Contains review of women’s access to land, research overview of women’s land tenure status in East Africa, harnessing women’s agency to secure women’s access to land, the role of intermediary institutions in increasing women’s land tenure security.

Series of country papers on HIV/AIDS and land in Lesotho, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, with concluding paper on methodological and conceptual issues. The key questions addressed include: The impact on and changes in land tenure systems (including patterns of ownership, access, and rights) as a consequence of HIV/AIDS with a focus on vulnerable groups. The ways that HIV/AIDS affected households are coping in terms of land use, management and access, e.g. abandoning land due to fear of losing land, renting out due to inability to utilise land, distress sale of land, etc.

Focuses on the situation of farm workers after the fast-track land resettlement programme, including issues of housing and tenure security. Includes presentations from GAPWUZ, FCTZ, and some researchers, and a report of the discussions. Annexes contain full presentations. Recommendations include that under-utilised land be made available to farm workers. The Portfolio Committee on Agriculture has since asked FCTZ to facilitate public hearings on the issue in January 2006.

Highlights the role of European Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) in possible land grabs and questionable forestry projects in Africa. Documents 9 cases involving 8 of the European DFIs in Cameroon, DR Congo, Sao Tome, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda. Raises the need for more independent research into these projects and for much more scrutiny of DFI investment portfolios, both by DFIs themselves and national parliaments. DFIs need to be placed under proper democratic scrutiny and their investments held to account by parliaments.

A comprehensive research report covers the literature, includes a large survey of farm households throughout Ethiopia, and surveys the opinions of professionals. Land tenure is now a hotly debated issue; land scarcity and degradation are serious. Tenure security is seen as more important than the form of ownership. Almost three-quarters of farmers surveyed fear future distributions of land. Government is afraid that moving from state to private ownership will lead to massive evictions through distress sales, but over 90% farmers said they would not sell their land if they could.

Includes evolution of communal areas in Zimbabwe, research context and findings, processes leading to matongo, vulnerability of women’s land access, bargaining for land in patrimonial governance systems.

Includes land and food security; an overview; a short literature review (food security, governance); the impact of large scale land acquisitions on food security and nutrition (environmental and social impact assessments, national versus international investors, gender and food security, new research).

Based on field research conducted by two grassroots organizations, CINDI-Kitwe in Zambia and GROOTS Kenya, to map and document cases of property grabbing from children, in particular those who became orphans due to AIDS. Includes problem analysis and study objectives; presenting children’s experiences in Zambia and in Kenya; conclusions and lessons learned.

A study of Botswana’s Tribal Land Integrated Management System (TLIMS), which documented the land inventorying of customary land.

This workshop brought together 75 practitioners from all over Africa. Professor Okoth-Ogendo, Professor of Public Law at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, gave a regional view of recent trends in East Africa, looking at land policy in East African history, trends in land policy development, and land policy changes in the 21st century.

What can an analysis of power in local communities contribute to debates on women’s legal empowerment and the role of paralegals in Africa? Drawing upon theories of power and rights, and research on legal empowerment in African plural legal systems, this article explores the challenges for paralegals in facilitating women’s access to justice in Tanzania, which gave statutory recognition to paralegals in the Legal Aid Act 2017. Land conflicts represent the single-biggest source of local legal disputes in Tanzania and are often embedded in gendered land tenure relations.

Critical reflections on the concepts, issues and methods that are important for integrating a gender perspective into mainstream research and policy-making on land and agricultural commercialisation in Africa. Informed by case studies in Kenya, Ghana and Zambia. Compares key gender issues that arise across plantation, contract farming and small- and medium-scale commercial farming. Discusses how concepts and research methods derived from the literature may be applied to mainstream research. Highlights the need for an integrated approach to researching gender and agrarian change in Africa.