The G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition aims to lift 50 million people out of poverty in ten years through a partnership between G8 members, African nations and the private sector. In order to increase production at a rate needed to achieve food security, the New Alliance seeks to accelerate responsible investment in African agriculture and commit to coordinated policy reforms.

Following adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines (VGs) on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security in May 2012 and as the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) approaches negotiations for the Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment (PRAI) – as well as other global discussions taking place such as Millennium Development Goals and post-2015 Development Agenda that focus greater attention on creating better land tenure security to promote food security, increased economic income, and better natural resource managemen

By Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights On July 30, I had the pleasure of joining Landesa President Tim Hanstad at Global Washington in Seattle for a rich discussion of the Global Farms Race: Implications of Food Security, Poverty, and Foreign Investment. At the heart of this conversation are the rights of communities and individuals to decide for themselves how to use and profit from land. Do they possess clear and documented land and resource rights? Who has the power to make decisions?

A new report from the World Bank suggests that Africa, which is home to half the world’s uncultivated land, can significantly reduce poverty, achieve rapid economic growth, and increase food security by improving land governance systems and strengthening land tenure and resource rights. “Land governance issues need to be front and center in Africa to maintain and better its surging growth and achieve its development promise,” says Frank Byamugisha, author of the report and lead land specialist in the World Bank’s Africa region.

This white paper looks at one example of private land reform, Agros International, within the context of the global and historical scope of land reform methods.The paper states that methods of land reform can be understood within three general categories: government-directed reform, popular social mobilization, and market -based reform. However, despite the many benefits of secure land access, the application of effective land reform has proven difficult and rare.

Paper systematically evaluates the political economy of Zimbabwe's emerging land policy in the 1990s in the context of other land reform programmes in Southern Africa.

The overall goal of the Land Titling Project is to strengthen the basis for long term sustainable economic and social development. In confirmation with this goal, the objectives of the project are to foster the development of efficient land markets and to facilitate domestic resource mobilization by providing a system of clear and enforceable land use ownership rights, and by developing a land valuation capacity.

South African president Mbeki has characterised the developmental challenge in his country in terms of integrating the structurally disconnected ‘two economies’. On the one hand the modern industrial, mining, agricultural, financial and services sector, and on the other the ‘third world economy’ found in those urban and rural areas where the majority of poor people live.This draft chapter challenges this characterisation and focuses on the rural dimensions of the ‘two economies’ debate.

The main argument of this paper is that insecurity of land tenure is a socio-political condition that can be made and unmade. This discussion paper focuses on customary land rights, particularly in the African context.

The Land Mobilization Project assists the Government's Land Mobilization Program which aims to contribute to economic growth through more productive use of land resources, while promoting equity, employment, participation and social stability. The project supports all six components of the program with techncial assistance, additional contract and local staff, equipment, and buildings.

Malawi's Community Based Rural Land Development Project was conceived as an effort to alleviate rural poverty by making it possible for land-poor households to buy land where it was available within specific districts. This paper discusses the factors that deter relocation, and those that hamper permanent settlement in new sites after the initial relocation has occurred. The study clarifies that access to new land entails leaving the home village for an unfamiliar environment.

Since agricultural development in Zimbabwe contributes to both economic growth and the standard of living for most people living in the Communal Areas, it is imperative that the government protect and enhance the land resources existing in those areas. Unless the current degradation and deterioration is arrested, the country's development goals will not be attainable. It is, therefore, with this economic imperative and sense of urgency that the present study has been undertaken.