Land rights in Africa - Africa general

Land Rights	Introduction	Key principles
Africa General	West Africa	East Africa
Horn of Africa	Southern Africa	Links

Securing women's right to land and livelihoods: a key to ending hunger and fighting AIDS NEW
Source: ActionAid International Briefing Paper
Summary: Contains executive summary; food insecurity and the AIDS epidemic; barriers to women's farming; women's land rights; economic and social empowerment; violence against women; inheritance rights and property grabbing; politics, ideologies and vested interests; recommendations.
Date: June 2008
Download the full paper (1.37MB.pdf file)

Decentralization, Pro-Poor Land Policies, and Democratic Governance
Source: CAPRi Working Paper 80 (Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Monica Di Gregorio and Stephan Dohrn)
Summary: Land tenure reform policy has been affected by many different types of decentralization, but the literature has rarely explicitly addressed the implications of this. The paper provides a review of how the issues of decentralization are linked to land tenure reform in theory and practice. Begins with clarifying some key terms, then looks at contending perspectives on decentralization and how these relate to the UNDP’s pillars of democratic governance. Reviews the different types of land tenure reform in terms of the role of centralized and decentralized institutions, illustrating strengths and weaknesses, gaps and challenges with experience from a range of developing countries. Turns to conclusions and policy recommendations, considering how decentralized approaches to land tenure reform can contribute to goals such as gender equity, social cohesion, human rights, and the identity of indigenous peoples.
Date: June 2008
Download the full paper (317K.pdf file) from the CAPRi website: http://www.capri.cgiar.org/pdf/capriwp80.pdf

Linked to this Working Paper are 3 UNDP Discussion Papers and 4 UNDP Oslo Governance Centre (OGC) Briefs, all dated May 2008. The 3 UNDP Discussion Papers are: 1. Democratic Land Governance and some Policy Recommendations (by Saturnino M. Borras Jr. and Jennifer C. Franco); 2. Gender, Land Rights and Democratic Governance (by Ambreena Manji); 3. Pro-Poor Land Tenure Reform and Democratic Governance (by Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Monica Di Gregorio and Stephan Dohrn). The 4 OGC Briefs are: 1. Land Policy and Governance (by Saturnino M. Borras Jr. and Jennifer C. Franco); 2. Land Based Social Relations: Key Features of a Pro-Poor Land Policy (by Borras & Franco); 3. How Land Policies Impact Land-Based Wealth and Power Transfer (by Borras & Franco); 4. Pro-Poor Land Tenure Reform, Decentralization and Democratic Governance (by Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Monica Di Gregorio and Stephan Dohrn).
Download the full papers from the UNDP website:
http://ogc.undp.vrl3.com/resources/publications.html

Fuelling exclusion? The biofuels boom and poor people’s access to land
Source: IIED (Lorenzo Cotula, Nat Dyer and Sonja Vermeulen)
Summary: The report explores current and potential impacts of the increasing spread of biofuels on access to land in producer countries, particularly for poorer rural people. It finds that biofuels could revitalise rural agriculture and livelihoods, but may also marginalise and exclude poorer people - particularly where local land rights are insecure, capacity to enforce them is limited, and major power asymmetries shape relations between local resource users and large industry players. This study documents current knowledge on current and potential impacts of commercial biofuel production for access to land in Africa, Latin America and Asia, charting both negative experiences and promising approaches.
Date: June 2008
Download the full paper (1247K.pdf file) from the IIED website

Legal empowerment in practice: Using legal tools to secure land rights in Africa
Source: IIED and FAO (Edited by Lorenzo Cotula and Paul Mathieu)
Summary: In many parts of Africa, legal services organisations have developed innovative ways for using legal processes to help disadvantaged groups have more secure land rights. Their approaches, tools and methods vary widely - from legal literacy training to paralegals programmes, from participatory methodologies to help local groups register their lands or negotiate with government or the private sector through to legal representation and strategic use of public interest litigation. The challenges they respond to also vary - from managing local land conflicts to challenging gender discrimination, through to securing land rights within the context of oil pipelines and mining projects. While some of this experience has been documented, much of it has not. Only a very limited part of this experience has fed into international debates, and there have been few opportunities for lesson-sharing and cross-fertilisation among practitioners. This report, based on a workshop at the University of Ghana in March 2008, aims to feed lessons from this local innovation into international processes. Includes cases studies from Cameroon, Mali, Mozambique, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Congo.
Date: May 2008
Download the full paper (1474K.pdf file) from the IIED website

Browsing on fences. Pastoral land rights, livelihoods and adaptation to climate change
Source: IIED Drylands Issue Paper 148 (Michele Nori, Michael Taylor and Alessandra Sensi) 
Summary: This paper developed from an articulated process to address the rights to land of pastoral groups, within a holistic perspective and accounting for changes brought about by climate change. It brings together the inputs made by over 120 participants in a web-based forum organised in 2006 and managed by the International Land Coalition on pastoral land rights. Further materials and lessons have been drawn from a number of projects and experiences all around the world, in order to provide a comprehensive update about the rights of nomadic and pastoralist groups and natural resources. Elements for discussion have also been contributed by another web-based forum organised by the World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism in 2007, focusing on climate change, adaptation and pastoralism, which received contributions from more than 80 participants belonging to or working with pastoral groups in different regions of the world.
Date: May 2008
Download the full paper (235K.pdf file) from the IIED website

Secure Land Rights for All
Source: UN-HABITAT and Global Land Tool Network (GLTN)
Summary: Demonstrates how secure land rights are particularly important in helping to reverse three types of phenomena: gender discrimination; social exclusion of vulnerable groups; and wider social and economic inequalities linked to inequitable and insecure rights to land. Argues that policymakers should adopt and implement the continuum of land rights because no single form of tenure can meet the different needs of all social groups. However, a range of land tenure options enables both women and men from all social groups to meet their changing needs over time. This study can assist policy-makers to understand and apply practical ways in which people’s land rights can be made more secure and improve land policies as a basis for fairer and more sustainable urban and rural development.
Date: April 2008
Download the full paper (1517K.pdf file) from the GLTN website

Uncharted territory: Land, conflict and humanitarian action: report of a conference
Source: ODI Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG)
Summary: Summarises the main presentations by Alex de Waal, John Unruh, Liz Alden Wily and Chris Huggins and responses by discussants based on these broad topics: why humanitarian organisations need to tackle land issues; legal pluralisms in humanitarian approaches; land in emergency to development transitions: who does what?; land in return, reintegration and recovery processes; transitional programming; protection and legal aid.
Date: 7 February 2008
Download the full paper (236K.pdf file) from the ODI HPG website

Liberalisation and the Debates on Women’s Access to Land NEW
Source: Third World Quarterly, 28, 8, 2007, pp.1479-1500 (Shahra Razavi)
Summary: The reform of land tenure institutions is now back on the national and global policy agendas. While at a certain level of generality the principle of gender equality in access to resources, including land, has been endorsed by a diverse range of policy actors, there are many tensions and ambiguities likely to obstruct women’s effective access to land and its contribution to decent livelihoods. There are important questions about liberalisation policies vis-a-vis land, given the well documented difficulties that low-income women in particular face in accessing land through markets. Moreover, access to land can only play a complementary role in women’s (and men’s) livelihoods, and one that needs to be matched by income from employment. But many developing countries today confront formidable barriers to industrialisation and employment generation. There are also troubling implications from a gender perspective in the current endorsement of ‘customary’ systems of land tenure and decentralisation of land management. Women’s rights advocates fear that this can play into the hands of powerful interest groups hostile to women’s rights.
Date: December 2007
Download the full paper (178K.pdf file) from the informaworld website.
Note: Oxfam is extremely grateful to the editors and publishers (Routledge) of Third World Quarterly for permission to reproduce this article on this site.

