Indigenous and community lands, crucial for rural livelihoods, are typically held under informal customary arrangements. This can leave the land vulnerable to outside commercial interests, so communities may seek to formalize their land rights in a government registry and obtain an official land document. But this process is often time-consuming, complex and costly and, in contrast, companies can acquire land relatively quickly and find short-cuts around regulatory burdens.

A response to the Zambian Government’s August 2002 decision to consult major stakeholders on land. Zambian Land Alliance helped form Civil Society Land Policy Review Committee which aims to ensure that the remote rural poor participate in the Government Draft Land Policy review process and present their views. Paper is an initial submission on the Draft Land Policy and makes recommendations on 5 areas: vestment of land, gender, land tenure security, land administration, and land disputes resolution.

Includes methodology and research sites; land, the law and women’s rights in Uganda; women’s rights – lost in the land rush; economic policy and land as a commodity; women’s rights activists – promoting women’s land rights; recommendations. Uganda’s eco-feminist movement is one of several working at the interface of environmental degradation, corporate human rights abuses and patriarchy, urgently building women’s campaigning and resistance skills.

The Kilimanjaro Initiative is a rural women’s mobilisation from across Africa towards an iconic moment at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro in October 2016. Objectives include raising awareness on existing frameworks and safeguards around large scale land based initiatives and demand for their application in securing legitimate tenure rights of rural women in Africa. Presents a charter of demands and recommendations.

GRAIN has documented at least 135 farmland deals for food crop production that have backfired between 2007 and 2017. They represent 17.5 million hectares. These are not failed land grabs, since the land almost never goes back to the communities, but failed agribusiness projects. While higher standards of due diligence and stronger forms of liability are surely needed, the real challenge is to get the land back to the communities. No one should rest until that is achieved.

Examines policy and legal reforms in the 1990s; strengths of the 1995 Lands Act and civil society concerns about it; policy framework; Lands Tribunal; women’s constraints in customary land, alienation of land, inheritance and accessing urban land, government attempts to promote women’s access and control over land; conclusions and future challenges.

Contains the common goal, delivery challenges, six stories and takeaways, frontiers for further investigation and innovation.

Brief statement containing purpose of the workshop, assessment of need, mission and objectives, thematic approach and activities, structure, membership and management, immediate next steps, forward planning, the question of a corporate name (LANDNET AFRICA).

Report shows that Dutch-based banks continue to finance deforestation and land grabbing in Liberia. Thousands have lost their homes, local communities have been intimidated or imprisoned, and large swathes of forest have been cleared or burnt down. Milieudefensie argues that it is time for the banks to fulfil their sustainable banking promises, and to withdraw their investments in the industrial palm oil sector as soon as possible.

First newsletter from ZERO-Regional Environment Organisation, which has embarked on a 5 year research and advocacy programme on land in Southern Africa. Provides details of the programme and of ZERO’s regional activities.

Examines options for strengthening women’s participatory rights in the face of increasing commercial pressures on land in 3 countries: Mozambique, Tanzania, and the Philippines. Focuses on how regulatory reform – reforms in the rules, regulations, guidelines, and procedures that implement national land acquisition and investment laws – can promote gender equity and allow women to realize the rights afforded by national legal frameworks and international standards.

Despite increasing attention in recent years, little evidence has been available on the issue of women, land and corruption in Africa to inform effective policy-making. There has been no compilation of relevant background information, lessons learnt and approaches to tackling land corruption as it affects women. This publication aims to address that gap, providing practitioners and decision-makers with a compendium of research findings, contextual information and practical solutions to help fulfil women’s land rights.