The paper discusses the interface of anthropological research on land with policy positions across formative periods – from the colonial period through to the present as land tenure reform has repeatedly become a development priority; and recent research on intensifying competition over land, its intersection with competition over legitimate authority, new types of land transfers, the role of claims of indigeneity or autochthony in land conflicts, and the challenges of increasing social inequality and of commodification of land for analysis and for land reform.

Includes strategic plan for implementation of the land laws, implementation activities: setting up local land administrations and dispute mechanisms, lessons learned and challenges ahead.

Describes a long-standing grazing dispute in northern Namibia that provides critical lessons on the challenges that people living in communal areas face to secure their land rights. Several large livestock owners illegally enclosed community rangelands to secure grazing for their own commercial cattle herds. The communities used legislation to defend their land rights: they mobilised relevant government and traditional authorities to intervene, resulting in a court order for the removal of most of the illegal cattle owners.

Paper discusses Zambia’s dual land tenure system, the ways in which gender issues have been incorporated in legal and policy documents, and the extent to which this has been reflected in practice. It also examines the role of donors in legal and policy processes and donor support to civil society in relation to women’s land rights. Gender and land policies provide for the allocation of land to women, but have little impact on the ground. Customary law is on the whole discriminatory against women, in particular with regard to land ownership.

Looking at several large-scale land deals in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, this documentary film highlights the nuanced impacts of these investments. Small-scale farmers and producers, national government officials, and African policy-makers unpack the deals, showing that there are winners and losers when providing investors access to large tracts of land in Africa. For example, land deals impact differently on women and youth, and altering land regimes also impacts on access to other natural resources such as water, fish, and local indigenous vegetables.

Includes the fundamental choice: landowners or laborers?; state of forest tenure rights in 2012: progress and unfulfilled promises; 2012 in focus: choices and their consequences; looking ahead to 2013.

Comments on the IDRC workshop on LSLAs and accountability in Africa, Dakar, 24-25 November 2015. The current IDRC programme supports 5 action research projects across 10 countries in West, East and Southern Africa. They investigate how to build accountability over land governance. This requires a multi-level strategy at both policy and community level. The most contentious debate was about valuation, benefit-sharing and compensation because compensation almost always fails to take full account of the real value of natural resources in people’s lives.

Malawi, like other countries in Africa, has a new land policy designed to clarify and formalise customary tenure. The country is poor with a high population density, highly dependent on agriculture, and the research sites are matrilineal-matrilocal, and near urban centres. But the case raises issues relevant to land tenure reform elsewhere: the role of ‘traditional authorities’ or chiefs vis-a-vis the state and ‘community’; variability in types of ‘customary’ tenure; and deepening inequality within rural populations.

Tanzania’s land reform from 1999 has been evaluated as among the most gender-sensitive of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. However there is a gap between the legal framework and what is happening on the ground. This paper analyses the challenges related to the protection of women’s rights to land in rural areas. It provides detailed information on reform implementation experiences so far by analysing a number of government and NGO interventions.

Presents an example of a biofuels production project and its value chain to argue that there is a need for a land and investment policy to guide communities, investors and stakeholders. The expansion of commercial sugarcane farming and the establishment of an ethanol refinery at Chisumbanje in Chipinge District present both opportunities and risks for rural people. Without clarity on land tenure, investors are faced with challenges when deciding the extent to which they can put their money into agriculture.

Having listened to the presentations, encourage communities to continue to assert their rights. Noted a failure of governance and lack of good democratic practice. Consultation processes have been abused, promises not fulfilled, women not involved in decision making, there is a critical need for greater openness and transparency in all land deals. Make a number of recommendations to African governments and calls on investors to ensure that women’s voices and interests are heard and heeded in all decision making.

In 1999 Ghana engaged in an ambitious land reform process with the adoption of a National Land Policy implemented through a Land Administration Project. The reform aims at strengthening land administration institutions and increasing the security of land tenure for landholders on both customary and state land, but the process is facing multiple challenges, e.g.