Fighting for land security in Southern Africa
It has emerged quite clearly from Urban LandMark’s work in South Africa – and increasingly in the region – that the emergence of more sophisticated property markets has taken place locally and in most larger cities in the region. While there might be a need to assist these markets to develop further, in particular the need to build market institutions and professions, these groupings tend to increase their own capacities as the markets develop, mostly with little assistance.
Analytical situations of land degradation and sustainable management strategies in Africa
In the face of trends towards a widening “food gap” and general poverty, this paper attempts to address the problem by discussing the methodologies necessary for sustainable land management to ensure improved food security, rapid economic development and poverty reduction in developing countries of Africa. The authors explain that the population of the world has been increasing at an exponential rate over the past few decades. Present projections suggest that it will be 11 billion by the year 2100.
Making Negotiated Land Reform Work: Initial Experience from Brazil, Colombia, and South Africa
Can land reform have a lasting impact on poverty reduction?
Grappling with land reform in pastoral Namibia
This article discusses the history of land reform in Namibia. The article indicates that at the time of writing (September 1991), it is still too early to comment on the implementation of land reform in Namibia, as it has not yet begun in earnest. Land policy has yet to be detailed and ratified, the institutions for implementing land reform and settlement programmes have to be appointed and in some cases created de novo, and large sums of money have to be found.
The politics of rural land use planning in China
Looks at the allocation of land for specific purposes in the integrated land use plans that have come into effect across China since 1998..The paper: presents an analysis of the development of policies on national land use planning since the promulgation of the first Land Law in 1986.
The linkages between land usage, land degradation and biodiversity across East Africa
This paper is a regional synthesis highlighting the linkages between land usage, land degradation and biodiversity across East Africa identified from research done over a 30 year period.
‘It is our land’: human rights and land tenure reform in Namaqualand, South Africa
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.
Land Reform, Poverty Reduction and Growth: Evidence from India
In recent times there has been a renewed interest in relationships between redistribution, growth and welfare. Land reforms have been central to strategies to improve the asset base of the poor in developing countries thought their effectiveness has been hindered by political constraints on implementation. In this paper we use panel data on the sixteen main Indian states from 1958 to 1992 to consider whether the large volume of land reforms as have been legislated have had an appreciable impact on growth and poverty.
CARP institutional assessment in a Post-2008 transition scenario: implications for Land Administration and Management (LAM)
The objective of this paper is to present the land administration and management (LAM) issues on CARP and determine the necessary institutional reforms on LAM in view of CARP expiration in 2008. The paper discussed the adverse effects brought about by weak land policy and poor land administration on attaining the objectives of CARP.
Land reform and changes in land ownership concentration: evidence from rice-growing villages in the Philippines
Land reform has been the main policy response of government to correct the sharp inequalities in the distribution of land ownership in the Philippines. The historical records show that the process of disposal of State lands has heavily favored households with economic and political power. These households had undue advantage over the common populace in acquiring property rights through the Spanish system of royal grants and the American system of land cadastre.
Fighting an Uphill Battle: Population Pressure and Declining Land Productivity in Rwanda.
Report draws attention to the structure of landholding as a set of mechanisms through which demographic changes in agrarian societies can alter the natural environment: demographically-induced change in the structure of landholding: farm holdings generally become smaller as an ever-increasing number of households enter the agricultural work force and seek to derive their livelihood from this fixed resource base holdings tend to become more fragmented, not simply in the number of parcels operated but in the distances between parcels, as farmers look harder and farther for whatever bits and p