Better protection of property rights can affect several development outcomes, including better management of natural resources. This bibliography and rapid review is concerned with two principal outcomes:  reduction in investors risk and increase in incentives to invest, and improvements in household welfare.The literature search was completed both in academic journals and aggregator databases, specifically Google Scholar and Scopus, and the DFID database R4D.The outline of the Rapid Review on Property Rights paper:

Why, despite solid progress in human development and in the reduction of consumption poverty, has Sri Lanka's per capita income fallen far behind the dynamic East Asian economies?

An overlap in the regulation of access to land and resources between customary and state management systems is causing problems of contradiction and conflict. This report analyses the pros and cons of both systems and makes a series of recommendations.State administration of land is found to have worked against poorer elements in Ghana. Whilst the Lands Commission and other institutions have made some positive achievements there is no evidence of practical benefits for the majority. Compulsory acquisition has resulted in displacement, landlessness and social unrest.

In this report, the COHRE Women and Housing Rights Programme (WHRP) documents the fact that under both statutory and customary law, the overwhelming majority of women in sub-Saharan Africa (regardless of their marital status) cannot own or inherit land, housing and other property in their own right.

With examples from throughout Southern Africa, this paper examines the objectives, impetus, importance, principles and important elements of a land policythe policy development process and policy implementationthe relevance of a national land policy for Uganda and emerging lessons [author]Paper presented at the Uganda Land Alliance Workshop on Land Tenure and Land Use Policy, Kampala, Uganda

The Indian state of West-Bengal saw two major turnarounds in its rural sector in the eighties. The growth rate of rice production jumped from 1.8 per cent during 1960-80 to 4.7 per cent during 1977-94, and rural poverty fell from 73 to 31 per cent between 1973 and 1999, greatly surpassing achievements of other Indian states.This coincided with the 1977 election of a coalition of left-wing parties, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM, which held uninterrupted power for the following 26 years.

Examines the particular case of Sudan, but suggests the discussion is relevant to the countries of the African Horn in general and Southern Ethiopia in particular. Pastoralists in the Horn seem to experience similar, if not identical, processes resulting from land laws promulgated by the governments in the region.Concludes that the future of the pastoralist in the Horn of Africa will depend on which realistic land tenure system the government will chose.

Report recommends agriculture-sector poliy objective of risk reduction, production stability, and the diversification of agricultural and non-agricultural economic opportunities in the rural areas. The most fundamental problem remains, seven years after independence, the lack of a clear policy, administrative structures and legislation dealing with land allocation, tenure and management.

Recent increases in the level of agricultural commodity prices and the resulting demand for land has been accompanied by a rising interest in acquiring agricultural land by investors. This paper studies the determinants of foreign land acquisition for large-scale agriculture.

This is a desk appraisal of the Alliances for Religions and Conservations (ARC) done for the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) by the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Noragric, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).

Concentrates on the black smallholder farming sector. Policy objectives should include:Resource Conserving Technologies: re-orientation away from large scale farmers, consideration of goals other than high input/output (risk management, labour input, gender).

Private (especially foreign) investors find Viet Nam's legal framework the most serious impediment to investment. Policy changes to reverse the former command system may be enough to initiate the transition. But without an appropriate legal framework, they will be insufficient for long-term development.A major objective of Viet Nam's transition to a market economy has been to reactivate the private sector in a mixed economy.