater scale, without reliance on providing recurrent donor funding for specific company and civil society partnerships

For more than five years, Ardhi Yetu Programme through its partners (HAKIARDHI, Tanzania Natural Resources Forum (TNRF), and PAICODEO) has been working with communities to advocate for land rights, gender equality and climate change adaptation. AYP’s main goal is to ensure that national level advocacy, policy dialogues and campaigns are driven by community voices, actions and realities. This report documents individual and collective efforts by project beneficiaries, particularly women. It also gives insight to the programme and its partners on how communities (individually and collectively) are handling land disputes, gender issues, particularly gender based violence, and adapting to climate change. It helps to better understand and appreciate cultural differences and perspectives on land ownership, titling processes and gender complexities related (or not) to property ownership. It also highlights the success of women’s collective efforts in reducing gender based violence, eviction, and water scarcity. Their stories underscore the significance of local knowledge and experience in addressing climate change and adaptation.

This report, based on primary and secondary data, highlights the link between land and inequality in Uganda.  It underscores the need to review policies, laws and regulations governing institutions and practices in the realm of land ownership, access, use and management, and to allocate enough resources to secure land rights. The report looks at factors that have had an impact on poverty and vulnerability, and how policies, laws, regulations and cultural practices can be made more inclusive. It analyses trends in land ownership, access, security of tenure and use, what drives those trends and how they contribute to inequality; reviews the impact of land use and security on vulnerable groups such as women and youth; and provides policy proposals to address inequality arising from land ownership, access and use.

The certificate of customary ownership (CCO) is a land tenure reform implemented in customary tenure areas of Uganda, including Nwoya district in the north. Proponents of CCOs contend that they enhance tenure security for women and men, while critics argue that they fall short of expectations, disenfranchise, and at times extinguish rights to land. The objective of this analysis is to assess changes in tenure security that are attributable to CCOs by focusing on the completeness of the bundle of rights using the Conceptual Framework on Women’s Land Tenure Security. Administrative data results suggest that the CCO application process is largely inclusive of women. The majority of the land area (82%) for which CCOs were applied does include women among the applicants. Survey data results show limited completeness of bundles of rights. Women’s bundles of rights tend to be less complete than men’s, but women in households with CCOs tend to have more complete rights than women in households without CCOs. It is apparent that the CCO intervention did not, or has yet to, improve tenure security as defined by the Women’s Land Rights Conceptual Framework.

This research investigates threats to women’s land rights and explores the effectiveness of land certification interventions using evidence from the Land Investment for Transformation (LIFT) program in Ethiopia. The research aims to provide evidence on the extent that LIFT contributed to women’s tenure security. Quantitative information was analyzed from the profiles of more than seven million parcels to understand how the program had incorporated gender interests into the Second Level Land Certification (SLLC) process. Qualitative data was drawn from LIFT program field studies and case stories. Despite numerous threats to the land rights of women, evidence from the program suggests that LIFT has contributed to the tenure security of rural women in Ethiopia. The implication of these findings is that land certification programs can promote gender equality through land certification and governance by developing institutional measures and standard procedures that are gender responsive and based on local context, and by investing resources and attention on gender from the onset.

From 2009-2015 Namati and partners CTV in Mozambique, LEMU in Uganda and SDI in Liberia supported more than 100 communities to document and protect their customary land rights. In late 2017 Namati evaluated the impacts the process had on communities’ responses to outsiders seeking community lands and natural resources. Of the 61 communities assessed, 46% had been approached by outside actors seeking community lands and natural resources since completing their land protection efforts. Overall, the stories clearly show how, on their own, community land protection initiatives did not adequately balance the significant power asymmetries inherent in interactions between rural communities and government officials, whether coming on their own behalf or accompanying potential investors. The stories described illustrate broad-based corruption that allows land to be claimed by powerful elites and government institutions with little regard for required legal procedures.

The Gambos municipality is part of Angola’ milk region. However milk, which is life sustaining in these communities, was found to be in short supply due to diminishing grazing pastures correlating with the introduction of commercial cattle ranches to the area. It is the impact of commercial ranches on pastoralists which has removed their buffer against droughts and thus dangerously threatened food security. This paper declares that the resulting food insecurity represents a failure to protect the right to food, and as such the Angolan government is failing international and regional obligations and not upholding its own laws. The paper concludes with recommendations for urgent measures to be taken immediately to address the lack of food in pastoralist communities: a recommendation to declare a moratorium on land grants and to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate how 46 commercial farms ended up with 2/3 of the best grazing land in the region.

