To achieve an integrated approach to the planning and management of land resources, cooperation among experts from the
disciplines involved and integration of the respective results are required in order to identify and evaluate all biophysical, socio-economic and
legal attributes of the land. The glossary aims to contribute to the development of a common technical language. The terms, methods and

Land that is possessed, occupied and used by communities according to ‘customary law’ is the most common system of land and resource ownership in Africa. Customary law is the framework of rights, rules and responsibilities based on community customs and practices, governing ownership and management of a community’s lands, territories and resources.

In Kenya and the sub-Saharan Africa generally, there have been little systematic discussions on the post-colonial struggles over control and ownership of land. Studies ignore that the "land question" is not about production alone and consequently have failed to assess its wider consequences on the society.

This report explores evidence and insights from five case studies that have made significant recent progress in addressing the challenge of insuring poor smallholder farmers and pastoralists in the developing world. In India, national index insurance programmes have reached over 30 million farmers through a mandatory link with agricultural credit and strong government support.

Indonesia’s forests have been disappearing rapidly since the 1980s: 1.8 million hectares per year are estimated to have been deforested between 1985 and 1997. Consequently, there is a possibility that in some areas, the forests will cease to function as a viable resource base in the near future.This paper examines the role of economic incentives in causing deforestation, focussing on policies that distort prices and create the conditions for unsustainable harvesting.

This article discusses issues surrounding land reform in Kenya. As the nature of land reforms is as yet undecided, disparate suggestions and proposals are being considered. These include:Land Ownership Ceilings. There are vast inequalities in land ownership. Indeed, non-indigenous Kenyans or corporations that are not significantly Kenyan own the largest consolidated quantities of Kenyan lands. Ceilings on land ownership, would encourage more equitable distribution of land, perhaps facilitating more effective production and a reduction in food security problems.

This paper seeks to provide national and international policy-makers interested in the development of arid and semi-arid areas with background information and policy options, on whether and how to invest in mobility of pastoral systems in Africa.It first describes the trends leading to declining mobility, followed by a description of the key underlying causes for these trends and their impacts on mobile pastoralists.

This document contains a collection of critical comments by experts working in the field of pastoralism with regard to several PDN papers.

The injustices of the land issue in South Africa under apartheid are well documented. A programme of land reform since then has had varied success. The authors argue that there is a great deal of empirical evidence to show that the private sector and markets make major contributions to South Africa’s development in general and to land reform in particular. It is in this light that this report looks at the contribution made by the private sector to land reform, both through organised land reform initiatives and in the ordinary course of their business.

This paper is concerned with understanding cattle production in Zimbabwe's Communal Lands, in so-called communal farming systems. Although commercial offtake from Zimbabwe's communal cattle herd is low, communal farmers are productive and rational in their cattle herd management. The economic rationale for cattle ownership is firstly to provide draught power and manure for tillage and secondly to provide milk and meat for local consumption, although the role of livestock in the farming system varies significantly from one part of Zimbabwe to another.

What are the effects of trends away from legal pluralism towards more uniform approaches to the law? This paper analyses the effects of legal changes in property rights for people's welfare and development in India.

The Land Policy in Tanzania is an example of citizens engaging in a protracted struggle for effective participation in the policy process, despite the long exclusion they have experienced in policy making. This paper looks at the evolution of the policy, and the interactions between civil society and the state in its development.The paper concludes that this was the first serious and systematic civic organizations' challenge to the state command model of policy process.