A short historical analysis of the origins of current land grabbing, the role of African leaders, and some of the key actors involved.

Contains chapters on formalisation of land rights; women’s land rights – a human rights-based approach; a market-based approach to land rights, followed by country studies on Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

Land and decentralisation policies in Senegal have been closely linked since independence in 1960. Public lands are currently managed by the local governments of municipalities and rural communities, with the latter responsible for the land and natural resources in unprotected parts of their territory, and the former empowered to issue building permits.

A brief on the need to secure land rights for the world’s pastoralists, who manage rangelands that cover a quarter of the world’s land surface but have few advocates. Covers the different paths pastoralists take; resource scarcity in the face of uncertainty; pastoralism and land use; loss and fragmentation of pastoralist lands and blocking of livestock routes; managing climatic variability and climate change; initiatives for securing pastoralists rights to land (Niger, Tanzania, India, Ethiopia).

Includes ProSavana strategy plan published: increased government role and fertiliser subsidies, but no word on land grabs. Claim $4.2 bn farm plan for Rio Lurio. Argues that neither new plantations nor outside investment in large farms have succeeded since independence in 1975. So time for the elite and key donors to realise that plantation or industrial farming does not work in Mozambique and encouraging giant foreign-owned farms will not end poverty. Instead need to encourage foreign investment elsewhere in the value chain and let Mozambicans do the farming.

Includes land and reintegration in Northern Uganda, land hotspots, land dispute resolution mechanisms, Certificates of Customary Ownership, options of freehold and leasehold titles, commercial agricultural investment.

Paper examines current trends in land tenure and sources of insecurity, describes innovative policy and practice to secure various kinds of tenure rights. Seeks to gather insights and lessons from seven case studies (Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Uganda, Niger). Aims to inform current policy debates and initiatives to support land tenure security for low-income, resource-poor and vulnerable groups who make up the majority of Africa’s population.

Includes land and conflict, returnee land access, the role of international humanitarian organisations, policy and law reforms, drawing a line under crisis.

Paper introduces the rationale for focusing on women’s land rights and explains the Learning Route methodology and the preparation of this Route in particular, before providing background information on land tenure and women’s land rights in Rwanda and Burundi.

Investors often look for land with a high growing potential, which means land with lots of rainfall or land that can be irrigated. In multimillion dollar investments involving irrigation, investors typically want to secure water rights as part of the deal. Motivated by potential revenues from water fees and the prospect of improved agricultural productivity, many African governments are signing away water rights for decades to large investors. But they are doing so with little regard for how this will impact the millions of other users whose livelihoods depend on customary access to water.

A second volume in this series covering this region, building on that of August 2004. Designed to be useful for planners, programme designers, advocates, practitioners, citizens and subjects engaged in land reform. Contains an introduction, followed by land reform highlights in Burundi, Eastern DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Land is again the subject of debate in Mozambique, 5 years after the passage of a land law which won praise for protecting peasant rights while creating space for outside investment. The new debate is about whether land, or at least land ’titles’, should be able to be sold and mortgaged, are whether more emphasis should be put on improving conditions for would-be investors rather than delimiting and protecting peasant land and capacitating communities to deal with investors. Argues that the debate on land is actually a proxy for a debate about rural development.