Scoping Report: Addressing Land Issues after Natural Disasters
Source: Daniel Fitzpatrick for United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT)
Summary: Contains case studies of earthquakes in Pakistan, Indonesia, Bhuj, India and Bam, Iran, of hurricanes in Grenada, Louisiana and Central America, and of floods in Mozambique. Followed by key findings and lessons learnt from the case studies and other research, and recommendations. Looks at potential tools for addressing land issues after natural disasters and an analytical framework.
Date: December 2007
Download the full paper (644K.pdf file) from the GLTN website

Gender, Property Rights and Livelihoods in the Era of AIDS
Source: FAO (Proceedings Report of FAO Technical Consultation)
Summary: Includes setting the scene; understanding gender and property rights in the era of AIDS; legislation, training and capacity development; advocacy, mobilisation and networking; political dialogue; linking gender, property rights and livelihoods; taking stock – where are we and where should we go?; recommendations and ways forward; annexes.
Date: 28-30 November 2007
Download the full paper (779K.pdf file) from the FAO website

Donor and NGO Involvement in Land Issues – some Further Reflections
Source: Robin Palmer (Mokoro)   
Summary: Reflections based on personal experiences as an academic and as Oxfam’s former Global Land Adviser. Cites a number of institutions on how they conceive of the role of donors in land matters, including the recent DFID policy paper on land, which the author hopes will encourage country level DFID staff to engage. Looks at changing contexts of donor involvement in land issues, including World Bank approaches. Examines contrasting interpretations of the role of NGOs on land issues, stressing that context and history are critical. Contains detailed case study of law making, campaigning, awareness raising and defending a progressive law in Mozambique as an example of some of the complexities of donor and NGO involvement, the importance of individuals, the need for greater donor cooperation and for adopting a long-term approach. Concludes that people who work in the land sector need to be encouraged to exploit the spaces available to them, push out the boundaries of where they find themselves, and make a difference.
Date: 26-29 September 2007 (Conference on Legalization of Land Tenure and Development, University of Leiden)
Download the full paper (142 K.doc file)

Legal empowerment for local resource control: Securing local resource rights within foreign investment projects in Africa
Source: IIED (Lorenzo Cotula)
Summary: This report draws lessons from experience of using legal processes to secure local resource rights within the context of foreign investment projects in Africa. Security of local resource rights is a major challenge in many parts of Africa. The analysis of relevant law reveals that resource rights associated with more powerful interests (foreign investment) tend to enjoy greater legal protection compared to those held by local resource users. However, legal tools accompanied by adequate capacity-building efforts can help redress this imbalance and strengthen protection of local resource rights. By increasing local resource control, effective use of these tools can help disadvantaged groups gain greater control over their lives (‘legal empowerment’).
Date: September 2007
Download the full paper (1283K.pdf file) from the IIED website

Land: Better access and secure rights for poor people
Source: DFID Policy Paper
Summary: A new DFID Policy Paper on land, divided into four sections: landmark issues (unequal distribution and insecure tenure); how secure access to land can promote shared growth; good governance – the vital ingredient in land reform; DFID’s approach to land issues. DFID is currently supporting work on land in 21 countries, including Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. Argues that ‘while it is important to keep working for good governance overall, the land sector demands dedicated focus'. The governance section includes empowerment of landless people (Bangladesh); tackling forced evictions (Kenya); dispute resolution: legal support for poor people (Tajikistan); land rights in post-conflict situations (Rwanda, Mozambique, Angola, Tajikistan, Afghanistan). ‘DFID responds strategically when there are political opportunities to make progress on land reforms'. Will give appropriate emphasis to improving women’s rights of access and inheritance.
Date: 19 July 2007
Download the full paper (892Kb.pdf file) from the DFID website

Read the speech on the DFID website by Gareth Thomas, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for International Development

Download the presentation on land and governance by Robin Palmer (Mokoro) (55Kb.rtf file)

Download the presentation on making rural land markets work by John Farrington (ODI) (63Kb.ppt file)

Download the presentation on changes in urban titling by Geoffrey Payne (GPA) (58Kb.rtf file)

Download the presentation on land issues in Rwanda by Rodney Dyer (DFID) (57Kb.ppt file)

Independent Review of Land Issues, Volume III, 2006-2007, Eastern and Southern Africa
Source: Martin Adams and Robin Palmer (eds)
Summary: This review of land issues in twenty countries in Southern and Eastern Africa is the third since 2004. The idea of conducting a regular review arose in an informal meeting of land rights activists in Pretoria in 2003 concerned about the seeming lack of progress with land reform in the region and what might be done to improve land rights delivery. It was recognised that there was a lack of systematic information as to what was actually happening and the need to track the progress of the various national programmes underway, as well as monitor land rights under serious threat. The countries covered here are Angola, Botswana, Burundi, DRC (Eastern), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Sudan Transitional States, Southern Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Ends with concluding thoughts.
Date: June 2007
Download the full paper (1,118Kb.pdf file)

Literature Review of Governance and Secure Access to Land
Source: Robin Palmer (Mokoro) for DFID’s Growth and Investment Group
Summary: Includes why is secure access to land important; secure property rights, economic growth and social justice; the scale of insecure access to land; political contestation; the role of donors; IIED v FIG, contrasting ways of looking at land issues; governance and corruption; recourse to legal remedies; struggling for urban survival; aid instruments; lessons and recommendations from the literature – the IIED school, FAO and EU guidelines.
Date: April 2007
Download the full paper (284Kb.pdf file) from the GSDRC website.

Land and agrarian reform in the 21st century: changing realities, changing arguments?
Source: Ben Cousins (PLAAS)Human Rights Watch and SOS Habitat
Summary: Asks what convincing rationales exist for land reform in the 21st century and for land policies and programmes that have poverty reduction as their key objective? Argues that the economic bases of pro-poor land reform need reformulating in the rapidly changing conditions of the contemporary world. The unequal structures of international agricultural trade regimes need to be made integral to thinking about agrarian reform. Includes a table with arguments for land reform.
Date: 24-27 April 2007 ( Keynote address to International Land Coalition, Entebbe, Uganda)
Download the full paper (126Kb.rtf file)

Changes in 'Customary' Land Tenure Systems in Africa
Source: IIED (Lorenzo Cotula Ed)
Summary: Includes the drivers of change; changes in ‘customary’ land management institutions – evidence from West Africa; changes in intra-family relations; changes in land transfer mechanisms – evidence from West Africa; case study of changes in ‘customary’ resource tenure systems in the inner Niger Delta, Mali. Concludes with implications for policy and practice.
Date: March 2007
Download the full paper (981K.pdf file) from the IIED website

Challenges in Land Tenure and Land Reform in Africa: An Anthropological Perspective
Source: Centre for International (CID) Harvard University Working Paper 141 (Pauline E. Peters)
Summary: 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.
Date: March 2007
Download the full paper (114K.pdf file) from the Harvard CID website.

Gender-based violence and property-grabbing in Africa: a denial of women’s liberty and security
Source: Kaori Izumi
Summary: Contains defining gender-based violence; property grabbing as a form of this; HIV and AIDS and property grabbing; women’s property rights – the erosion of customary norms and practice; statutory legal reform – is it the answer?; empirical evidence from Southern and Eastern Africa; responses to property grabbing; conclusion. Argues that the harassment and humiliation that often accompany property grabbing further strip women of their self-esteem, affecting their ability to defend their rights.
Date: March 2007
Download the full paper (130K.pdf file)
Note: This is an electronic version of an article published in Gender & Development, volume 15, number 1, March 2007. Gender & Development is available online at: http://www.informaworld.com/gad.

Working on Land for Oxfam, 1997-2007 or Last Rites for Land Rights?
Source: Robin Palmer (Oxfam GB Global Land Adviser)
Summary: Extracts from a farewell talk. Includes back to the land; engaging with Oxfam International in Zimbabwe; working on the Zambian Copperbelt; supporting post-tsunami, post-conflict land and property rights advocacy in Aceh, Indonesia; helping to create and sustain national land alliances and support awareness campaigns in Africa; women’s land rights in Southern and Eastern Africa; concluding thoughts, some publications.
Date: 16 February 2007
Download the full paper (66K.rtf file)

Improving Tenure Security for the Poor in Africa
Source: FAO LEP Working Paper 1 (Patrick McAuslan)  
Summary: The first of seven Working Papers presented at an FAO regional technical workshop for sub-Saharan Africa on legal empowerment of the poor (LEP) in Nakuru, Kenya, in October 2006. This framework paper is divided into seven issues: land markets, individualised land tenure, and land titling; pluralism; informal settlements in urban and peri-urban areas; gender; decentralisation and institutional development; pastoralism; dispute settlement. Each issue is examined through four dimensions: the international, the colonial, the national, and the social.
Date: October 2006
Download the full paper (706K.pdf file) from the FAO website