ILC officially launches this Land Inequality Framing Document, the first of a series of papers from the Land Inequality Research Initiative. Research by ILC member Oxfam and others shows that extreme inequality is rising in most regions. Worldwide around 84% of farms share 12% of the total agricultural land area, while just 16% of farms control the remaining 88%. Members of the ILC are concerned about this issue yet very little data exists to help us understand what the trends on land inequality are, as well as the complex and inter-related linkages between land inequality and wider inequalities. So ILC is coordinating this initiative to provide evidence and analysis to better understand the nature of land inequality worldwide. The initiative will develop a series of papers. The first, a framing document, aims to: define how to approach the complexities of land inequality; identify a coherent framework for research and action; suggest research themes and questions; and guide the next phases of the research initiative.

A selection of nine short videos from InsightShare, which in October 2019 hosted a grassroots gathering in South Africa of African Indigenous activists representing 12 diverse communities from across the continent, who came together to discuss, strategise and skill up on issues of Indigenous cultures, rights and lands, and how to harness video for change. The nine videos are:

1. A Landmark Livestream of Indigenous Alliance-Building
2. Participatory Tools for a Pan-African Indigenous Alliance
3. Resisting Neocolonialism and Land Exploitation in Tanzania
4. How Has Video Helped in the Struggle for Land Rights?
5. Participatory Video is a Revolutionary Tool
6. Preserving Endangered Language in Kenya Using Video
7. Fighting Land Exploitation Through Video in Cameroon
8. Video4Change Grassroots Gathering South Africa
9. Project Spotlight: Amadiba Community + Participatory Video, Pondoland

This report on the state of industrial oil palm plantations in West and Central Africa shows how communities are turning the tide on a massive land grab in the region. Between 2000 and 2015 companies signed oil palm plantation concession agreements with African governments covering over 4.7 million hectares, mostly without the knowledge of the affected communities. These companies are now struggling. There has been a significant decline in the number and total area of land deals for industrial oil palm plantations over the past five years, from 4.7 to a little over 2.7 million hectares. Only 220,608 hectares has been converted to oil palm plantations or been replanted with new palms during the past decade. Struggles by communities to defend their lands has been key to slowing this expansion. The report highlights how small-scale systems of oil palm cultivation are thriving across Africa while the corporate model is failing, and calls for an immediate ban on all future large-scale oil palm plantation projects and a halt to those currently being implemented. Where large-scale plantations already exist, the report calls for the lands to be returned to the control of the local communities.

Combining both written analysis and video interviews, this ‘longread’ details the impacts on women’s lives of three approaches developed by IIED partners in Tanzania, Ghana and Senegal to reinforce land governance structure in rural communities to make them gender-inclusive.

Argues that the role of the European Union in landgrabbing is manifold. EU actors are involved in the financing of large-scale land deals worldwide through forms of private finance, public finance and a combination of both. The EU’s position as an agricultural powerhouse is dependent on the huge import of agricultural commodities and inputs from the global South. Europe has a vast land import dependency with nearly 60% of the land used to meet Europe’s demand for agricultural and forestry products coming from outside its borders. On land governance the EU: hinders necessary and important land redistribution and restitution programmes; locks in onerous land deals, fosters land commodification; disempowers local legal resistance; impedes the reversal of abuses of illegitimate and unjust land and water deals; and limits the scope of progressive agrarian and agricultural policies that protect small-scale farmers and public health. By supporting this global investment regime, the EU seriously undermines efforts to stop and roll back landgrabbing, thereby legalising illegitimate activities.

An analysis of the July South African report on land and agriculture which documents the sorry tale of land reform since 1994. Says action on land reform is long overdue. Makes sensible recommendations on expropriation. Suggests a policy shift towards equity as a goal of land reform and a shift towards redistribution. Makes the case for substantial (at least half) allocations to women and a focus on urban/peri-urban land. Adding to redistribution, restitution and land tenure reform, it suggests a fourth pillar – land administration. Lessons from Zimbabwe include moving from land reform to wider agrarian reform, the need to provide post-settlement support and to adopt a flexible approach. Civil society will need to be ready to apply pressure to realise the vision of the report.

In June 2019 the Government of Zimbabwe announced a policy instrument allowing for Joint Ventures (JVs) and subletting of land for agricultural purposes. This paper discusses what the JVs mean for Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector in particular and the broader economy in general. The ultimate objective is to establish the relationship between the JV and land subletting or leasing policy instrument, as well as interrogate the circumstances under which these thrive. The paper also explores the possible effects JV’s and subletting will have on Zimbabwe’s agriculture value supply chains.

