Securing the Right to Land

Set against the backdrop of escalating food prices
and worsening food insecurity, the issue of land
becomes more relevant and urgent. The facts and figures
speak of a great irony. More than half a billion people
in Asia suffer from hunger and food insecurity, and too
often these are the small food producers, who comprise
farm laborers, tenants and small farmers. The region is
home to 75% of the world’s farming households, 80%
of which are resource-poor, and lack access to productive
land.
Farmers’ and rural food producers’ lives are closely
bound up with their lands, which are their source of food
and livelihood as well as their best chance of escaping
poverty. For indigenous peoples (IPs), securing recognition
of their customary rights to ancestral lands is indispensable
to their right to self-determination, cultural integrity
and identity. Unfortunately, these and other groups that
till the land and depend on it for their survival have
least access to it.
Across many countries, improving access to land is
key to solving many social problems, including rural
unemployment, poverty, food insecurity, rural-urban
migration, and political stability. Increasingly, the land
access issue has been seen as a major reason behind
armed conflict, domestic violence, corruption, internal
displacement, structural violence and other social ills......

The Prolonged Struggle for Land Rights in Asia -
A Regional Overview...
Land Watch Asia Campaign Declaration.....Country Papers:-

Bangladesh:
The Backpedalling Stops...
Cambodia:
Overcoming a Failure of Law and Political Will ...
India
Riding the Crest of People’s Movements ...1
Indonesia
The Persistence of Popular Will ...
Nepal
Asserting Freedom from Central Control ...
Pakistan
Fighting the Pyramid of Power ...
Philippines
Defending the Gains of Tenurial Reform ...
Sri Lanka
Land Ownership and the Journey to Self-Determination .....

Keywords: Asia Land Tenure Security Land Management Overview