The African Union Commission (AUC) and African Heads of State and Government are committed to providing a conducive environment for economic growth, poverty reduction and equitable sustainable development. In this context, the quality of governance of land and natural resources is an important factor. Accordingly, better performance of land policies and institutions is required to deliver development goals. Land reforms must equitably address the needs of all land users, including smallholder farmers, the private sector, the urban poor and slum dwellers.

The countries in North Africa share an arid and semi-arid environment with high diversity: mountainous areas run alongside maritime areas and desert. The population of the region was estimated at 160 million people in 2005 and is expected to be more than 270 million in 2030. Most of the population will live in urban areas. Currently, urban dwellers in North Africa represent more than 50% of the population and are expected to be more than 60% by 2030. However, the urban system in North Africa is suffering urban primacy.

Southern Africa is one of the most well endowed regions in the continent in terms of mineral and natural resources. However, the region is facing serious environmental challenges such as land degradation, deforestation and water stress in specific areas.

LPI Goal 

The principle goal of the LPI is “to assist member states in the implementation of the AU Declaration on land Issues and challenges in Africa, in accordance with the Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa, in order to achieve socio-economic development, peace and security, and environmental sustainability” 

The Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy is a joint product of the partnership and collaborative effort of the African Union Commission (AUC), the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) to promote Africa’s socioeconomic development, through inter alia, agricultural transformation and modernisation. Initiated in 2006, the aim of the Land Policy Initiative (LPI) was to examine land policy issues and challenges in Africa with a view to developing a framework to strengthen land rights, enhance productivity and improve livelihoods.

Declaration on land issues and challenges in Africa

Assembly/AU/Decl.1(XIII) Rev.1

This paper presents a new type of land
market analysis relevant to cities with plural tenure
systems as in West Africa. The methodology hinges on a
systemic analysis of land delivery channels, which helps to
show how land is initially made available for circulation,
how tenure can be formalized incrementally, and the
different means whereby households can access land. The
analysis is applied to the area of Bamako in Mali, where

In countries where a large proportion of
the total land area is held customarily, reform questions
around land and development often tend to focus on the
customary estate. Evidence from Solomon Islands suggests
that a focus on public land holdings, even when they are
relatively small in land area, can yield outsized benefits.
Publicly owned land regularly includes economically valuable
land and urban land on which development pressure is high.

This paper seeks to analyse causes, types and effects of corruption in land governance and provide evidence-based recommendations to address corruption, with a particular focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.

The *Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) are a globally negotiated and agreed framework endorsed in the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on 11 May 2012.

This guide will assist land experts, government officials, donors and others involved in land information projects to avoid the costly development of an urban land information system that is too complicated, cannot be sustained or fails to support urban land management. The framework is based on various case studies that are contained in Urban Land Information Management, a report that is available at www.gltn.net.

This publication forms a part of a two volume training package on Tools to Improve Transparency in Land Administration. The training package comprises a Training Toolkit and a Trainers' Guide. The first provides content and the latter training methods. The publication is a product of a series of training workshops implemented across Sub-Sahara Africa, South and South East Asia. Under the leadership of the GLTN/UN-Habitat, the training brought together six universities from the global South and one from Europe.