ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In October 2014 the Myanmar government unveiled a draft National Land Use Policy (NLUP) and announced it would take public comments for a limited time before finalizing the document. Once it is finalized, the new policy will determine the distribution, use and management of the country’s land and related natural resources like forests and rivers, for years to come.

The rubber tree is native to the humid tropics and has traditionally been cropped in the equatorial zone between 108Nand 108S; in mainland Southeast Asia this includes portions of southern Thailand, southeastern Vietnam, and southern Myanmar. In the early 1950s, the Chinese government began to invest in growing rubber in environments perceived to be ecologically marginal and eventually established state rubber plantations in areas that lie as far north as 228 north latitude.

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: This paper traces the implications of key agrarian transformations −particularly the reforms in land policy and emerging land relations− for livelihood security and vulnerability. Part of a broader societal transformation and globalization of economies, these new development trajectories include commercialization of farmers’ produce, contract farming, cooperative sector reform, rising landlessness and tenant farming, and the end of exclusive dependence on land for earning a living.

While Vietnam's reforms provided some of the weakest legal private property rights amongst the transitions countries, cities like Ho Chi Minh City have booming domestic real estate markets. Interestingly, while most properties in 2001 did not have legal title, those on the market did advertise a variety of property rights claims. Employing a hedonic price model to analyse the pattern of prices at which sellers offer properties in Ho Chi Minh City, this study examines how this market values property rights.

The process of decollectivization in Vietnam, leading up to the 1993 Land Law, ensured farming households the rights to market their own produce and to transfer, exchange, lease, inherit, and mortgage their land-use rights. These changes imply a reworking of relations between state, market, and household, but also within households. Although the allocation of agricultural land in northern Vietnam was relatively equitable, allocation by the state represents only one channel of entitlements to land.

One of the main components of Indonesia's Just Economy policy is extensive and rapid land reform, which targets about 12% of the country's land area for redistribution to farmers and communities by 2019. Much of the reform is occurring on forest land. At the same time, the country has pledged a significant reduction of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, two thirds of which is to be achieved from forests. Hence agrarian reform potentially conflicts with emission reduction commitments.

This study looks into the implementation of Brunei’s Master Plan proposal for compact strategy of developments within the designated Urban Footprint zone. Although the Master Plan lacks regulatory support, this study found that private housing developments have been mainly concentrated within the Urban Footprint zone and a more compact urban form through infill and higher density developments is being realized. This may be due to government administrative processes, housing trend and market demand.

In Timor-Leste, customary institutions contribute to sustainable and equitable rural development and the establishment of improved access to and management of land, water and other natural resources. Drawing on multi-sited empirical research, we argue that the recognition and valorization of custom and common property management is a prerequisite for sustainable and equitable land tenure reform in Timor-Leste.

Mounting exclusionary forces have made the task of achieving equity in urban land delivery more elusive than it has ever been. Statistics show that, in practice, most land for urban development (especially that occupied by the poor) is supplied outside state regulatory frameworks and there is overwhelming evidence of the importance of secure access to land and housing to the livelihood strategies of poor urban households.

This third report comprises two parts: Part 1 contains an analysis of policy options and recommendations for the preparation of a law on land rights and title restitution. The recommendations are based on LLP’s research findings, its comparative case studies, an analysis of existing legislation and on relevant input of stakeholders that participated in LLP’s roundtable on land rights in June 2004. Part 2 presents LLP’s research methodology, results and analysis for the development of land policy concerning land rights and title restitution.

Land restitution carries implicit recognition of some previous claim to ownership, but when are first claims recognized? The concepts of first possession and original acquisition have long been used as entry points to Western concepts of property. For Austronesia, the concept of precedence is used in customary systems to justify and describe land claims and Indigenous authority. Conflict and political change in Timor-Leste have highlighted the co-existence of multiple understandings of land claims and their legitimacy.

The land administration system in Bangladesh is not well-developed. It is beset with multiple defects and problems. It is corrupt, inefficient, and unreliable and inherently contains systematic weaknesses. Corruption has become a grave issue in this sector. A World Bank survey reveals that most crimes and corruptions in Bangladesh take place in land-related services. It has estimated that more than 3.2 million land-related cases are pending before the judiciary. A large number of the aggrieved persons is not empowered enough to approach the courts for litigation.