Remarks by Gregory Myers, during negotiations for the Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests on March 8, 2012 Ministers, Excellencies, honorable representatives of member countries, civil society participants and guests: This morning we begin our session with recognition of International Women’s Day. Each year the United Nations declares an International Women's Day theme.

Girls Not Brides, a global partnership of more than 200 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) committed to ending child marriage, recently featured an article on how women's land rights can help reduce child marriage. The article describes how USAID’s Kenya Justice project has helped improve girls’ access to education by working with customary justice systems to strengthen women’s land rights in target communities.

A guest post by Robert Oberndorf, Resource Law Specialist, Tenure and Global Climate Change Project. Recent rapid changes in Burma have led to concerns related to the land tenure and property rights (LTPR) of smallholder farmers and communities throughout the country. The limited harmonization and dated nature of the overall legal and governance frameworks related to land use management and tenure security in the country adds to these concerns.

In December 2009, Kenya adopted a new National Land Policy with the purpose of resolving the myriad of land tenure problems throughout the country. The policy calls for the recognition of customary community lands and land governance, addressing inequitable land distribution rooted in historical injustices, instituting a transparent and accountable system of land administration, and ensuring the effective protection of women’s rights to land and related resources, including the provision for joint spousal registration and documentation of land rights.

The poor in Mozambique survive off the land, but what would the consequences be if the land was privatised? This paper looks at how Mozambique is approaching issues surrounding land usage and ownership as market reforms take place and the land becomes increasingly susceptible to being opened up to the market.A historical background to the issue of land use and ownership in Africa is given, from colonisation to the impact of globalisation and the market in present day Africa.

Malawi has pursued an agricultural-led development strategy since its independence in 1964. This agricultural-led development strategy was based on the promotion of a dual agricultural system comprising estate (large-scale) production mainly for cash (export) crops and smallholder agricultural production mainly to support the food security needs of the population. In the post-independence era, the objectives of an agricultural strategy were four fold: To raise agricultural productivity and accelerate growth and export performance.

This paper looks for the possible explanations for the land productivity differential between high caste and low caste farm households in Nepal. The paper indicates that caste position still plays a vital role in rural areas of Nepal.The paper finds that: land productivity is higher among low caste households. However, in case of owner-operated plots, the land productivity differential between low caste and high caste is found to be insignificant after controlling for land quality and household characteristics. This difference remains highly significant in case of rented in plots.

The project will contribute to the intensification of rainfed agriculture, the expansion of agricultural exports, the alleviation of poverty, and improved land use. It will pursue these aims by strengthening the capability of the Agricultural Land Reform Office (ALRO) to implement a series of land reform and development projects on encroached public lands and by demonstrating the viability of a land reform and infrastructure development model in an initial set of nine land reform areas (LRAs) of 192,000 ha affecting some 35,000 low-income families.

While early attempts at land titling in Africa were unsuccessful, factors such as new legislation, low-cost methods, and increasing demand for land have generated renewed interest. This paper aims to assess the impacts of land registration in Ethiopia.

This paper analyses the impacts of the Ethiopian Land Certification Program on productivity. It aims to identify how “technological gains” would measure up against the benefits from a resultant improvements in “technical efficiency”. Based on its results, the paper concludes that farms belonging to the group without land use certificate are less productive than those certified plots. However, it suggests that this is not due to so much lack of internal technical efficiency. Rather, the paper finds the reason is down to a technological disadvantage.

The note focuses on the global effects of land degradation, but emphasizes other important levels of land degradation: at the field level, it may result in reduced productivity; at the national level, it may cause flooding, and sedimentation; and, at the global level, it can contribute to climate changes, damaging bio-diversity, and international waters. The effects on climate changes are explored, and the report questions the extent to which land degradation on agricultural land, affects climate change. Does it increase emissions of greenhouse gases?

Identification of Land Quality Indicators (LQIs) is a key requirement of sustainable land management. They are required to assess, monitor, and evaluate changes in the quality of land resources and environmental impacts. The Land Quality Indicator (LQI) program monitors the environment and the sector performance of managed ecosystems. The program is being developed on a national and regional scale, but it is also part of a larger global effort to improve natural resource management. The LQI program recommends addressing issues of land management by agroecological zones.