Breathing Life into Dead Theories about Property Rights: de Soto and Land Relations in Rural Africa
Source: IDS Sussex Working Paper 272 (Celestine Nyamu-Musembi)
Summary: Argues that there are five shortcomings in both the old (World Bank) and contemporary (Hernando de Soto) arguments for formalisation of land title. First, legality is constructed narrowly to mean only formal legality. Therefore legal pluralism is equated with extra-legality. Second, there is an underlying social-evolutionist bias that presumes inevitability of the transition to private (conflated with individual) ownership as the destiny of all societies. Third, the presumed link between formal title and access to credit facilities has not been borne out by empirical evidence. Fourth, markets in land are understood narrowly to refer only to ‘formal markets’. Fifth, the arguments in favour of formalisation of title as the means to secure tenure ignore the fact that formal title could also generate insecurity.
Date: October 2006
Download the full paper (195K.pdf file)

Better land access for the rural poor. Lessons from experience and challenges ahead
Source: IIED and FAO (Lorenzo Cotula, Camilla Toulmin and Julian Quan)
Summary: Main chapters cover access to land and poverty reduction, land redistribution, and securing land rights. The last includes the role of land markets, women’s land rights, securing local resource rights in foreign investment projects, protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and pastoralists, conflicts.
Date: October 2006
Download the full paper (266K.pdf file) from the IIED website

Civil Society, ‘Good Governance’ and Land Rights in Africa – Some Reflections
Source: Robin Palmer (Oxfam GB Global Land Adviser)
Summary: Contains three stories, ‘good governance’, a focus on governments, civil society, international NGOs, donors (including critical thoughts on DFID and FAO), cites the works of Kaori Izumi, some concluding thoughts. Argues that there is no culture of genuine democratic political engagement in modern Africa, with governments and civil society deeply distrustful of each other, and that space is being diminished.
Date: 25-27 September 2006 (Paper for FAO Expert Meeting on Good Governance in Land Tenure and Administration)
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Innovation in Securing Land Rights in Africa: Lessons from Experience
Source: IIED Briefing Paper
Summary: 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.
Date: September 2006
Download the full paper (282K.pdf file) from the IIED website

How Title Deeds Make Sex Safer: Women’s Property Rights in an Era of HIV
Source: Caroline Sweetman (Oxfam GB Research Team)
Summary: Contains introduction: property rights, inheritance, and HIV; the impact on development; challenging the roots of the problem; modern laws and individual rights: do they always support women?; pinpointing the difficulties with the existing legal frameworks; ways forward.
Date: July 2006
Download the full paper (67K.rtf file)

Land Rights and Land Conflicts in Africa: A review of issues and experiences NEW
Source: Danish Institute for International Studies (Christian Lund, Rie Odgaard and Espen Sjaastad)
Summary: The report is based on experiences gained by the three authors through previous research activities and assignments in different parts of Africa and reading of existing literature. It identifies and discusses what is seen as being the most important issues in the ongoing debate about African land rights and land conflicts. It also presents and discusses various policy approaches being adopted on the continent to solve land tenure problems and related conflicts.
Date: June 2006
Download the full paper (414K.pdf file) from the DIIS website

More than simply ‘socially embedded’: recognizing the distinctiveness of African land rights
Source: Ben Cousins and Aninka Claasses
Summary: Discusses controversies generated by recent South African legislation (the Communal Land Rights Act), shows how these echo debates in the wider African context, and explores potential solutions to reform of ‘customary’ land tenure regimes. Argues that the most appropriate approach to tenure reform is to make socially legitimate occupation and use rights the point of departure for both their recognition in law and for the design of institutional contexts for mediating competing claims and administering land. Legal frameworks should vest land rights in the people who occupy and use land, not in groups or institutions, while recognising that these rights are shared and relative within a variety of nested social units.
Date: 17-19 May 2006 (Keynote address at international symposium on ‘At the frontier of land issues: social embeddedness of rights and public policy’, Montpellier, France)
Download the full paper (247K.rtf file)

Land Rights Reform and Governance in Africa. How to make it work in the 21st Century?
Source: UNDP Discussion Paper (Liz Alden Wily)
Summary: Following an abstract and a summary, the paper is divided into seven sections: introduction – tenure insecurity, poverty and power relations; the subordination of customary land rights; attempts to make amends; an end of century turn-around – towards the liberation of customary land rights; launching reform through new policy and law; the need to assure success; how to make land reform work? Argues that dramatic improvement in the legal status of customary land interests is globally on the horizon. There is need for a more action based and community driven evolutionary process to bring threatened commons to the centre of reform and facilitate the protection of collective rights in Africa, where 90 per cent of the rural population access land through indigenous customary mechanisms.
Date: March 2006
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Women’s Land Rights
Source: ActionAid International Discussion Paper (for International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development - ICARRD, March 2006)
Summary: Contains women’s rights and state-led agrarian and market based land reforms; reinstating the state; engendering customary tenure; rights of indigenous people and marginalised groups; human rights violations; HIV/AIDS; the ‘feminisation of agriculture’. Calls for a new agrarian reform agenda in which the state plays a central role, ensuring that land is established as a common public good, and that its benefits are enjoyed equitably by women and men, regardless of race, class or ethnicity. Need for open and inclusive processes, with priority given to the voices of women from excluded communities and other historically marginalised groups.
Date: March 2006
Download the full paper (139K.rtf file)

Note: Oxfam is grateful to ActionAid International for permission to reproduce this paper on this website.

Land Rights for African Development: from Knowledge to Action
Source: CGIAR System-wide Program on Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) Policy Briefs
Summary: Collection of 12 short policy briefs arising from collaborative work between CGIAR, UNDP’s Drylands Development Center and the International Land Coalition. Titles are: 1) Land tenure, land reform, and the management of land and natural resources in Africa. 2) Legal dualism and land policy in Eastern and Southern Africa. 3) Legal pluralism as a policy option: is it desirable? is it doable? 4) Gender issues in land tenure under customary law. 5) Innovations in land tenure, reform and administration in Africa. 6) The commons in customary law in modern times: rethinking the orthodoxies. 7) Biting the bullet: how to secure access to drylands resources for multiple users. 8) Decentralization: an enabling policy for local land management. 9) Will formalizing property rights reduce poverty in South Africa’s ‘second economy?’ – questioning the mythologies of Hernando de Soto; 10) getting the process right: the experience of the Uganda Land Alliance. 11) Getting agreement on land tenure reform: the case of Zambia. 12) The land policy process in Burkina Faso: building a national consensus.
Date: February 2006
Download the full paper (984K.pdf file)

Note: Oxfam is grateful to CGIAR for permission to reproduce these policy briefs on this website. Each of the policy briefs can also be downloaded separately, e.g. http://www.capri.cgiar.org/pdf/brief_land-02.pdf

Land Tenure Reform and Gender Equity
Source: UNRISD Research and Policy Brief 4
Summary: Recent UNRISD research finds that the new generation of land tenure reforms introduced in the 19990s is not necessarily more gender equitable than earlier efforts, even though women’s ability to gain independent access to land is increasingly on the statutes. Includes the potential and limitations of the law; the limits of ‘market-friendly’ land reform; decentralization and devolution: finding justice ‘closer to home’?; divisions within civil society and the difficulties of building alliances; land is not a ‘magic bullet’; rethinking the agrarian household: shared and separate interests; implications for policy and research.
Date: January 2006
Download the full paper (293K.pdf file)

Note: Oxfam is grateful to UNRISD for permission to reproduce this policy brief on this website.

Critical Reflections on the Role of an International NGO seeking to work globally on Land Rights - with specific focus on Oxfam's experiences in Southern Africa
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Global Land Adviser)
Summary: Explores some dimensions of an international NGO seeking to work globally on land rights. Draws upon the author's own work as well as Oxfam's historical experiences. The first part looks at some of Oxfam's recent work on land rights, at the involvement of DFID on land rights in Africa, at Oxfam's engagement with the World Bank, and a brief word on USAID. The second part examines some of Oxfam's work on land rights over the past two decades in Southern Africa - in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Angola. There are concluding thoughts at the end of each section.
Date: January 2006 (for International Conference on Social Movements Perspectives: Land, Poverty, Social Justice and Development, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, 9-10 January 2006)
Download the full paper (242K. rtf file)