In many rural areas across sub-Saharan Africa lack of tenure security for women has been exacerbated by rising commercial pressure on land, further aggravated by climate change, urbanisation and population growth. As a result, rural livelihoods are being undermined, with potentially dire consequences for communities’ economic development and food security. Since 2016 IIED has been working with partners in Ghana, Senegal and Tanzania to engage with rural communities. While the initiatives have been tailored to the local context, all three share a common vision – that of strengthening rural women’s voices in issues of local land governance. This report presents in clear and concise detail the approach used in each case, as well as the key outcomes and lessons learned. From this, recommendations for replication and upscaling are made, providing a much-needed pathway for improving rural women’s access to land, as well as the control they exert over their livelihood options.

Growing commercial interests, population growth and conservation initiatives are increasing competition for land in Tanzania. At the same time, land-related conflicts are on the rise. These trends undermine livelihoods by threatening rural people’s access to land and tenure security. Women tend to be disproportionately affected as available land diminishes, disadvantaged by weak land rights and limited participation in decision-making processes. Alongside gender-discriminatory practices, rural populations’ slim knowledge of land governance further jeopardises women’s access to land and tenure security, as their existing rights go unrecognised. To address this, an approach that supports communities to adopt village bylaws has been trialled, with promising results. The participatory development of local rules that are inclusive and ‘gender sensitive’ helps to promote stronger and more equitable land governance, by clarifying processes at local level and ensuring both men and women are involved in making decisions on land issues.

This chapter deals with the issue of land tenure, which has been identified as one of the major institutional problems in Benin. It deals specifically with the recent land reform that was enacted by the 2013 Code Foncier et Domanial (Land and Domain Code). The orientation of the chapter is not so much a question of proposing an institutional diagnosis of the sector and highlighting desirable areas for reform, as of analysing an ongoing reform process. The chapter deals with the political economy of the reform, with the reform’s political and economic stakes, the groups of actors and interests which pushed it, those which are opposed to it, and those which seek to shape it for their own benefit. It also provides a detailed history of the reform process.

Argues that sexual extortion or ‘sextortion’ is a pervasive but often hidden form of corruption in which instead of money as a bribe, sexual favours are extorted in exchange for the provision of services or goods. This touches the land sector but remains largely hidden and unaddressed. It often occurs where land governance and women’s rights are weak. In traditional anti-corruption discourse explicit references to human rights, including women’s rights, are rare. Cultural barriers and the fear of stigmatization and retaliation also play a part in this under-reporting. Cites the work of Mokoro’s Elizabeth Daley and her Women’s Land Tenure Security Project (WOLTS) in Tanzania and Mongolia which found examples of sextortion occurring as access to communal pastoral land decreased due to expanding mining activities. Daley believes that social norms can be influenced to become more inclusive, and WOLTS has been testing approaches to building safe spaces where women and men, young and old, villagers and traditional leaders can meet and discuss the management of land and natural resources. Concludes that naming and shaming and literally spreading the word ‘sextortion’ is an important catalyst to finding ways to discuss this taboo issue and put it on the international political agenda.

(Originally published on the Land Portal).

For decades food insecurity has been a challenge in Cameroon’s Far North region, mainly due to extreme weather and weak land legislation. Now the problem is escalating. The current humanitarian crisis caused by the Boko Haram insurgency has resulted in over 87,000 refugees and 340,000 internally displaced people in the region. Humanitarian agencies are responding with food aid but little attention is given to underlying challenges, notably access to land. The reform of land legislation is an opportunity to strengthen land rights for local communities and marginalised groups. Devolving power to local institutions and ensuring secure land tenure for displaced people and host communities must be priorities to achieve sustainable food security for everyone.

Cameroon’s current land law appears to have two conflicting objectives: to attract investors through large-scale land concessions; while protecting biodiversity, defending local people’s rights and promoting rural development. But the legislation governing large-scale land-based investments is outdated and sometimes incoherent. The land allocation process is investor driven and does not appropriately balance economic, social or environmental considerations. Overlaps between the habitats of great apes, community lands and recently established agro-industries pose a threat to conservation efforts and community livelihoods. Based on recent research, this article suggests land law reforms that the government of Cameroon could implement to effectively address these issues, including revising the concession allocation process so that relevant public authorities and local communities are involved and using Environmental and Social Impact Assessments to better inform decisions.