This case study draws on research that examines

Redistributive land reform in Namibia is widely regarded as a precondition for sustainable rural development and poverty alleviation. This paper briefly discusses the development of thinking on land reform and the development of land reform models prior to Independence.

Informal systems for land delivery, which have in many cases evolved from earlier customary practices, still account for over half the land supplied for housing in African cities and are a particularly important channel for the poor. This study examines how informal systems of housing land delivery operate in six African cities discussing how they are evolving and how they interact with formal land administration systems.

This paper analyses issues that affect the role of agriculture as a source of economic development, rural livelihoods and environmental services. Using experiences of land expansion in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa, it assesses the extent to which recent demand for land differs from earlier processes of area expansion and identifies the current challenges, in terms of land governance, institutional capacity and communities’ awareness of their rights.

The promotion of forestry activities is seen as a means by which to reduce poverty while protecting the environment. But if clearing of forests for agricultural activities can prove more profitable, will such efforts be effective?

This paper focuses on the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project, implemented by the NGO Vi Agroforestry, which is designing and implementing climate finance projects in the agricultural sector.

The key concept of the Global Strategy for Shelter, and its successor the Habitat Agenda, is that of enabling; of governments' stepping back from housing production and measures to control the price of outputs and, instead, working to enable the current and potential suppliers of housing to do what they do best. A major part of the enabling process is to set in place a regulatory context in which urban development can be sustainable and of the scale required for all to be adequately housed. This inevitably means a reduction of standards so that they are realistic.

Examines livelihood diversification as a survival strategy of rural households in developing countries. Although still of central importance, farming on its own is increasingly unable to provide a sufficient means of survival in rural areas.

This paper examines how developing countries have attempted to promote rural development through biofuel production, what social outcomes those strategies have created and what lessons can be learned. This is done by comparing the contexts of Brazil, India and Indonesia; three countries with important agricultural sectors that have put large-scale biofuel programmes in place. The analysis indicates a disparity between the social discourse and the adopted biofuel policy instruments.

This paper examines the experiences of implementation of land reform policies in the Eastern Cape through a series of case studies.It looks at how attempts at redistribution, restitution and land tenure reform have resulted in a variety of models and approaches.

The project aims to support small-scale farmers in the project area in their efforts to adapt their farming practices to anticipated climate change and to enhance their incomes.

Malawi’ s smallholder agriculture is facing a crisis, particularly in the more populated south. There is an insidious combination of land shortage, continuous cultivation of maize, declining soil fertility, low yields, deforestation, poverty and high population growth rate. Smallholder farmers are doing what they can to maintain household livelihoods under these difficult circumstances, however many of their actions, which are necessary for short term survival, such as the cultivation of hillsides, are not sustainable in the long term.