Consensus, Confusion, and Controversy: Selected Land Reform Issues in Sub-Saharan Africa
Source: World Bank Working Paper 71 (by Rogier van den Brink, Glen Thomas, Hans Binswanger, John Bruce and Frank Byamugisha)
Summary: Paper is targeted at land reform practitioners and stakeholders in government and civil society. Argues that land reform can broadly be divided into land tenure reform and land redistribution. First chapter gives short narrative of key land tenure and land policy issues. These remain politically sensitive, but consensus is emerging on how to deal with them once confusion surrounding private /common property and formal / informal rights is cleared up. Secure property rights should not be confused with full private 'ownership'. The introduction of private title in situations where favourable economic conditions do not exist can be a waste of effort. Second chapter addresses redistribution of property rights from large to small farmers. There is heightened urgency on the need to address this, especially in Southern Africa, but controversy exists on appropriate implementation mechanisms which, combined with the sensitive political nature of land reform, often results in costly inaction. Highlights case of South Africa, because success there would have tremendous regional and international implications for land redistribution. A policy framework for redistributive land reform is outlined within which competing paradigms compete on the ground. Believes major land redistribution can be implemented peacefully, that history need not repeat itself.
Date: January 2006
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Making law work for the poor
Source: IIED Sustainable Development Opinion (Lorenzo Cotula)
Summary: Legal processes can help improve the lives of the poor in developing countries e.g. through establishing fair rules on international trade and securing land access in rural Africa. For this to happen, poorer actors – whether individuals or states – must have equitable access to the legal system, including a fair say in law-making processes, and access to effective enforcement institutions. Development agencies should take law seriously and support local, national and international processes that improve legal access and make law work for the poor – including law reform, litigation, training, legal assistance and advocacy.
Date: November 2005
Download the full paper (110K.pdf file) from the IIED website

Cultivating Women's Rights for Access to Land
Source: ActionAid and International Food Security Network
Summary: Country analysis and recommendations for Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Viet Nam. Analyazes the de jure and customary discriminations faced by women in terms of land access in these 10 countries. Each country study starts with a data box, followed by a Rural Women Profile, a summary of women’s constitutional rights and the national legislation, an examination of customary systems in place, identification of the main constraints to women’s access to land, a set of recommendations, and the status of ratifications of relevant major international treaties. Hopes to provide a base from which future work to give women a stronger voice in household, local and national decisions should be formulated. Need to begin work at the bottom by giving women a voice for expressing their needs and hopes in terms of land.
Date: October 2005
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Note: Oxfam is grateful to ActionAid International and International Food Security Network for permission to reproduce this paper on this website.

Land: Changing Contexts, Changing Relationships, Changing Rights
Source: Elizabeth Daley and Mary Hobley (for DFID’s Urban-Rural Change Team)
Summary: An in-depth and far-reaching ‘think-piece’ commissioned by ‘but not necessarily reflecting the views of’ DFID. The focus is on Africa and South and South-East Asia, and on land registration and titling, and decentralisation of land administration systems. Draws attention to the effects of land policy for the poor, arguing that land rights are often instruments in local politics and power relations. Highlights local processes of differentiation and examines how relationships between land, livelihoods, and poverty are changing in the current context of rapid rural-urban change and ‘de-agrarianisation’. Asks what entry-points there are for pro-poor change in and through land policy and administration. Situates land policy historically and in the wider development context and sets out a way of approaching contemporary land issues from a pro-poor perspective. Offers practical recommendations to DFID’s continuing involvement with land policy formulation and implementation.
Date: September 2005
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For or Against Gender Equality? Evaluating the Post-Cold War ‘Rule of Law’ Reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa
Source: UNRISD Occasional Paper 7 (Celestine Nyamu-Musembi)
Summary: The paper explores whether the post-Cold War rule of law reform agenda in sub-Saharan Africa has enhanced or impeded gender equity. Argues that a large part of the gender equality agenda remains unaddressed by the legal and institutional reforms undertaken so far. The section on reforms to property laws suggests that they have at worst deepened gender inequality and at best left biases intact. Official discussion of gender and land tenure remains disconnected from broader processes of economic restructuring. Financial sector reforms have not been co-ordinated with reform of land and family legislation and practice, yet land and family law are at the heart of women’s ability to access financial services.
Date: August 2005
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Note: Oxfam is grateful to UNRISD for permission to reproduce this occasional paper on this website.

A Guide to the World Bank’s Gender Issues and Best Practices in Land Administration Projects: A Synthesis Report
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Global Land Adviser)
Summary: A guide to a report from the World Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department which is likely to prove extremely helpful to practitioners. The structure of the report is first given in detail to illustrate its coverage. This is followed by a section which gathers together some of its contents and conclusions, interspersed with comments. This is done under 8 headings: the need for gender-disaggregated information; acknowledging regional differences; trusting the customary?; gender dimensions in land administration; cultural constraints; the power of regulations; adjudication; knowing your rights, education and training.
Date: August 2005
Download the full paper (89K. rtf file)

Gender Issues and Best Practices in Land Administration Projects: Appendix 5 Sample questionnaire for data collection for baseline and impact evaluation
Source: World Bank
Summary: 9 modules designed to be adapted and modified as needed (as Oxfam did in Aceh). They are: household roster, parcel information, wealth, credit, community participation, nonfarm employment, household enterprise, expenditure (food and non-food), community-level data (demography and land use, services and infrastructure, employment and migration, agriculture, community organizations, credit).
Date: August 2005
Download the modules (105K. zip file)

Shared Tenure Options for Women: A Global Overview
Source: UN-HABITAT
Summary: Provides an overview of different forms of shared tenure, whether between husband and wife, stable partners, extended families, women’s groups or communities. Analyses to what extent they are beneficial to women. Includes a preliminary examination of the impact of shared tenure on women’s effective land and housing rights, on women’s access to credit and on domestic violence. Seeks to contribute to the development of tools and strategies towards women’s security of tenure. The findings will be used as a basis for further research and analysis, particularly with regard to urban, informal shared forms of tenure.
Date: July 2005
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Gender and Property Rights within Postconflict Situations
Source: USAID Issue Paper 12 (Susana Lastarria-Cornhiel)
Summary: Includes land rights in gender equity; issues in gaining access to land property – acquiring land rights from the state and through inheritance and the market, legal pluralism, population displacement; three postconflict studies (Rwanda, Guatemala, Afghanistan); conclusions and recommendations – legislation and policy, programme implementation, overcoming patriarchal norms, the cost of speaking out, gender sensitivity training and legal assistance, information on gender impact.  
Date: April 2005
Download the full paper (417K.pdf file) from the OECD website.

The new Tragedy of the Commons
Source: Camilla Toulmin (IIED) for New Statesman Special Issue on Africa
Summary: Asks how can poor people protect their land rights? Stress importance of land in the social, economic and political life of Africa and fact that land is contested all over Africa, with women’s rights particularly at risk. Land registration is inaccessible to most. African governments have often muddied the water, with land frequently used to reward political loyalty. The commons are especially important for poorer people, but everywhere are under growing pressure as privatisation and enclosure continue. The Commission for Africa has skirted around such issues, but there is much that aid donors could usefully do, including supporting civil society groups and media that can monitor land grabbing.
Date: 14 March 2005
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Note: Oxfam GB is grateful to the New Statesman, where this article originally appeared, for permission to reproduce it on this website.

Reforming Land Rights: The World Bank and the Globalisation of Agriculture
Source: Elizabeth Fortin (Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex)
Summary: Includes globalisation and agriculture – policies and effects in sub-Saharan Africa; globalisation of agriculture and land; land reform in Southern Africa and the World Bank; World Bank critique – tenure security, land transactions, redistribution. Analyses the World Bank’s policy position on land reform and argues that its approach does not address the structural reasons for the distortions of landholdings in Southern Africa and that such inequality is likely to be reaffirmed and reproduced by the Bank’s proposals. Further argues that the model of market-based land redistribution favoured by the Bank will be insufficient to dissipate the pressures of ever-growing inequality. With considerations of efficiency given prominence over other concerns, concludes that the Bank’s policies are unlikely to meet its overarching goals of poverty reduction and growth.
Date: January 2005
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Note: this article is to appear in the SAGE journal Social and Legal Studies, 14, 2, 2005 and Oxfam is grateful to the publishers for their permission to allow it to appear on this website.

