Over the past decade, stakeholders have made a variety of generalized claims concerning women’s landownership, both globally and in Africa.

Violent conflicts typically cause significant changes to land tenure and its administration. A widespread conflict
lasting for a number of years may result in successive waves of displacement of people. People may lose their land because they have been forcibly evicted, or they may abandon their land because of fear of violence. Those displaced are forced to seek land to settle, either within the country as Internally Displaced Persons, or externally as refugees. People living in safer areas may have lost access to their land with the

This paper reviews the available data on men’s and women’s land rights, identifies what can and cannot be measured by these data, and uses these measures to assess the gaps in the land rights of women and men. Building on the conceptual framework developed in 2014 by Doss et al., we utilize nationally representative individual- and plot-level data from Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Vietnam, and Timor-Leste to calculate five indicators: incidence of ownership by sex; distribution of ownership by sex; and distribution of plots, mean plot size, and distribution of land area, all by sex of owner.

This guide is written for people who work in land administration and all those with an interest in land, land tenure and their governance. Although much has been written about the importance of good governance in achieving development goals, there is comparatively little material on good governance in land tenure and administration. Failings in governance have adverse consequences for society as a whole. By contrast, good governance can help achieve economic development and the reduction of poverty. Good governance matters. Land is the single greatest resource in most countries.

Valuations of tenure rights are required by the State and by the private sector for a wide variety of reasons, often forming and informing the basis of transactions, taxation, compensation and accounting. Value and the valuation process form a part of our everyday lives, and yet these are often shrouded in mystery and are not clearly understood.

Countries retain powers of compulsory acquisition in order to enable governments to acquire land for specific purposes. The nature of these powers and the ways in which they are used are invariably sensitive and have wide implications, including from the perspective of international agreements on human rights and their national expressions. Compulsory acquisition is disruptive for those who are affected and whose land is taken and, if done poorly, will have serious negative impacts on people and their livelihoods.

The present volume is part of a series of Land Tenure Studies produced by FAO’s Land Tenure Service of the Rural Development Division. Land tenure plays a vital role in achieving sustainable rural development. Increasing technological change and economic integration are requiring policy makers, planners, development experts and rural producers to re-examine the institutional arrangements used to administer who has rights to what resources for which purposes and for how long.

Land degradation is a major problem in almost all the countries. In most of the developing countries, population pressure and small farm sizes, land tenure insecurity, land redistribution, limited access to credits and limited education are the factors leading to unsustainable land management. In Ethiopia, among many factors, tenure insecurity is considered as a main problem for land degradation. The frequent land redistribution and the changing pattern of land ownership with the change in Government made the farmers insecure of their land resulting in not making land related investments.

This issue of Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives contains an interesting and wide-ranging set of contributions providing insights into land related issues ranging from Italy to the Central Andes, and from the historical development of sustainable tenure practices to aspects of agriculture sector planning. The eight articles featured open with that of Lavigne Delville, which addresses issues relating to insecurity of tenure in West Africa, and identifies what the paths of change currently appear to be.

This bulletin is issued by FAO as a medium for the dissemination of information and views on land reform and related subjects to the United Nations, FAO Member Governments and national and international experts and institutions. Articles are published in the original language (English, French or Spanish).

This bulletin is issued by FAO as a medium for the dissemination of information and views on land reform and related subjects to the United Nations, FAO Member Governments and national and international experts and institutions. Articles are published in the original language (English, French or Spanish).

This paper discusses the role of FAO support to the Government of Mozambiques Land Commission since 1995, through three consecutive projects. While each has had a relatively short duration, all have been planned and implemented within a single conceptual framework with a much longer time horizon. This has allowed a difficult and complex issue to be progressively developed and nurtured within a realistic time scale, while building up a strong sense of national ownership of the process.