Includes land reform and customary tenure in sub-Saharan Africa: a brief review; methodology; the statutory underpinnings of large-scale land acquisition; land acquisition in practice: evidence from case-study countries – Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia; discussion and conclusions – legal protection of customary rights, customary rights in the context of large-scale land acquisitions, evidence from implementation.

Contains 3 chapters – introduction, structure of land policy formulation process, and organisation structure. They include land policy principles, guiding values, methodology, rural and urban land use, legal framework, land tenure and social cultural equity, land information management system, institutional and financial framework for implementation.

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.

Focuses on communal land and attempts to better understand the intersection of gender, communal land, and land reform in Namibia. Concentrates on two regions that adopted different approaches. The Oshana region leads the implementation of the nationwide Communal Land Reform Act, 2002, that introduced the registration of customary land rights in communal areas, while the Kavango region declined to participate in this and instead continues to independently administer customary land rights in accordance with its established customary system.

Includes the land deal and competing land claims, socio-historical context, corporate responsibility or corporate displacement?, Mangoma and “angry villagers”. The case study of Chisumbanje, Zimbabwe, shows how ambiguous land rights emerge historically, particularly over state land, and that these long-running ambiguities come to the fore when land deals are struck. Issues that have lain dormant for decades become the focus for intense contests, which become captured by contemporary interest groups.

Summary: Includes land acquisitions continue to be an important trend; a need for this new, updated report; agricultural land acquisitions are increasingly becoming operational; food crops dominate but also palm oil and fuel crops; Africa is the most targeted continent; large diversity in origin of investors; land acquisitions often target relatively highly populated areas dominated by croplands; local communities are often bypassed in negotiations, limited information on displacement and compensation; a need for further monitoring.

Covers orphans in Africa; the problem of guardianship; the Rwandan setting; post-war situation of orphans; children and the law(s); orphans’ efforts to assert land rights – land dispute cases; rethinking care giving for orphans. The 1994 genocide, combined with the impacts of HIV/AIDS, created 300,000 orphans in Rwanda. Many are heads of households who urgently need land-use rights, but a weakened system of guardianship and increasing pressures on land often prevent this.

Focuses on the rush by foreign investors to buy up agricultural land across Africa, all too often at the expense of the wellbeing and livelihoods of local communities.

Case study identifies good practices and lessons learned about including gender in a project designed to sensitize communities about the importance of securing land rights, build capacity of customary land secretariats, and provide alternative dispute resolution training to traditional authorities in the Northern Region of Ghana.

Includes the challenges of data collection on foreign land deals in Tanzania and flaws in the documentation and reproduction of data. Concludes that the number of non-transparent projects remains high. Many biofuels deals announced in 2005-8 have failed to materialise. Hope this study will make a contribution to a transparent basis for much needed policy debates and decisions.

In March 2003 a group of land reform practitioners and researchers met informally to discuss the state of land reform in Southern Africa and to explore ideas about constructive ways forward. Following this, in late June 2003 a number of participants from the ‘think-tank’ workshop held discussions with various stakeholders in South Africa to get feedback on the report and to identify their views, with a desire to encourage debate and contribute to the building of greater consensus on the importance of meaningful, sustainable land reform.

Contains sections on the effects on women of Rwanda’s civil war, the legal system, the gap between customary law and land legislation, research findings about Rwandan women’s rights, a number of dispute case studies, including methods of dispute settlement. Argues that a gap exists between customary and modern legal systems, creating both land access opportunities and constraints for women. Demonstrates the creativity with which women are bridging that gap in a state of legal uncertainty.