This paper examines 30 years of experience in zones, reviewing development patterns and economic impacts of zones worldwide. The experience shows that while zones have been effective in addressing economic growth and development objectives, they have not been uniformly successful; successes in East Asia and Latin America have been difficult to replicate, particularly in Africa, and many zones have failed.

Impact Assessment Study of Socio-Economic Development Programmes in Himachal Pradesh, sponsored by the Planning Commission, Government of India has been conducted by Asia pacific Socio-Economic Research Institute, New Delhi from December 1999 to February 2000. 

This guide has been produced by the Interlaken Group, with steering support from the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). The Interlaken Group is a multi-stakeholder forum composed of representatives from companies, investors, international organizations, and civil society groups.

Large-scale agricultural land investments in Africa are often considered solely from the land perspective. Yet land, water and other natural resources are closely interlinked in agricultural production and in sustaining rural livelihoods. Such investments involving irrigation will potentially have implications for water availability and utilization by other users, making it imperative to regard water as an economic rather than a free good.

Ever since the oil, financial and food crises of 2008, sub-Saharan Africa has witnessed a marked increase in large-scale investment in agricultural land. The drivers of this investment are varied and include growing food, water and energy insecurity as well as social and economic interests of investors and recipient countries. The shape of these investments and their eventual outcomes are equally influenced by the existing land and water governance systems in the host countries.

This article is an extract from the bigger document. This articles briefly highlights that the land distribution remains highly unequal in some regions,  Productivity growth of high-input agriculture has slowed down, Increased awareness regarding the detrimental effects of DDT has led to its elimination in many countries, Land under organic farming is increasing but remains concentrated in a few countries.

For the past decade, GIZ has supported participatory land use planning, land registration and land titling as a vehicle for sustainable rural development in Lao PDR. Following a number of predecessor programmes, the current Land Program (including Land Management and Decentralized Planning (LMDP) and Enhanced Land Tenure Security (ELTeS) projects) is active in the provinces of Luang Namtha, Sayabouri, Huaphan and Khammouane. This impact study focussed on some of the intermediary and longer-term changes that GIZ’s work in the land sector has been aiming to bring about in Laos.

A case study researched and published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on gender and equity implications of land related investments on selected agricultural investments in Lao PDR, published in Rome, 2013.

This report draws on the Land Matrix database to analyze and better understand the phenomenon of large-scale agricultural land deals. It focuses on:
» land acquisitions or investments (“deals”) targeting the Global South and Eastern Europe, including only low and middle income countries;
» transnational deals, excluding deals where only domestic actors are involved; and
» deals where the envisioned land use is agricultural.

An analysis paper by Dustin Hoasa on the World Bank Group's lending practices, part 2 in Inclusive Development International (IDI)'s 'Outsourcing Development' series. Published by IDI in collaboration with the Bank Information Center, 11.11.11, Urgewald and Accountability Counsel in the United States, December 2016.

This report documents the contemporary ecological, social and economic transformations occurring in one village in Lao PDR’s central Khammouane province under multiple sources of development-induced displacement. Rural development policy in Laos is focused on promoting rapid rural modernisation, to be achieved through foreign direct investments in two key resource sectors: hydropower and plantations. Laos’ land reformprogram is also a key component of the changes underway in the countryside, as swidden (or shifting) upland cultivation is targeted for stabilisation and elimination.

This study uses publicly available financial and spatial data to examine the geography of land-intensive investment in Southeast Asia, and to identify the
limits imposed by problems with data availability. It focuses on three regions where land has been widely seen to be available for new investment: Indonesia’s outer islands; the “development triangle” where Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam meet; and the Golden Quadrangle region which comprises the borderlands of northeastern Myanmar, northwestern Laos, southern and western Yunnan, and northern Thailand.