This study has at its origin the land
question in Paraguay, namely that land ownership is highly
concentrated and has become a source of social conflict in
the rural areas where one-half of the population lives. A
central thesis of the study is that the existing patterns of
land use and ownership, in particular, the very large land
holdings (Zatifundio), are a reflection in part of the
almost insignificant land tax that is charged today on rural

There is no doubt that the poorest
people are already and will continue to be most severely
impacted by climatic changes, including shifting trends as
well as more frequent and severe extreme events. Yet, new
insights on the dynamics and distribution of poverty point
to the need to comprehend where the poor and poorest are,
how they are poor, and why their poverty constrains their
abilities to cope with and adapt to occurring and predicted

In its drive to meet the United Nations
Millennium Development Goals, the World Bank issued, in
October 2002, new strategies for agricultural and rural
development, and water resources management. These
strategies both identified more and better drainage
investments as important to achieving some of the Millennium
Development Goals, notably poverty reduction and
environmental sustainability. The Bank subsequently

This study has at its origin the land
question in Paraguay, namely that land ownership is highly
concentrated and has become a source of social conflict in
the rural areas where one-half of the population lives. A
central thesis of the study is that the existing patterns of
land use and ownership, in particular, the very large land
holdings (Zatifundio), are a reflection in part of the
almost insignificant land tax that is charged today on rural

This report summarizes the findings of
the Uganda Sustainable Land Management Public Expenditure
Review (SLM PER). The SLM PER was undertaken to achieve six
main objectives: (i) establish a robust data base on
SLM-related public expenditure that can support credible
empirical analysis; (ii) develop a sound methodology for
conducting SLM PERs, which could guide similar work in the
future; (iii) analyze the level and composition of SLM

There is enough land in the Amazon
region to satisfy Brazilian society's demands for
economic development, environmental management of a resource
base of global importance and the challenges of agrarian
reform. Yet Brazil has been unable to create a fully
coherent and manageable land policy and administration
system for the region which permits sustainable development
goals to be achieved while reconciling special interests and

The authors use evidence from a survey of about 1200 beneficiaries of South African land reform to assess the performance of the initial phase of the land reform program. They find that the program has not lived up to the quantitative goals set, but did successfully target the poor. It has led to a significant number of economically successful projects that already generate sustainable revenues.

In India, as in many developing
countries, land continues to have enormous economic, social,
and symbolic relevance. How access to land can be obtained,
and how ownership of land can be documented, are questions
essential to the livelihoods of the large majority of the
poor, especially in rural and tribal areas. Answers to these
questions will determine to what extent India's
increasingly scarce natural resources are managed. Moreover,

Livelihoods, food security, and
development processes in Sub-Saharan Africa are highly
dependent on land management practices to generate natural
ecosystem goods and services. Out of a total population of
about 717 million people, almost 60 percent depend for their
livelihood on agriculture, hunting, fishing, or forestry.
However, unsustainable land management already is leading to
large-scale land degradation trends, which pose a threat to

This Policy Note looks at impacts of European Union accession on agriculture and rural sectors, taking into account specific sectoral features and policy choices pre- and post-accession. The most important lesson learned from recently acceded member states is that policy choices before accession will largely determine whether the agriculture sector will be able to fully reap the benefits of EU membership, by expanding trade, or will struggle in the face of increased market pressure.

This note centers on the Honduras Access to Land Pilot Project (PACTA). PACTA's objectives are twofold, to: (1) facilitate access to land for landless households through the land market; and (2) promote the development of sustainable rural enterprises. PACTA's achievements, thus far, can be summarized as follows: 1) It established a working model for rural enterprise formation that leverages private sector financing. 2) Grants made to families are used to establish productive projects, leverage a proportionally large private investment, and improve access to land.

Taking advantage of a historical quasi-experiment in Sri Lanka, this paper provides evidence on the effects of land market restrictions on wages and its spatial pattern. The empirical specification is derived from a general equilibrium model that predicts that the adverse effects of land market restrictions on wages will be less in remote locations. For identification, the study exploits the effects of historical malaria prevalence on the incidence of land restrictions through its effects on "crown land".