Youth unemployment and migration are growing challenges that need more political attention in many countries, particularly countries with rapid population growth and economic transformation. Proactively mobilizing the youth as a resource in the creation of sustainable livelihoods can potentially be a win-win-win solution that Ethiopia is currently attempting. The new youth employment strategy includes allocation of rehabilitated communal lands to youth groups.

Youth unemployment and migration is a growing challenge that needs more political attention in many countries in the world, particularly countries with rapid population growth and economic transformation. Proactively mobilizing the youth as a resource in the creation of sustainable livelihoods can potentially be a win-win-win solution that Ethiopia is currently attempting with its new youth employment strategy and high ambitions to transform the country’s economy into a Green Economy. If it succeeds, it can set an example for other countries in the world to follow.

Dryland salinisation is a non-point and intertemporal stock externality which requires a dynamic modelling approach to study its long-term management. In this paper a simple dynamic optimisation model is developed and applied to find land-use strategies that maximise benefits from the viewpoints of both individual farmers and the catchment as a whole. Privately optimal land-use may result in an ever-increasing trend in salinity and a declining trend in productivity for the discharge zone of the catchment.

Sustainable land governance requires that all members of a community, both women and men, have equal rights and say in decisions that affect their collectively-held lands. Unfortunately, women around the world have less land ownership and weaker land rights than men – but this can change, and this report shows ways how that can be done.

This paper looks at how recent economic and legal changes have affected pasture management and property rights in Tajikistan. Firstly, current trends in livestock numbers and mobility are compared with those of the Soviet period. Secondly, the impact of current land legislation is investigated using 2007 field data from two sites in the Gorno-Badakhshan region of the country. We describe the extent to which pasture at these sites is under private, community or state control and discuss the implications for sustainable management of this resource.

In late April, 2021, deadly cross-border violence resulted in the deaths of 36 Kyrgyz and 19 Tajik citizens.1 To say that the Kyrgyz-Tajik border is complicated would be an understatement. The Soviet collapse in 1991 transformed internal and often overlooked administrative boundaries into suddenly salient and internationally recognized state borders. Villages, farmland, pasture, and infrastructure once shared with little afterthought during the Soviet period today straddle sovereign nations. Exclaves make cross-border travel, commerce, and politics even more complicated.