Under support from the DFID PyoePin programme, Dr Kyaw Tint, the head of ECCDI, a leading Yangon based NGO led a research project to understand the current status of Community Forestry in the country, with technical support from Dr. Oliver Springate-Baginski. Field study was conducted in October – December 2010, and we presented our findings at a national workshop.

The three main outputs of the project are available to download here:

A Comparative Study of Land Rights Systems in Southeast
Asia and the Potential of National and International Legal
Frameworks and Guidelines....."Land rights systems in Southeast Asia are in constant
flux; they respond to various socioeconomic and political pressures and to changes in statutory and customary
law. Over the last decade, Southeast Asia has become
one of the hotspots of the global land grab phenomenon,
accounting for about 30 percent of transnational land
grabs globally. Land grabs by domestic urban elites,

Very rich site with many resources..."In a world where billions of people live outside the protection of the law, Namati is building a global movement of grassroots legal advocates who work with communities to advance justice. These advocates are solving problems on the front lines to ensure that people can protect their land, access essential services, and take part in the decisions that govern their lives...

We envision a world in which land governance systems, both formal and informal, are effective, accessible, and responsive for all.

The Committee welcomed the Quarterly Reports as they showed the progress that had been made in dealing with claims. However discomfort was expressed at the pace of restitution. The Committee was very interested in the research aspect of the Commission’s brief.

To provide for the upgrading and conversion into ownership of certain rights granted in respect land; for the transfer of tribal land in full ownership to tribes; and for matters connected therewith.
(Afrikaans text signed by the State President.)
(Assented to 27 June 1991.)
BE IT ENACTED by the State President and the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, as follows:

The Department achieved 56% of Q4 targets and 50% of Annual Performance Report targets in its Administration programme while annual targets on vacancies filled and disciplinary cases were partially achieved. In Geospatial and Cadastral Services, the Department achieved 77% of its Q4 targets and 69% of its APR targets. The Rural Development programme achieved 71% of its Q4 targets and 86% of its APR targets. The annual target for establishment of rural information desks was not achieved and the target of jobs created was partially achieved.

Encroaching on Lands and Livelihoods considers whether national expropriation laws in 30 countries across Asia and Africa follow the international standards established in Section 16 of the VGGTs. It analyzes laws against a set of 24 indicators (hereinafter “expropriation indicators”) based on the standards established in Section 16 and provides examples of expropriation practices drawn from literature reviews to illustrate the importance of adopting international standards.

The push to turn commercial large-scale agricultural into a driving engine of the Zambian economy, in a situation where the protection of access to land is weak, can risk pushing small-holder farmers and peasants off their land and out of production with severe impacts on the people’s right to food,” Ms. Elver said at the end of her first official visit to the country

Property rights are a cornerstone of economic development and social justice. One of the most fundamental ways of understanding the strength of property rights is through citizens’ perceptions of them. Yet perceptions of tenure security have never been collected at a global scale, obscuring a clear understanding of the magnitude and nature of citizens’ experience, and preventing the issue of property rights from receiving the visibility and attention it deserves. The Global Property Rights Index, or PRIndex, seeks to address this gap.

During its transition from racial apartheid to democracy in 1994, South Africa’s government announced it would strengthen the tenure rights of the estimated 16 million citizens who lived on communal land. By 2012, however, the government’s own reports concluded that the country had made little progress in the area of communal tenure reform.

The pastoral areas of Ethiopia are witnessing radical change in terms of both increasingly restricted mobility and access to vital resources. A cause and consequence of such constraints has been a move toward sedentarised forms of livestock and agricultural production. This is occurring in a political and socioeconomic vacuum, in which the customary institutions responsible for resource allocation and access to land are becoming weaker, and where the Ethiopian government has yet to develop a clear policy or strategy for resource distribution and tenure security in pastoral areas.