CIFOR undertook a review of Kenya’s legal framework to understand whether legal provisions were sufficient to secure community land and forest rights. Asks how adequate Kenya’s legal framework was in protecting and promoting tenure rights of forest communities. The law appears to offer adequate security for the tenure rights of forest communities. Forests on communal land are secure;at least on paper. Areas of public gazetted forests claimed by indigenous groups as their customary territory are not well secured by law;but a task force is now addressing this gap.

The Key Messages on Sustaining Peace through Women’s Empowerment and Increased Access to Land and Property Rights in Fragile and Conflict-affected Contexts were intended to provide a reference on how to empower women and protect their housing;land and property rights in fragile and crisis affected contexts;and to set out why this is an essential element to sustain peace and stability. The publication includes a list of resources to further inform the development of related programmes and projects.

Executive summary of an AGTER report on land inequality. Includes why land inequality matters; land inequality – the shocking reality; hidden hands – the unseen hands of land inequality; solutions for effective change; a pathway to change.

A review of a book on land in Kenya published in 2020 by Boydell and Brewer Ltd. The reviewer offers a detailed analysis and discussion of the 8 chapters of this 224-page book. The chapters are entitled: introduction: what we talk about when we talk about land; land reform in Kenya: the history of an idea; making mischief: land in modern Kenya; land and constitutional change; the new institutional framework for land governance; land governance before the Supreme Court; rethinking historical land injustices; taking justice seriously.

Draws from a research report which responded to heightened concerns over rising conflict and antagonism between predominantly herding groups and more settled farming peoples across a wide band of semi-arid Africa. Many increasingly blame ‘farmer–herder conflict’;but neither recent history nor surveys of armed violence support this simplification. Pastoralism is seen as disruptive and backward;fighting an unwinnable battle for scarce resources. Yet in truth it is an under-valued adaptation to variability that can make livelihoods and landscapes more climate-resilient.

Chapter in a book;“Rethinking land reform in Africa;opportunities and challenges” by the African Natural Resources Centre;edited by Cosmas Milton Obote Ochieng for the African Development Bank. A think piece reflecting on changing commercial pressures on land in low and middle-income countries; the role of law in shaping the ways those pressures manifest themselves; the limits of business standards in driving systemic change; and the case for comprehensive law reform to secure rural land rights.

This commentary highlights the importance of land tenure security for women and indigenous peoples. Land titles are often used as a proxy for women’s land security;but focusing on titling alone does not lead to greater tenure security for women. To ensure tenure security;the development community;policymakers and practitioners must expand the range of interventions that address constraints women face when exercising their land rights.

A policy brief introducing a new book edited by Khwezi Mabasa and Bulelwa Mabasa. The book examines how land and agrarian reform impacts nation building;citizenship and identity formation. It draws attention to the limitations of reducing land to a commodity and how this approach perpetuates social conflict and inequality in land reform policy implementation. The brief argues that it is important to explore the contested meanings of land in society. These varied meanings challenge traditional land reform perspectives.

Aminata K Fabba is the Chairlady of the Malen Land Owners Association;(MALOA) and a frontline grassroots land rights defender in the southern provincial district of Pujehun. Describes her criticism of an unfair land agreement with SOCFIN details of which were not fully explained to the landholding families.

This article argues that while we know that the demand for land and natural resources has significantly accelerated in the last decade;it remains very difficult to gauge the exact size of the land rush. Many studies that look into how much land is affected give vastly diverging numbers. Local elites and diaspora investors are known for controlling large areas in their home countries and their activities tend to be even less transparent than those of international investors. Many studies choose not to include domestic investors.

This study examines how Senegalese CSOs operating within the framework for dialogue and action on land in Senegal (CRAFS) mobilised around the process of formulating a draft land reform;led by the National Land Reform Commission (CNRF) between 2014 and 2016. After describing how members of CRAFS contributed to the debate on the need for an inclusive land reform and their active and critical contributions to the CNRF process;the paper analyses the achievements and limitations of their engagement in the process and the lessons learned from it.

The author has now run this site as an absolute dictator for 20 years;first in Oxfam space (2000-12) and since 2012 in Mokoro space. The article covers the origins of the site;the various motivations and the important role of changing technologies. The site is essentially a place to disseminate arguments in favour of pro-poor land reform and against simple solutions to complex issues. After the 2008 global financial crisis it included work on the impact of the global land grab on Africa.