Argues that the price of commercial farmland in Namibia is high in relation to the profits that can be made from commercial livestock farming. As a result, farming is rapidly becoming the preserve of the urban rich who farm as a lifestyle choice and are prepared to subsidise their farms from their principal sources of income. Government policy is trying to encourage black Namibians into commercial farming through the Affirmative Action Loans scheme. However, given the price of land, many of these farmers will struggle to create commercially viable farms.

Includes how land is currently identified and acquired; recognising and responding to demand; what do we know about land needs?; innovative ways of working with needs / demand and supply; land prices; towards alternatives; conclusion; recommendations.

Summary: Covers the author’s surprising lack of knowledge of farmworkers; the extensive labour migration in Southern Africa in the 20th century, but the lack of concern about citizenship or nationality then; the historical vulnerability, isolation, and invisibility of farmworkers; the current tightening of borders, increasing xenophobia, greater vulnerability of farmworkers, and failure of government attempts to improve things, that farmworkers have been largely ignored in new land reform programmes, with Zimbabwe illustrating the dangers of this, and the possibility that forced evictions c

Comprises background and research objectives, literature review, research methodology, research findings, conclusions and recommendations. Believes that local authorities should be sensitized to the urgent need to bring sustainable and just resolution to intra-household disputes as there is a tendency for these to result in violence against women disputants. Dispute resolution bodies may be more successful if they adopt mediation approaches and work with men to understand why gender equal land rights can serve their interests as well.

Includes discourse on land tenure reforms and tenure security, conceptual framework, evolution of land tenure reform and agricultural productivity in Mozambique, data and estimation strategy, results, conclusion. Analyzes the determinants of household perceived tenure insecurity and its effect on long-term land-related investment. The presence of a significant demand for certificates of land ownership implies the opportunities to strengthen the pro-poor impacts of the ongoing land reform programmes by establishing a system that would respond to this demand effectively.

Short report on Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh annual international conference. Its focus was on the highly marginalized hunter-gatherers and forest people who are increasing in number but are heavily discriminated against and are losing many struggles for land. They are often invisible to donors. Discusses international efforts to support indigenous rights and the difficulty of applying this concept in Africa. Lists the papers presented at the conference.

This book is a compilation of 11 papers that explore the limits of the current approach to land redistribution in South Africa and propose policy alternatives. Centres on 3 themes: how land is to be acquired (which land, and for whom), under what tenure arrangements it is to be held, and how production is to be supported. Focus moves beyond debating alternatives to the ‘willing-buyer, willing-seller’ paradigm to the kind of agrarian change that land reform should pursue. Central to all is reconfiguring the roles of state and market.

Argues the need for landowners in South Africa to draw lessons from events in Zimbabwe and to be much more radical, proactive and imaginative in promoting needed changes in land reform, failing which they will have no future, as pressures from the landless intensify. The current status quo is unsustainable and the national effort inadequate. The private sector has a key role to play to break the current logjam. Increasing number of landowners are beginning to see the light and accept political realities. Calls for a land summit to negotiate a comprehensive agrarian transformation.

Contains mix-and-match ministries, separating Land Reform from Agriculture, dualism and the ‘missing middle’, rethinking rural development, what are the policy alternatives?

Short summary of possible different futures on the land, land laws in Uganda and Tanzania, and the work of NGO land alliances.

Research sought to evaluate the determinants of urban land markets, to analyse trends in urban land markets and values, and to assess impacts of urban land prices and policies. Concludes that if current land policies are not reformed there is a risk of increased negative impacts on the poor and more low-income people will be exposed to displacement to areas away from the urban centres which could cause social instability and an increase of informal settlements in suburbs.

Includes the land inheritance system, the (potential) diminishing relevance of customary norms, land rights and awareness of the law, women, customary practices and participation, DUATs and land occupation, the land market. Argues that in the current context the right of women to access and administer land is being limited not by customary social rules and law but by the adverse socio-economic context which characterises the whole peasant sector.