EU Land Policy Guidelines: 1 Council Conclusions; 2 Commission Communication; 3 Commission Communication Annex; 4 Land Policy Guidelines
Source: EU
Summary:
1. The Conclusions of the EU Council (16 December 2004) welcome and approve the Land Policy Guidelines and comment on the significance of land policy and land reform for the poor, the vulnerable, for minorities and for the empowerment of women.
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2. The Commission Communication COM(2004) 686 (19 October 2004) includes why is land policy important?; different types of land policy reforms; elements of an EU approach to support land policy implementation – securing rights over land and related resources, building on existing rights and practices, titling may or may not be the solution, the need to establish sustainable land administration systems, the role of rental markets to enhance productivity and access; and the role of EU donors.
Download the full paper (162K. pdf file)

3. The Annex to the Commission Communication, SEC(2004) 1289 (19 October 2004) contains key definitions; elements of a land policy reform programme and regional trends; key principles for governments for successful land policy design; and operational guidelines to assess national policies and design an EU response strategy.
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4. The EU Land Policy Guidelines (November 2004) are intended for EU donors when supporting interventions in rural land policy and administration. They are divided into Part I policy framework, Part II operational guidelines. Part I includes what is land policy and why does it matter?; links between land policy and other major policy areas (e.g. poverty reduction, gender equality, conflict, governance, environment); elements of a land policy programme; central issues for the design of land policy and land reforms (e.g. securing rights, titling, redistribution, key principles); and implementing land policies - the role of different stakeholders. Part II includes situation analysis, policy framework, opportunities for changes, sustainability, monitoring and evaluation.
Download the full paper (360K. pdf file)
Date: October – December 2004

Oxfam and Land in Post-Conflict Situations in Africa: Examples from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Rwanda and Angola
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Global Land Adviser)
Summary: Presentation of 5 brief case studies of what Oxfam actually did with regards land in post-conflict situations in Africa, in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Rwanda and Angola, concluding with the common themes, conclusions and lessons that emerged from the case studies. Also includes a critique of the role of USAID.
Date: November 2004
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Land in Africa – Market Asset or Secure Livelihood? Summary of Conclusions from the Land in Africa Conference held in London, November 8-9, 2004
Source: IIED, NRI and Royal African Society
Summary: Contains background, summary of conclusions, issues discussed and points of consensus. Latter include equitable access to land; historical change, current context and future prospects; promoting economic growth; land rights and agricultural modernisation; growing cities and the challenge of urban land management; making government more accountable; strengthening public dialogue; land, peace and security; innovation and change in land rights management; women’s rights; conserving the commons; what can the G8 do to help?
Date: 8-9 November 2004
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Note: the book of the conference, in the form of proceedings and summary of conclusions is now available on the IIED website at
http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdf/full/12516IIED.pdf

Land Reform, Agriculture and Poverty Reduction
Source: DFID Renewable Natural Resources and Agriculture Team, Policy Division (Working Paper)
Summary: Examines (1) what is the issue and why is it important? – equality and economic growth, tenure insecurity, governance and institutions; (2) current evidence: what do we know? – land redistribution for productive use, policy reforms to strengthen security of tenure, state facilitation of land markets; (3) what we don’t know: closing the evidence gap – reconciling social justice / equity and agricultural growth, land administration, agricultural growth and poverty reduction, appropriate taxation of land and productive resources.
Date: September 2004
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To Have and to Hold: Women’s Property and Inheritance Rights in the Context of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa
Source: ICRW – International Center for Research on Women (Richard S. Strickland)
Summary: Contains introduction; determinants of property rights and consequences of loss (including country examples from Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia); policy context: influencing strategies to promote property and housing rights; finding what works: mapping good practice in local and national activities (including legislative frameworks, judicial capacity and litigation, public awareness); lessons and suggested next steps; conclusion; appendices; references.
Date: June 2004 (Working Paper)
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Note: Oxfam GB is grateful to ICRW for permission to publish this Working Paper which is also available on its website at http://www.icrw.org/docs/2004_paper_haveandhold.pdf

Land as a Global Issue - A Luta Continua
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser)
Summary: An attempt briefly to describe key components on land as a global issue today, giving some examples of Oxfam International’s involvement in land issues in different parts of the world. Divided into land in a globalised world; some struggles over land; different kinds of Oxfam International support; some general trends – lack of information; some concluding thoughts.
Date: 29-30 March 2004 (for Oxfam-Zambia Copperbelt Livelihoods Improvement Programme Land Workshop)
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From Elitist Standards to Basic Needs – Diversified Strategies to Land Registration Serving Poverty Alleviation Objectives
Source: Karin Haldrup (Presentation for 2nd FIG (Fédération Internationale des Géomètres) Regional Conference, Marrakech, Morocco, TS24 – Spatial Planning in Promoting Good Urban and Rural Environment)
Summary: Contains the urban poverty challenge; from illegality to formal tenure; segregation of space – an urban poverty challenge; from government to governance; the role of the state; government as a land owner; management of public land and public spaces; settlement of administrative and community boundaries; local land tenure regularisation; better information and the role of statistical data.
Date: 2-5 December 2003
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For publications by FIG, see its website: http://www.ddl.org/figtree/

Women’s Land Rights in Southern and Eastern Africa: A short report on the FAO/Oxfam GB Workshop held in Pretoria, South Africa, 17-19 June 2003
Source: Birgit Englert (University of Vienna) and Robin Palmer (Oxfam GB)
Summary: Short (4-page) report on this workshop covering why a successful workshop?, why this workshop?, what were the main themes?, key issues raised in presentations, discussions and working groups, the follow up, website links to the full report of the workshop.
Date: December 2003
Download the full paper (40K .rtf file)

Reflections on the Development Policy Environment for Land and Property Rights
Source: Julian Quan (DFID and Natural Resources Institute)
Summary: Background paper for an IDS Sussex workshop on new ideas on the rights to land, housing and property. Contains a renewed focus on poverty and, within that, a new focus on land rights; livelihoods and rights-based approaches; the World Bank and received orthodoxy in land policy; DFID’s focus on land rights in Africa; Francophone perspectives; recent World Bank thinking; the mysteries of capitalism (a discussion of de Soto); lessons learnt.
Date: 16-18 October 2003
Download the full paper (63K.doc file)

Report of the FAO/Oxfam GB Workshop on Women’s Land Rights in Southern and Eastern Africa held in Pretoria, South Africa, 17-19 June 2003
Source: FAO (Kaori Izumi) and Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer)
Summary: This was a major and highly successful workshop on women’s land rights in Southern and Eastern Africa, organised by FAO and Oxfam GB. It attracted an unusually diverse range of participants. This official report summarises the papers, presentations and discussions in the original order of the programme. It covers the conceptual framework and women’s land rights in the contexts of: legal issues, natural resources, inheritance rights, post-conflict situations, pastoralist communities, HIV/AIDS, land administration, legal aid, rights to housing, land and property, the working group discussions, action points, and includes a number of appendices providing details of participants and their organisations.
Date: October 2003
Download the full paper (560K.doc file) | PDF (1,405K)

Discourses on Women’s Land Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Implications of the Re-turn to the Customary
Source: Ann Whitehead and Dzodzi Tsikata (Journal of Agrarian Change*, vol. 3, nos.1 and 2, January and April, 2003, 67-112)
Summary: Examines some contemporary policy discourses on land tenure reform in sub-Saharan Africa and their implications for women’s interests in land. Demonstrates an emerging consensus among a range of influential policy institutions (including the World Bank, IIED and Oxfam GB), lawyers and academics about the potential of so-called customary systems of land tenure to meet the needs of all land users and claimants. African women lawyers are much more equivocal about trusting the customary, preferring to look to the State for laws to protect women’s interests. There are considerable problems with so-called customary systems of land tenure and administration for achieving gender justice with respect to women's land claims. Insufficient attention is being paid to power relations in the countryside and their implications for social groups, such as women, who are not well positioned and represented in local level power structures. Considerable changes will be needed before African states can begin to deliver gender justice with respect to land.
Date: June 2003
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* Note: Oxfam GB is grateful to the publisher Blackwell for permission to post on its land rights website this important article published in the Journal of Agrarian Change, vol. 3, nos.1 and 2, January/April, 2003, 67-112, in a special issue on Agrarian Change, Gender and Land Rights.
See the Journal’s home page

