Although many African countries have adopted highly innovative and pro-poor land laws, lack of implementation hinders their potentially far-reaching impact on productivity, poverty reduction, and governance. To assess the effects of these pro-poor land laws and analyse whether the existing doubts are justified, this report draws on the experience of Ethiopia which, over a period of 2-3 years, registered the majority of rural lands in a rapid process at rather low cost.

Aims to estimate the annual direct use value of an average hectare of the communal rangeland in Botswana, based on an anlalysis of secondary data. Exercise incorporates the three major direft uses, both marketed and non-marketed, of rangelands: livestock, wildlife and gathering

In South Africa, provision of affordable, well-situated housing close to existing services and work places is hampered by the high cost and scarcity of appropriate land. Consequently, most new low-income housing projects have been developed on the urban periphery. This tends to entrench the spatial differentiation of residential areas by race and class characteristics of the apartheid era and increased the cost of providing services to low-income housing projects inhabitants.

This article discusses the enclosure of rangelands and registration of exclusive rights to grazing by individuals or groups of pastoralists. This trend has been increasing greatly over the last twenty years. This occurs because:it is encouraged by governments, planners and multi-lateral donor agencies in an attempt to 'rationalise'the use of rangelands.

Land degradation in the Philippines is a serious environmental problem with long-term implications for the sustainability of agricultural production. Protection of the resource base has thus become a policy priority, whether in terms of improving crop management in the lowlands or more urgently, arresting soil erosion in the uplands. This review aims to compile and evaluate estimates of the costs of land degradation; then analyze the costs, benefits, and equity implications of priority measures to protect soil resources; and lastly, draw implications for policy.

The Kumasi peri-urban area is characterised by high rates of conversion of agricultural land to private housing. Kumasi, Ghana, is also situated across a major drainage divide, resulting in a range of water quality and supply problems. Collaborative DFID-funded research by Royal Holloway, University of London, with government and NGO partners in Ghana, aims to develop and pilot a sustainable co-management approach to peri- urban watersheds.

Based on worldwide experience and encouraging evidence from country pilots in African countries such as Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania,and Uganda, this new report suggests a series of ten steps that may help to revolutionise agricultural production and eradicate poverty in Africa. These steps include improving tenure security over individual and communal lands, increasing land access and tenure for poor and vulnerable families, resolving land disputes, managing better public land, and increasing efficiency and transparency in land administration services. 

This report discusses the potential benefits of, and the current challenges for, agricultural land investment in Tanzania and Mozambique. The paper finds that there is little, if any, development potential in these investments. Indeed, the economic growth potential of investments in agricultural land is questionable due to an inadequate regulatory framework governing foreign direct investments (FDI) in the sector.

This article begins with an investigation into woodland management in Mali and moves onto a discussion of some of the fundamental practical problems associated with a major part of forest policy in Mali.

Angola, like Mozambique, inherited its legal framework from the Portuguese Civil Code, which was not based on a traditional African concept of community occupation under customary law. With Portuguese settlement, large areas of land were appropriated for and incorporated into the colonial cadastre (the formally surveyed and officially recorded land boundaries of the land concessions granted by the state). After winning independence from Portugal in 1975 the new Angolan government, influenced by socialist principles, affirmed the constitutional role of the state as the owner of all land.

Built on earlier quantitative assessment of the socio-economic drivers of the above changes, this paper focuses on the role of national level policies implemented in the area over the past decades, and how these have affected the traditional institutional setting that determines land use, property rights and pathways of livestock development.The paper uses a literature review combined with in-depth key informant and group interviews to identify key policies and interventions, assess their impacts and explore the responses and strategies adopted at both individual and community levels to cop

What are the dynamics of land tenure in the CAS (Conda, Ambuim, and Sumbe) area in Angola? What are its opportunities and risks? This paper reveals a denial of land access rights to communal farmers, whose livelihoods are centred on land.