Rural women’s livelihoods in Africa are dependent on their rights and entitlement to land as well as security of tenure. Equally important is how land laws and land governance systems shape and reshape women’s access to land and tenure security. As such, this paper focuses on women’s access to land and tenure security after the adoption of a new Constitution in 2013 and Statutory Instrument 53 of 2014 in Zimbabwe. Whereas both legal instruments are progressive and guarantee women’s rights to property, their realization is shrouded in complexities and contradictions.

Land and natural resource tenure security is a central yet often neglected area for economic development and poverty reduction in the developing world. Land is fundamental to the lives of poor rural people. It is a source of food, shelter, income and social identity. Secure access to land reduces vulnerability to hunger and poverty. There are some 1.3 billion extremely poor people in the world, struggling to survive on less than US$1.25 a day, and close to a billion continue to suffer from chronic under-nourishment.

There is a gap between land tenure and the physical land giving room for impersonation, multiple allocation and sale of plots, loss of possession, land racketeering and fraud through forgery. Hence, the need to identify unambiguously parties involved in land transactions so that the root of title can be traced to ensure tenure security. This paper explores innovative ways of filling the gap with biometric data to secure land transactions.

Community land and natural resources lie at the heart of social, political and economic life in much of rural Africa. While the Zambian government acknowledges customary tenure, it has not established required legislation needed to secure it and support to communities in their efforts to protect their lands.

Rwanda has undertaken a land registration and titling program since 2008 with a registration of 10.3 million land parcels in 2013. The aim of this paper is to investigate the early effects of the program on tenure security and agricultural investments since few studies have been carried out in this research area. The study was undertaken in Musanze district in Northern Rwanda, with specific focus on Gataraga sector and it draws on a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods. The findings indicate that the program led to reduced land conflicts and improved tenure security.

Land regularization is an essential ingredient in the formalization on land rights and it plays an important role in improving tenure security of the urban poor. In order to facilitate the process of land regularization, there is need to have up to date spatial information on the settlements earmarked for the regularization process. Ground based survey methods have proved to be time consuming and costly. Thus there is need to adopt cost effective methodology in the acquisition of spatial data.

The political dysfunction that had come to characterize an imploding Zimbabwean economy is beyond dispute. This paper explores how a government that had become weakened in the face of a formidable opposition in urban areas turned to use land as a reward for supporters and as a means of luring new members to join the ruling party. It argues that land patronage has been used as a means for legitimating fledgling state rule while undermining the tenure security of the poor.

Este segundo relatório anual do Grupo de Fomento ao Manejo Florestal (FTFG) analisa o progresso em relação ao compromisso de cinco anos e US$ 1,7 bilhão com os direitos de posse e tutela florestal de povos indígenas e comunidades locais (PIs e LCs) em países de floresta tropical, anunciado na COP26.