Report finds that land rights in Ethiopia are highly insecure, and higher tenure security and transferability could enhance investment and agricultural productivity. Trying to identify and implement measures to increase producers’ tenure security could have a large pay-off in terms of rural productivity and poverty reduction.The authors use a large data set from Ethiopia that differentiates tenure security and transferability to explore determinants of different types of land-related investment and its possible impact on productivity.

The agriculture sector faces the challenge of providing adequate food to a growing world population. There is limited scope to expand arable land, and unpredictable weather, floods, and other disastrous events make food production even more challenging. This guidebook provides information on 22 technologies and options for adapting to climate change in the agriculture sector.

Secure access to resources is now recognised in human rights discourse as a universal condition of human well-being. This paper aims to contribute to the theoretical and empirical understanding of land tenure as a human rights issue, by analysing recent land tenure policy in South Africa. Specifically, the paper analyses the implementation of the Transformation of Certain Rural Areas Act (Trancraa) in Namaqualand, Northern Cape Province during 2001 and 2002.

The policy debate about the merits and demerits of biofuels is growing and changing rapidly, with concerns being voiced over their effectiveness for mitigating climate change, role in recent food price hikes and social environmental impacts. This study contributes to these debates through examining the current and likely future impacts of the increasing spread of biofuels on access to land in producer countries, particularly for poorer rural people. It draws on a literature review of evidence drawn from diverse contexts across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

This paper seeks to map out the historical trajectory leading to a series of migrations in and from the erstwhile princely state of Travancore during 1900-70 in order to acquire and bring land under cultivation. It argues that these migrations undertaken with a moralistic and paternal mission of reclaiming ‘empty’ spaces into productive locations were a result of a specific form of economic modernity in Kerala as beckoned by colonialism and appropriated by a resolute local agency through a process of translation.

Large areas of the humid tropics are like mosaics, combining features of forests and agriculture and housing hundreds of millions of people. Land uses that store high quantities of carbon, such as agroforestry and other tree-based systems, make up a large part of those mosaic areas. Yet current discussions on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) within the UNFCCC do not adequately address these land uses as part of a potential mitigation strategy.

This paper explores and evaluates the impact of a new form of large-scale agriculture which is becoming an increasing phenomenon in southern Burkina Faso. With severe ecological deterioration and food deficits, small-scale agriculture is usually seen as the key to economic prosperity, social solidarity and sustainable management of local resources. However, a set of new stakeholders, comprising politicians, entrepreneurs and employees, is promoting large-scale agribusiness as a relevant and viable alternative for agricultural development in the country.

The main objectives of this research report are to outline the various policies that have been implemented through statutes in the past, and to introduce the legislation regarding rural development and land reform. This report will document each economic turning point and each stage of development since Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, to the present. This is all included in the “The Necessities and Objectives of Research” to provide substantial rationale for developing countries by linking policies with relevant Laws.

Examines the implications of the HIV epidemic for rural development policies and programmes in sub-Saharan Africa and, in particular: the inter-relationships between rural development and HIV/AIDS; and the broad policy and programming challenges that the epidemic poses for rural institutions. The proposed conceptual framework for the identification of key policy and programming issues for rural development raised by HIV is intended to provide guidance for the design and conduct of a set of four case studies to be carried out in Southern and Eastern Africa.

Greening rural development can stimulate rural economies, create jobs and help maintain critical ecosystem services and strengthen climate resilience of the rural poor. This report by the Ministry of Rural Development, India, with support from the United Nations Development Programme, presents strategies for inclusive rural development embodying the principles of environmental sustainability. It defines ‘green’ outcomes for major rural development schemes, reviews the design and evidence from the field to highlight potential green results and recommends steps to improve green results.

This bi-annual addition of id21 Natural Resources Highlights looks specifically at rural livelihoods. It contains the following three articles:

New thinking needed to tackle the rural employment crisis

A further 106 million people will have joined the rural labour force in the developing world by 2015. This article asks whether enough jobs can be created in rural areas to meet this demand, or whether further urban migration is the only answer.

How can small-scale producers compete globally?

This paper examines the experiences of implementation of land reform policies in the Eastern Cape through a series of case studies.It looks at how attempts at redistribution, restitution and land tenure reform have resulted in a variety of models and approaches.