Land Tenure And Rural Development

This publication deals with key issues in land tenure, especially as they relate to food insecurity and rural development situations. Land tenure issues are frequently ignored in rural development interventions, with often long-lasting, negative results. This guide is designed to assist technical officers in governments and civil society in understanding why and how land tenure issues should be considered in rural development projects. It analyses important contexts such as environmental degradation, gender discrimination, and conflicts, where land tenure is currently of critical concern.

How might plantation systems be adapted in order to reconcile the demands for social equity against those of greater output?

Revised working paper on land tenure and rural development in Africa - discusses the need to improve agricultural production and thereby raise rural area income distribution through land reform policies favouring small scale farms, and presents three case studies of different types of land reform, i.e. Integrated agricultural cooperatives (Egypt), farmer associations (Ethiopia) and collective farming group patterns (Tanzania). Bibliography pp. 69 to 81.

This publication contains an English version of the FAO multilingual thesaurus covering terminology used in the field of land tenure, mainly relating to the following subjects: legal, institutional, historical, description of space, traditional or written land tenure regulations, topographical and land management information techniques. The purpose of the thesaurus is to provide reference material for FAO officials and field experts involved in the implementation of land tenure projects, as well as for use by researchers in rural development issues and for use in training in natural resource management.

Increased global demand for land posits the need for well-designed country-level land policies to protect long-held rights, facilitate land access and address any constraints that land policy may pose for broader growth. While the implementation of land reforms can be a lengthy process, the need to swiftly identify key land policy challenges and devise responses that allow the monitoring of progress, in a way that minimizes conflicts and supports broader development goals, is clear. The Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) makes a substantive contribution to the land sector by providing a quick and innovative tool to monitor land governance at the country level. The LGAF offers a comprehensive diagnostic tool that covers five main areas for policy intervention: Legal and institutional framework; Land use planning, management and taxation; Management of public land; Public provision of land information; and Dispute resolution and conflict management. The LGAF assesses these areas through a set of detailed indicators that are rated on a scale of pre-coded statements (from lack of good governance to good practice). While land governance can be highly technical in nature and tends to be addressed in a partial and sporadic manner, the LGAF posits a tool for a comprehensive assessment, taking into account the broad range of issues that land governance encompasses, while enabling those unfamiliar with land to grasp its full complexity. The LGAF will make it possible for policymakers to make sense of the technical levels of the land sector, benchmark governance, identify areas that require further attention and monitor progress. It is intended to assist countries in prioritizing reforms in the land sector by providing a holistic diagnostic review that can inform policy dialogue in a clear and targeted manner. In addition to presenting the LGAF tool, this book includes detailed case studies on its implementation in five selected countries: Peru, the Kyrgyz Republic, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Tanzania.