This report was prepared by Centre for Land Governance, NRMC, the Secretariat of India Land & Development Conference 2017. This report provides an overview of the proceedings of India Land & Development Conference, organized at India International Centre, New Delhi, India on April 5-6th 2017.

This report consists sharing of experiences, knowledge and practices over eight thematic sessions, two panel discussions and a special session.

Eight Sessions in the Conference are as follows:

A legislation to amend and codify the law relating to intestate succession among Hindus. It deal with issues related to coparcenary property, interest in the property of a tarwad, tavazhi, kutumba, kavaru or illom, rules of succession in the case of males, succession among heirs, distribution of property among heirs in class I of the Schedule.

This book made an attempt to bring together various legislative protections available to the tribals communities pertaining to the land and governance in the scheduled areas and the role of different institutions to achieve the goals enshrined in the Constitution. It examined the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution and its various provisions and special arrangements made for areas inhabited by Scheduled Tribes and the law relating to local self governance in these areas, primarily through village panchayat-an institution of local self governance.

Government has been implementing the Land Resettlement Programme for over twenty four (24) years, focusing mainly on land resettlement for agricultural purposes without a comprehensive policy and legal framework. This has caused a number of challenges including lack of a coordination mechanism at higher level of Government in the implementation of the land resettlement programme, land disputes and low levels of infrastructure development and service provision in the resettlement schemes.

Chiefly an agricultural society, India has a strong linkage between land and social status of an individual. Nearly 70 % of its population dependent on land, either as farmers or farm laborers and it is imperative to address the issues of land ensuring livelihood, dignity and food security to millions of Indians. Land reform was a major policy initiative in the country in 1950s and early 1960s.

Land, and in particular agricultural land, is central to livelhoods in rural Zambia. Zambia is characterised by a dual legal system of customary and statutory law and by dual land tenure, with state land and customary land. A first wave of socialist-oriented reforms took place after independence in 1964, which abolished previously existing freehold land in favour of leasehold. Subsequent changes in government policies under the influence of structural adjustment programmes and a new government in 1991 paved the way for a market-driven land reform.

Despite extensive research into rural development in sub-Saharan Africa, little is known about structural transformation1 in rural areas on the continent. Zambia was chosen as one of three case study countries2 in order to identify and to analyse rural transformation processes and their main influencing forces aiming at defining strategies and measures to influence such processes towards social inclusiveness and environmental sustainability until 2030.
Zambia shows a persisting copper-dependent mono-structure with selective transformation processes

BarotseFloodplain, Western Province of Zambia
•Multiple demographic, socioeconomic and climatic challenges and vulnerabilities
•Variety of livelihood opportunities: flood –provide fish & aquatic plants; water subside –fertile ground to cultivate crops
•Cattle, forest products, fish trade, piecework

There is increasing awareness that integrating gender into development frameworks is critical for effective implementation of development strategies. In working to alleviate rural poverty, the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) recognizes that “business as usual” gender integration approaches will not deliver lasting and widespread improvements in agricultural productivity, poverty reduction and food security. In response, AAS operationalized a gender transformative approach (see Cole et al. 2014a, 2014b).

Most women in Zambia do not enjoy the same land rights as men. Zambia’s Lands Act provides support for women who hold statutory land, but the law does not apply to customary land. Most land is held under custom and most customary tenure systems do not provide women with significant land rights — even when they do, traditional institutions often do not effectively implement the rules.

This report was commissioned by UN-Habitat to review the laws and land tenure of a selected number of southern African countries. It involved the appointment of country specialists who researched and produced country chapters for their respective countries namely, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia. A regional expert was appointed to produce a regional overview to serve as a source document for the country reports, as well as provide overall coordination of the project. The project was carried out over a period of roughly one year, which began in March 2004.

The Rural Agricultural Livelihood Survey (RALS) is a new panel survey designed to obtain a comprehensive picture of Zambia’s small- and medium-scale farming sector using the 2010 census sampling frame. An earlier household panel survey for rural Zambia was the Supplemental Surveys (SS) of 2001, 2004 and 2008, which enabled the publication of a large set of important research outputs by IAPRI, Michigan State University and a range of Zambian and international partner organizations.