This paper presents early evidence from
the first large-scale randomized-controlled trial of a land
formalization program. The study examines the links between
land demarcation and investment in rural Benin in light of a
model of agricultural production under insecure tenure. The
demarcation process involved communities in the mapping and
attribution of land rights; cornerstones marked parcel
boundaries and offered lasting landmarks. Consistent with

This is covers land administration and
reform in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is highly relevant to all
developing countries around the world. It provides simple
practical steps to turn the hugely controversial subject of
"land grabs" into a development opportunity by
improving land governance to reduce the risks of
dispossessing poor landholders while ensuring mutually
beneficial investors' deals. This book shows how Sub

Evidence is mounting that secure
property rights have positive effects for poor people in
general and women in particular. The aim of this report is
to review what is known about women s access to and control
over land and real property in urban settings, identifying
approaches to strengthening property rights that enhance
women s agency, and sharing key lessons. Section two
synthesizes the evidence on urban women s priorities with

Unequal land distribution and the
negative social and economic implications resulting from
such polarization in Colombia have long been of concern to
policymakers. A 1950 World Bank mission identified unequal
land distribution as a key impediment to economic and social
development in the country. Since then, a wide range of
policies has been adopted to deal with this issue and its
consequences. Numerous studies show that the success of

Land rights for women are important to
women's overall role in the household economy. In most
Europe and Central Asia (ECA) countries, women have equal
rights to land by law, but practice varies widely across the
region. Improving gender outcomes in land administration is
therefore related more to education and the need to change
norms and habits than it is to a specific legislative
problem. Access to gender-disaggregated data and the

The authors use data from Nicaragua to
examine the impact of the award of registered and
nonregistered title on land values and on investments
attached to land. They find that receipt of registered title
increases land values by 30 percent and greatly increases
the propensity to invest, bringing investment closer to the
optimum. Consistent with descriptive statistics indicating
great demand for regularization of land rights, especially

Although many African countries have
recently adopted highly innovative and pro-poor land laws,
lack of implementation thwarts their potentially
far-reaching impact on productivity, poverty reduction, and
governance. The authors use a representative household
survey from Ethiopia where, over a short period,
certificates to more than 20 million plots were issued to
describe the certification process, explore its incidence

The pattern of global land use has
important implications for the world's food and timber
supplies, bioenergy, biodiversity and other eco-system
services. However, the productivity of this resource is
critically dependent on the world's climate, as well as
investments in, and dissemination of improved technology.
This creates massive uncertainty about future land use
requirements which compound the challenge faced by

The World Bank's just-released
"Global Economic Prospects and the Developing Countries
2001" reports that developing country growth surged to
5.3 percent in 2000, up from 3.2 percent in 1999 and 1.0
percent in 1998. All developing regions experienced faster
growth, though to varying degrees. World growth is expected
to slow to a soft landing in 2001, reflecting monetary
tightening in industrial countries, stock market declines,

Increased levels and volatility of food
prices has led to a surge of interest in large-scale
agriculture and land acquisition. This creates challenges
for policy makers aiming to establish a policy environment
conducive to an agrarian structure to contribute to
broad-based development in the long term. Based on a
historical review of episodes of growth of large farms and
their impact, this paper identifies factors underlying the

Costa Rica's Program of Payments
for Environmental Services (Pago de Servicios Ambientales,
PSA) provides a unique opportunity to evaluate direct
payments as a conservation policy tool. This paper reports
evidence on how much more forest has been conserved in Costa
Rica as a result of PSA contracts with landowners. Such
evidence requires estimating a counterfactual outcome: how
much forest would have been preserved if there had been no

When contracts are incomplete, relationship-specific investments may be underprovided due to the threat of opportunistic expropriation or holdup. The authors find evidence of such underinvestment on tenanted land in rural Pakistan. Using data from households cultivating multiple plots under different tenure arrangements, they show that land-specific investment is lower on leased plots. This result is robust to the possible effects of asymmetric information in the leasing market. Greater tenure security also increases land-specific investment on leased plots.