Land Policy and Land Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa
Source: Rogier van den Brink (World Bank Land Reform and Land Policy Coordinator, Africa Region)
Summary: The first part of the paper focuses on property rights in land - it gives a short narrative of some of the key ‘land tenure’ or ‘land policy’ issues and the emerging consensus around them. While these issues do remain politically sensitive, there is a solid consensus emerging on how to deal with them, but only once the confusion surrounding private and common property, and formal and informal rights, is cleared up. The second part addresses the redistribution of property rights in land from large to small farmers - redistributive land reform. There is a heightened sense of urgency on the need to address land redistribution, especially in the former settler colonies in Southern Africa, but controversy exists on the appropriate implementation mechanisms. A policy framework for redistributive land reform is outlined within which the competing paradigms can actually compete there where it matters: on the ground.
Date: 2 April 2003
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Thoughts on the Latest (March 2003) World Bank Land PRR
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser)
Summary: Originally verbal presentation to World Bank meeting reviewing its Policy Research Report on land. Argues the need for this to be honest, open to admitting past mistakes, and pro-poor in order to influence future Bank policy and practice at national level. Argues that the Bank needs to be aware that many people across the world view it as the enemy because of past historical experience. Need for various Bank policies to be mutually compatible. Cites source suggesting great divergence between policy drivers within the Bank. Generally welcomes more nuanced and self-critical approach of this draft, but concludes that all the pro-poor land reform, laws and policies in the world will be of limited value for as long as international trade rules and subsidies remain rigged in favour of the rich.
Date: 13 March 2003
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Struggling to Secure and Defend the Land Rights of the Poor in Africa
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser). Published in Journal für Entwicklungspolitik (Austrian Journal of Development Studies), XIX, 1, 2003, 6-21. This was part of a special edition devoted to land reform in Africa edited by Birgit Englert and Walter Schicho. Oxfam GB acknowledges with thanks the permission of the Journal (JEP) and its editors to post 3 articles from this edition on this website.
Summary: Article focuses on struggles to secure and defend the land rights of the poor in Africa. A very brief introduction sketches the impact of liberalisation on land in Africa, then looks at the deeper context of land reform, and at the current role of donors. The article goes on to look at detailed case studies of Uganda, Mozambique and South Africa and examines reasons for successes and failures of pro-poor land struggles in those countries. It concludes by focusing on the issue of redistribution in Southern Africa.
Date: March 2003
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A Guide to, and some Comments on, the World Bank’s Policy Research Report (PRR), ‘Land Policy for Pro-Poor Growth and Development’
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser)
Summary: A guide to the World Bank’s Policy Research Report on land policy, on which an email discussion will take place from 30 December 2002 to 10 January 2003. Details the websites for the Report and the discussion. Asks whether it was worth engaging in the PRR process, examines the Report’s structure and says what it does not contain, offers general and particular comments, and concludes by saying don’t forget the politics.
Date: December 2002
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The World Bank’s Policy Research Report ‘Land Policy for Pro-Poor Development’: A Gender Analysis
Source: Ambreena Manji (University of Warwick)
Summary: An analysis of the World Bank’s Policy Research Report (PRR) from a gender perspective and a contribution to an e-mail discussion on it. Looks at whether the latest draft has addressed the failings of an earlier version. Focuses on the notion of non-contractable labour; the household as a unit of analysis; motivated family labour; the consequences of default; equity and poverty reduction strategies; bringing women’s rights onto the agenda. Concludes that the changes are largely superficial and that Report’s fundamental assumptions remain intact and threaten to worsen rather than ameliorate women’s position.
Date: December 2002
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How can Land Tenure Reform contribute to Poverty Reduction? Report from the European Forum on Rural Development Cooperation
Source: European Forum on Rural Development Cooperation
Summary: Official report from the European Forum on the sessions relating to land tenure reform and poverty reduction. Details the panel discussion involving Robin Palmer (Oxfam), Julian Quan (DFID), Christian Graefen (GTZ), Annelies Zoomers (CEDLA), Philippe Lavigne-Delville (GRET), followed by summaries of two working groups, on Madagascar and Mali and Latin America, and concludes with agreed action points. These included the need for donors to engage more in the political aspects of land reform, including redistribution, to work more collaboratively, to think longer term, consider a broad range of options, and to take more account of traditional land institutions and customary rights, while land tenure reform needs to be linked to wider rural development policies.
Date: December 2002
Download the full paper (353K. rtf file)

Gendered Land Rights – Process, Struggle, or Lost C(l)ause?
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser)
Summary: Highly condensed paper on gendered land rights, written principally for Oxfam staff and partners, and summarising some of the literature on Africa and elsewhere. Includes ‘the women were left out again’ (in Uganda); why bother with women’s land rights?; only secondary rights; the invention of ‘tradition’; the unproblematic ‘household’; resistance is certain; family law – the way forward, or just reinforcing marginalisation?; statutory law and social change; class is still with us; land and agrarian reforms and women’s movements; the shadow of HIV/AIDS in Africa; some very hard choices; how do you ‘do gender’ in land reform, and what about the cost?; how to strengthen women’s land rights?
Date: 28 November 2002
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Mortgaging the Future: The World Bank’s Land Agenda in Africa
Source: Ambreena Manji (University of Warwick)
Note: Oxfam GB is grateful to the Morning Star for granting permission for Ambreena Manji’s article, first published there, to appear also on this website
Summary: Analyses the World Bank’s Policy Research Report (PRR) from a gender perspective and is critical of the consultation process on it thus far. It has important implications for women in Africa. The Bank believes land should be viewed not as a source of subsistence but of capital. It ignores women’s unpaid labour as a factor in agricultural productivity. It treats the household as an undifferentiated unit and ignores that the family often functions as a site of oppression. The Bank stresses ‘motivated’ family labour but ignores that much of women’s labour is far from voluntary. It also ignores the consequences for households of defaulting on loans using land as collateral and the real possibility that rural farmers may find themselves landless as a result. Issues of labour and capital are now of central importance to land relations in Africa.
Date: 19 November 2002 (published in the Morning Star)
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Better Livelihoods for Poor People: the Role of Land Policy
Source: DFID Issues Paper, consultation draft (Julian Quan)
Summary: Consultation draft of a DFID Issues Paper on Land Policy by Julian Quan, with the author looking for comments and feedback by the end of November 2002. It revises an earlier version of April 2002, 'following a series of regional workshops on land policy sponsored by the World Bank, and takes account of comments received through that process.' Includes the significance of land rights for poverty elimination; opportunities and challenges for pro-poor land policy; integrating land into poverty strategies; implications for DFID and the international community; conclusion. Covers access, tenure security, gender, common pool resources, land markets, investment, conflict, HIV/AIDS.
Date: October 2002
Download the full paper (878K. rtf file)

Report on European Forum on Rural Development Cooperation. Policies and Approaches for Rural Poverty Reduction: What Works in Practice? Montpellier, 4-6 September 2002
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser)
Summary: Short report giving background to the Forum, its structure and website address, and listing some of the key papers, including on land tenure reform.
Date: 13 September 2002
Download the full paper (32K. rtf file)

New Approaches to Land Reform
Source: DFID (Julian Quan, Land Policy Adviser)
Summary: Reappraises traditional donor approaches to supporting land reform. Argues that they have been too sectionalised and centralised. Gives practical examples of problems encountered across the world. Looks at good practice, at tools and working methods, and at improving our knowledge. Concludes that there is an opportunity for EU members states and the EC to address these issues in their development assistance programmes.
Date: September 2002
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How Can Land Tenure Reform Contribute to Poverty Reduction?
Source: Michael Kirk (Marburg University). Paper given to the European Forum on Rural Development Cooperation, Montpelier, France, 4-6 September 2002
Summary: Paper written in response to 5 questions asked by the Forum organisers. Under what circumstances can land tenure reform contribute to rural poverty reduction and sustainable natural resources management? How can land tenure reform be carried out in a manner that is pro-poor? What types of actions should donors support in order to promote pro-poor land tenure reform? What actions should be taken to address the particular problems faced by women, indigenous groups and pastoralists in gaining secure access to land? How can the European Commission and Member States work differently so as to raise the effectiveness of development cooperation in tackling rural poverty?
Date: 4-6 September 2002
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Land in Africa – an Indispensable Element towards Increasing the Wealth of the Poor
Source: José Negrão (Professor of Development Economics, Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique). Published in Oficina dos Centro de Estudos Sociais, No. 179, Setembro 2002, Universidade de Coimbra, pp.1-21.
Summary: Includes the dimension of poverty and the need for land; colonisation and decolonisation; the imposition of globalization; indispensable but sufficient; constructing/ building the institutional framework in Mozambique. Cites the key issues cited by Mozambican civil society – no to landless people in Mozambique; no to absentee landowners, those who let the land and do not invest; recognition of testimonial proof of land occupation by the poor; incorporation of common law systems into the legal framework; and stop the bi-modal approach for agricultural development.
Date: September 2002
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Smallholder Income and Land Distribution in Africa: Implications for Poverty Reduction Strategies
Source: USAID FS II Policy Synthesis 59 (T.S. Jayne, Takashi Yamano, Michael T. Weber, David Tschirley, Rui Benfica, Anthony Chapoto, Ballard Zulu, and David Neven)
Summary: A brief synthesis of a longer report, also available on this website. Provides a micro-level foundation for discussions of land allocation and its relation to poverty within the smallholder sector of Eastern and Southern Africa based on results from household surveys in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique and Rwanda between 1990 and 2000. Addresses (1) why geographically based targeted approaches to poverty reduction are likely to miss a significant share of the poor, (2) why agricultural growth alone is not likely to be a sufficient engine for directly lifting a significant share of small-scale farmers out of poverty, (3) why agri-food productivity growth is needed to create a more dynamic and diversified rural economy, (4) why increased access to land is likely to affect significantly the poverty-reducing effects of agricultural growth. Concludes with implications for the design of poverty reduction strategies.
Date: August 2002
Download the full paper (93K. pdf file)

