(Ecofin Agency) - Launched in 2005 with a financial support from the World Bank, Madagascar’s land reform has yielded satisfying results, the Bretton Woods institution said on its website.

“Many other countries could follow Madagascar’s example. Actually, various African nations are already showing interest in the Malagasy land reform as it tackles key challenges and provide technical and legal solutions which are reliable and accessible,” explains André Teyssier, land specialist at the World Bank.

Global population is projected for a rise from the present tally of about 7.1 billion to over 9 billion around 2050. This translates into an annual demand of over one billion extra tonnes of extra cereals and 200 million tonnes of livestock products, which means more aggressive agricultural expansion. Is this a problem? There are two ways to view it: we will need to produce more food and more importantly, produce more nutritious food. The latter has lately been a key challenge in the global food sector: eradicate hunger with high-quality food (Sustainable Development Goal 2).

A recently passed agricultural land law gives rural communities in Mali new rights to their traditional lands. Camilla Toulmin finds out more from an expert.

The Kichwa people of the San Martin region have traditionally occupied the upland forests which since 2005 were classified as the Regional Protected Area - Cerro Escalera by the regional government of San Martin. Today, many of these communities lack any secure rights to these forests and are regularly stopped and restricted from accessing its forest resources vital for their subsistence.

Indigenous peoples across Latin America have demonstrated their determination to protect their communities and their territories over the centuries and, in the process, have proven their role as stewards of the environment. Threatening to encroach upon ancestral lands, contaminate water sources, and divide communities with the construction of mega projects, national and multinational companies have long wreaked havoc on the environment and taken advantage of indigenous communities. Yet, the communities have not sat idly by.

Civil Society Organisations in Edo State, under the umbrella of Coalition for Protection of the Environment, recently staged a protest against land grabbing and deforestation. Adibe Emenyonu who was there, reports

Bose Eruanga is a peasant farmer from Uzalla, Owan West Local Government Area of Edo State. Eruanga, as a widow with six children depends on the produce from the farmlands in her community to train her children.

Land is integral to securing shelter, agriculture for food security, mobilising investments and for the sustainable management of resources. With these issues in focus, Habitat for Humanity's Solid Ground Campaign, in association with the Urban CSO Cluster of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) of UN-HABITAT, will be hosting a conference in Pretoria, 15-17 August.

Indigenous community leader Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma came down heavily on the government saying that thousands of people from the minority communities are sinking under the high tide of country’s “so-called development”.

“The government says that high tide of development spreads across the county, but actually thousands of people of the minority communities are sinking by the so called tide,” said the president of Bangladesh Adivasi Forum.

Advancing rights of women farmers can revolutionise the rural ecosystem