Several studies have shown that the land registration and certification reform in Ethiopia has been implemented at an impressive speed, at a low-cost, and with significant impacts on investment, land productivity, and land rental market activity. This study provides new evidence on land productivity changes for rented land and on the welfare effects of the reform. The study draws on a unique household panel, covering the period up to eight years after the implementation of the reform.

In Vietnam, a quasi-private property regime has been established in 1993, with the issuance exchangeable and mortgageable land use right certificates. Using primary qualitative and quantitative data, this paper investigates the role of the titling policy in fostering the use of soil conservation practices by upland farmers in the northern mountains region. There, population growth and growing market demands have induced farmers to intensify agricultural production onto steep slopes.

Political reactions ‘from below’ to global land grabbing have been vastly more varied and complex than is usually assumed. This essay introduces a collection of ground- breaking studies that discuss responses that range from various types of organized and everyday resistance to demands for incorporation or for better terms of incorporation into land deals. Initiatives ‘from below’ in response to land deals have involved local and transnational alliances and the use of legal and extra-legal methods, and have brought victories and defeats.

Land markets have received a considerable amount of attention in economic literature. Since the treatment of the topic covers various approaches, areas, and questions, it seems desirable to attempt an overview of the results. This paper devises a way in which to present a complete picture of the land market by drawing together the various contributions. The first step is to establish a method by which a market in its entirety can be defined. It is suggested that the application of Oliver Williamson's "Four levels of social analysis" is an appropriate approach to be used in this endeavour.

Effective recognition of customary land rights is still a challenge in Angola, as in many other African countries. Despite customary land rights of the traditional rural communities are expressly recognized in the 2004 National Land Law, very few communities in Angola have been able to register their land. In the Province of Bié, in Angola central highlands, only five customary collective land titles (called Dominio Util Consuetudinario) had been issued within the period 2004-2015.

Geoffrey Payne outlines five fundamental propositions that are key to his understanding of tenure issues and policy options.

These are:

1) That access to affordable land with adequate security of tenure and associated rights is a pre-condition for realising the goal of adequate housing and poverty reduction;

Insecure land tenure and property rights are an impediment to the construction of water infrastructure in many developing countries. This paper explores whether alleviating this impediment through a land titling program in rural Peru is associated with improvements in water access. The economics literature on the links between property rights and investment decisions has amassed yet, due to the unique characteristics of water, it is not obvious how water service provision would respond to improvements in land tenure.

This bulletin is prepared by the Friends of the Custodians Committee. The objective is to share timely information about the SDG land indicator 1.4.2 and support its reclassification from Tier III to Tier I by October 2018. 

This paper focuses on three interrelated questions on urbanization and the geography of development. First, although we herald cities with their industrial bases as "engines of growth," does industrialization in fact drive urbanization? While such relationships appear in the data, the process is not straightforward. Among developing countries, changes in income or industrialization correlate only weakly with changes in urbanization. This suggests that policy and institutional factors may also influence the urbanization process.

Vietnam's rapid and sustained economic growth and poverty reduction in the last two decades benefitted from the policy and legal reforms embodied in the Land Laws of 1987, 1993 and 2003 and subsequent related legal acts. This note outlines reforms related to four main themes. The first relates to the needed reform for agriculture land use to create opportunity to enhance effectiveness of land use as well as to secure farmers' rights in land use. Prolonging the duration of agricultural land tenure would give land users greater incentives to invest and care for the land.

This policy note has two goals. First, to assess whether inclusive business models face specific regulatory hurdles. Second, to recommend policies that creates a business environment conducive to inclusive business. Little research has been conducted on the first goal. This note analyzes survey answers from companies that applied to the G20 Challenge. These companies were asked to rank regulatory obstacles and explain whether these obstacles created significant hurdles to their ability to serve the base of the pyramid.

Uganda has started its journey into urbanization and economic development. The pace of urbanization is picking up currently at 4.5 percent per year, and likely to accelerate with rising incomes. The economic benefits from urban growth will come from exploiting economies of scale and agglomeration and by increasing fluidity in factor markets that enable substitution between land and non land inputs.