A Short Reference Note on the World Bank's Regional Workshop on Land Issues in Africa, Kampala, Uganda, April 29 - May 2, 2002
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser)
Summary: The note publicises the existence of the papers which were given at the World Bank's Africa Workshop, provides the hyperlink references to the pdf files where they can be found, and highlights those which the writer found to be of greatest interest. The Bank would appreciate feedback on its draft Policy Research Paper.
Date: July 2002
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Mainstreaming Gender Issues in Land Administration – Awareness, Attention and Action
Source: Karin Haldrup (Presentation for FIG (Fédération Internationale des Géomètres) XXII International Congress, Washington D.C., JS11 – The Modern Profile of Surveyors – Gender Aspects I)
Summary: Includes the issue of gender in access to land, a major source of inequality; FIG declarations and guidelines are gender sensitive; why mainstreaming and what is it about?; ideas for an action plan including - gender disaggregated land data and gender sensitive indicators; understanding and working with gender roles under plural legal regimes; making socio-economic studies a part of planning land reforms and cadastral systems; developing simple, local methods of land administration; improving the gender balance at all levels in land administration; ensuring participation of women in implementation.
Date: 19-26 April 2002
Download the full paper (79K. pdf file)

Land Reform in Southern and Eastern Africa: Key Issues for strengthening Women’s Access to and Rights in Land
Source: Cherryl Walker (for FAO)
Summary: Report on a desktop study commissioned by FAO. Contains introduction; the context for land reform (the legacy of colonialism, women’s access, women in agriculture, HIV/AIDS and land reform); an overview of land reform issues and debates (policy issues, gender equity as a policy goal); land reform and women (case studies from Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe); conclusion (key findings and recommendations); synopsis of land policies by country.
Date: March 2002
Download the full paper (826K. rtf file)

Women, Wives and Land Rights in Africa: Situating Gender Beyond the Household in the Debate Over Land Policy and Changing Tenure Systems
Source: Oxford Development Studies, Vol.30, No.1, 2002, pp.21-40 (Ingrid Yngstrom)
Note: Oxfam GB is extremely grateful to the publishers of Oxford Development Studies, Carfax Publishing Company, part of the Taylor & Francis Group, for granting permission to post Ingrid Yngstrom's article on this website so soon after its publication.
Summary: Argues that the debate over land reform in Africa is embedded in evolutionary models, in which it is assumed that landholding systems are evolving into individualised systems of ownership with greater market integration. This process is seen to be occurring even without state protection of private land rights through titling. Gender as an analytical category is excluded in evolutionary models. Women are accommodated only in their dependent position as the wives of landholders in idealised 'households'. Argues that gender relations are central to the organisation and transformation of landholding systems. Women have faced different forms of tenure insecurity, both as wives and in their relations with wider kin, as landholding systems have been integrated into wider markets. These cannot be addressed while evolutionary models dominate the policy debate. Draws out these arguments from experiences of tenure reform in Dodoma, Tanzania, and asks how policy-makers might address these issues differently.
Date: February 2002
Download the full paper (219K. pdf file)

Land Reform: still a Goal worth Pursuing for Rural Women?
Source: Susie Jacobs (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Summary: Asks whether land reform is still a goal worth pursuing for rural women. Includes gender and land reform; changing livelihoods and de-agrarianisation; insecurities; land tenure and land titling; limitations to land; arguments for landholding; a few policy and practical initiatives; conflicts over land and property. Concludes that, despite all the problems outlined, land reform for rural women is worth pursuing since, among other things, it would lessen the risks of hunger and malnutrition and also provide links to rights in other spheres.
Date: 10-12 September 2001
Download the full paper (110K. rtf file)

Smallholder Income and Land Distribution in Africa: Implications for Poverty Reduction Strategies
Source: Michigan State University International Development Paper 24 (T.S.Jayne, Takashi Yamano, Michael Weber, David Tschirley, Rui Benfica, David Neven, Anthony Chapoto, and Ballard Zulu)
Summary: Provides a micro-level foundation for discussions of income and asset allocation within the smallholder sector in Eastern and Southern Africa, and explores the implications of these findings for rural growth and poverty alleviation strategies in the region. Results are drawn from nationally representative households in five countries between 1990 and 2000: Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Rwanda.. Addresses (1) why geographically based poverty reduction or targeting strategies is likely to miss a significant share of the poor, (2) why current enthusiasm for community driven development approaches will require serious attention to how resources are allocated at local levels, (3) why sustained income growth for the poorest strata of the rural population will depend on agricultural growth in most countries, (4) why agricultural productivity growth is likely to offer the best potential for pulling the poorest and land constrained households out of poverty, (5) why meaningful poverty alleviation strategies in many countries will require fundamental changes to make land more accessible to smallholder farmers.
Date: 2001
Download the full paper (228K.pdf file)

Land Reform in the Shadow of the State: the Implementation of new Land Laws in sub-Saharan Africa
Source: Ambreena Manji (Department of Law, University of Keele/Warwick)
Note: A longer version of an article with the same title was published in Third World Quarterly, Vol.22, No.3, June 2001, pp.327-42. Oxfam GB is extremely grateful to the publishers of Third World Quarterly for granting permission to post this abridged version of Ambreena Manji's article on this website so soon after its publication.
Summary: Focuses on the problems of implementing new land laws in Africa, with particular emphasis on those in Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa. Includes background, the policy environment, implementors, accommodative non-state land reform, and radical non-state land reform.
Date: June 2001
Download the full paper (41K. rtf file)

Report of a Donor Consultative Meeting on Land Policy Issues
Source: DFID Rural Livelihoods Department (Julian Quan, Land Policy Adviser)
Summary: Report on a donor consultative meeting at the World Bank on land policy lessons learned and new challenges for the World Bank’s development agenda. Contains background, areas of donor agreement, outstanding issues and outcomes. The greatest controversy continued to centre around market assisted land reform.
Date: 24-7 April 2001
Download the full paper (15K. rtf file)

