International comparative study of strategies for settlement support provision to land reform beneficiaries by Susan Tilley (RR26);

A critical review of the directions that post-conflict state-building is taking, particularly the implications for post-conflict land administration that current approaches are mandating as the ‘correct’ approach. Influenced by the author’s work for UN agencies on local government and land issues in Liberia and Somaliland.

Argues the need for long term perspectives on implementing land reforms, to address people’s perceptions and practices, to decentralise authority to the local level, and to mainstream women’s rights into every activity relating to land, land administration and land dispute settlement.

Includes key policy areas; the legal framework governing land in Malawi; the Green Belt initiative and the New Alliance: threats or development opportunities?; case studies of large-scale acquisitions in Malawi – out-grower schemes in Nkhotakota and Chikwawa districts; recommendations. Brief illustrates the further accelerate land concentration among local elites and the exposure of many to landlessness and food insecurity.

Includes land grabbing in early colonial Zimbabwe and Mozambique, contemporary land grabbing, biofuels (citing IIED and Houtart), a ‘race to the bottom’ to attract investors? (citing the new World Bank report), the literature (citing Zoomers, Borras and Franco), conclusion.

Focuses on struggles to secure and defend the land rights of the poor in Africa. A very brief introduction sketches the impact of liberalisation on land in Africa, then looks at the deeper context of land reform, and at the current role of donors. Goes on to look at detailed case studies of Uganda, Mozambique and South Africa and examines reasons for successes and failures of pro-poor land struggles in those countries. Concludes by focusing on the issue of redistribution in Southern Africa.

Paper written for Democracy, Land and Liberation in Africa Today: Bridging Past and Present Scholarship. A colloquium in honour of Lionel Cliffe held at the University of Cape Town. Includes the academic world, 1960-84 (universities in Southern Africa, my academic writing); the NGO world, 1987-2007 (Oxfam’s Southern Africa Desk, women’s land rights, working with Zimbabwean researchers, land and property rights in post-tsunami Aceh; the consultancy world (Zimbabwe 1999, South Africa 2000 DLA, South Africa 2001 the LRC); an academic again in retirement?

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.

A case study of the situation in Lamu, Isiolo and Siaya Counties by the Land Development and Governance Institute (LDGI).

Outlines Oxfam’s land research on the Copperbelt in 1998. Updated version of 1998 paper examining how people whose livelihoods once depended on the copper mines have begun looking for land and the problems they have encountered on forest and ZCCM land, with the 1995 Lands Act, and with party politics. Highlights the lack of coordinated responses to the problem and concludes with the main developments following the sale of the mines in 2000 and the attitudes of the new owners towards squatters.

Lists titles and authors of papers from World Bank conference most relevant to current concerns about land grabbing in Africa. Also cites the relevant URLs and gives summaries of the papers.

Originally verbal presentation to World Bank meeting reviewing its Policy Research Report on land. Argues the need for this to be honest, open to admitting past mistakes, and pro-poor in order to influence future Bank policy and practice at national level. Argues that the Bank needs to be aware that many people across the world view it as the enemy because of past historical experience. Need for various Bank policies to be mutually compatible. Cites source suggesting great divergence between policy drivers within the Bank.