Making Progress – Slowly. New Attention to Women’s Rights in Natural Resource Law Reform in Africa
Source: Liz Alden Wily
Summary: Critical shifts are affecting rural resource rights in Africa through widespread reform in land, forestry and other laws. The cutting edge of transformation affecting women is in emerging new provision for wives to hold family property as co-owners with their husbands, which could play a main role in revitalising smallholder agriculture. Recognition that equity in domestic land relations may ultimately be a prerequisite to the modernisation of subsistence agriculture in agrarian economies is the thesis underlying the analysis of legal texts in this paper. More pervasive improvement in women’s resource rights is emerging though indirect changes in law especially those that alter the balance of authority over land and landed resources between state and people with broadly democratising effect. Important for women is greater accessibility to tenure administration, dispute resolution machinery and resource management functions occurring through devolution of centres of control to the periphery.
Date: 19-23 February 2001 (Presentation to CTA/GOU Regional Conference on the Legal Rights of Women in Agricultural Production, Kampala, Uganda)
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Report on International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser)
Summary: Report on a conference held in the Philippines in December 2000.
Papers and presentations on agrarian reform were given from many parts of the world, including South Africa and Zimbabwe. There was strong rejection of market-based land reform, and recognition of the crucial importance of the role of the state and the significance the Cold War had played in the past. Compares Filipino landlords with white farmers in Southern Africa.
Date: January 2001
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ICARRD Conference Report: Statement presented to the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development
Source: ICARRD
Summary: Stresses views of conference participants that agrarian reform is an alive issue on the political agenda of many countries. A wide consensus on the positive contribution that more equal access to land and other assets makes to the fight against poverty. Meaningful reform must involve the transformation of property rights. Agrarian reform must involve state regulation to overcome the failure of markets to deliver equitable outcomes. Also a wide consensus on the need for strong and effective state action.
Date: 5-8 December 2000
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Securing Customary Land Tenure in Africa: Alternative Approaches to the Local Recording and Registration of Land Rights: Report of a workshop held at IIED
Source: NRI, IIED, DFID and AFRA
Summary: Introduction and background, by Julian Quan (DFID); Piloting local administration of records in Ekuthuleni, KwaZulu-Natal, by Donna Hornby (AFRA, South Africa); Ivory Coast’s Plan Foncier Rural: lessons from a pilot project to register customary rights, by Camilla Toulmin (IIED); Customary land identification and recording in Mozambique, by Chris Tanner; Supporting local rights: will the centre let go? reflections from Uganda and Tanzania, by Patrick McAuslan (Birkbeck College, London); Local strategies for securing rights in land - experience from the Sahel (Niger), by Christian Lund (University of Roskilde, Denmark); closing discussion and findings; list of participants.
Date: 8 November 2000
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The World Bank, Civil Society and Land Reform
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser)
Summary: A one page briefing for the World Bank (and IMF) AGMs in Prague September 2000 ‘to help journalists, decision-makers and civil society better understand the criticisms levelled against the World Bank.’ Argues that civil society is highly critical of the World Bank’s chequered history on land reform, which has combined arrogance and ignorance, an unwillingness to listen or to look critically at alleged successes such as Thailand or Kenya. New market assisted land reforms have failed to address political realities or power relations on the ground.
Date: August 2000
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Land, People and Forests in Eastern and Southern Africa. A Study of the Impact of Land Relations upon Community Involvement in Forest Future
Source: IUCN (Liz Alden Wily with Sue Mbaya)
Summary: A summary of a larger study. Examines the relationship of people’s rights in land to the manner in which they may be involved in the management of forests in Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Lesotho and to a lesser degree Botswana and Swaziland. Includes examination of property relations, state power, land reform, recognition of customary rights, the changing nature of tenure, and the impact of new land law on community forest rights.
Date: June 2000
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Land Tenure Reform and the Balance of Power in Eastern and Southern Africa
Source: Liz Alden Wily, ODI (Overseas Development Institute) Natural Resource Perspectives No.58
Summary: Examines the current wave of land tenure reform in Eastern and Southern Africa. Discusses how far tenure reform reflects a shift in powers over property from centre to periphery. A central question is whether tenure reform is designed to deliver to rural smallholders greater security of tenure and greater control over the regulation and transfer of these rights.
Date: June 2000
Full paper on ODI website

Report on Edinburgh Conference on Africa’s Indigenous Peoples: ‘First Peoples’ or ‘Marginalized Minorities’?
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser)
Summary: 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.
Date: 24-25 May 2000
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New Land Laws and Old Donors in Africa
Source: Oxfam (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser, Africa) and IIED (Camilla Toulmin)
Summary: Series of slides presented at a talk to the Royal African Society covering land tenure in Africa: common features; book outline; West Africa; land commissions, national land policies and land laws; implementation problems; Uganda Land Act 1998; land reform in South Africa 1994-9; tenure reform blocked in South Africa; conclusions; new approaches to land rights management; role of donors; Zimbabwe land invasions - different interpretations; Zimbabwe land chronology.
Date: 27 April 2000
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Land Reform North and South - in Scotland and Africa
Source: IIED (Camilla Toulmin) and WWF, Scotland (Simon Pepper)
Summary: Compares land reform in Scotland and Africa. Examines the role of land, patterns of land holding, where is ultimate power vested, the role of customary chiefs and landowners, getting people to participate, who is the community, consultation, who is driving the agenda. Argues that legislative change alone is not enough.
Date: April 2000
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The Struggles Continue: Evolving Land Policy and Tenure Reforms in Africa - Recent Policy and Implementation Processes
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser, Africa). Final chapter of a book, Evolving Land Rights, Policy and Tenure in Africa, edited by Camilla Toulmin and Julian Quan, being published by IIED and NRI
Summary: Looks at the actors involved and policy processes. The main emphasis is on implementation processes and lessons learned, with case studies of Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, and Mozambique. Concludes with sections on participation or consultation, the role of donors, and the possible future impact of HIV/AIDS.
Date: March 2000
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The Future Impact of HIV/AIDS on Land in Africa
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser, Africa, and Dan Mullins. Regional Programme Adviser, Southern Africa).
Summary: A short paper outling the likely future impact of HIV/AIDS on land.
Date: March 2000
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Case Study Boxes on Land Reform in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa
Source: Boxes from A Study of Land, People and Forests: The Impact of Property Relations on Community Involvement in Forest Management, by Liz Alden Wily with Sue Mbaya, being published by IUCN
Summary: One page boxes summarising recent land reform developments in the countries listed.
Date: March 2000
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Box on the Evolution of the World Bank’s Land Policy
Source: Julian Quan, from chapter of a book, Evolving Land Rights, Policy and Tenure in Africa, edited by Camilla Toulmin and Julian Quan, being published by IIED and NRI
Summary: Examines the evolution of the World Bank’s land policy since its 1975 Land Policy Reform Paper. Shows how the Bank has moved away from its earlier views on titling.
Date: March 2000
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Final Statement of the Addis Ababa Workshop on Land Tenure Networking in sub-Saharan Africa
Source: Workshop participants
Summary: Brief statement containing purpose of the workshop, assessment of need, mission and objectives, thematic approach and activities, structure, membership and management, immediate next steps, forward planning, the question of a corporate name (LANDNET AFRICA).
Date: 24-26 January 2000
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Report on the Addis Ababa Workshop on Land Tenure Networking in sub-Saharan Africa
Source: Alemayehu Azeze, OSSREA (Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa)
Summary: Covers workshop organization, the opening session, reports by consultants from East, West and Southern Africa, presentations by resource persons; group sessions, mission statement, closing remarks.
Date: 24-26 January 2000
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Land Tenure Networking in sub-Saharan Africa
Source: DFID
Summary: Outlines purpose of the workshop, DFID’s wider goal, background, anticipated outcomes, assumptions, workshop process, DFID’s criteria for financial and technical support to network activities, checklist for regional discussion groups.
Date: 24-26 January 2000
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Learning Lessons from Land Reform in Africa
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser, Africa). Paper at the Workshop on Land Use and Villagisation in Rwanda, organised by RISD (Rwanda Initiative for Sustainable Development) in partnership with Oxfam GB, Hotel des Mille Collines, Kigali, Rwanda.
Summary:  Paper draws lessons for Rwandan policy makers from land reform experiences in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Mozambique, West Africa, Malawi, Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia.
Date: 20-21 September 1999
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Land Tenure Key Sheet
Source: ODI (Overseas Development Institute) Key Sheets for Sustainable Development, Resource Management No.1
Summary: 2-page sheet covering overview of the debate, key issues in decision-making, tenure reform, redistributive land reform, key literature. Purpose is to provide decision-makers with an easy and up to date point of reference, designed for those managing change. Aims to distil theoretical debate and field experience so it becomes easily accessible and useful. Lists organisations with relevant expertise, including Oxfam GB.
Date: May 1999
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Report on DFID Workshop on Land Tenure, Poverty and Sustainable Development in sub-Saharan Africa
Source: Oxfam GB (Robin Palmer, Land Policy Adviser, Africa)
Summary: Oxfam GB involved in the planning of this workshop which brought together 75 delegates from governments, NGOs and research institutions and universities from all over Africa. This report covers consultation, process, legislation, tenure, titling, race in Southern Africa, donors, the World Bank, corruption, the future.
Date: 16-19 February 1999
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Report on the Experience of Villagisation: Lessons from Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Tanzania
Source: Oxfam GB (Christy Cannon Lorgen)
Summary: Work commissioned by Oxfam GB to learn lessons from the experiences of villagisation in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Tanzania to help policy makers in Rwanda, where villagisation is now official policy.
Date: January 1999
Executive summary (37K rtf file)
Full paper (115K rtf file)

Land Tenure: What is the Future on the Land?
Source: Africa Analysis (Robin Palmer, Oxfam GB Land Policy Adviser, Africa)
Summary: Short summary of possible different futures on the land, land laws in Uganda and Tanzania, and the work of NGO land alliances.
Date: 26 June 1998
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The Land Problems in Africa: the Second Scramble
Source: New People (Robin Palmer, Oxfam GB Land Policy Adviser, Africa)
Summary: Covers land grabbing, land titling, land reform, indigenous tenure systems, and NGO responses.
Date: May 1998
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