News on Land

(Ecofin Agency) - During a press conference held at the end of a mission in Sierra Leone, UN expert, Baskut Tuncak, denounced fragile protection of land rights of indigenous populations against multinationals. Amongst the latter, Luxembourg firm Socfin, which has palm oil plantations.

Whilst rural areas are dynamic and vibrant communities, they are chronically under-invested in. Poverty rates tend to be at least double than that of urban centres. Subsistence farming and small-scale farming is key to achieving sustainable development and a key source of livelihood for most of rural communities in South Africa. By MTHANDAZO NDLOVU

Post-colonial land reforms in Uganda leave many issues unresolved, while evictions, land conflicts and dispossession remain common 

Land is an essential asset to the people of Uganda. With a rural population constituting over 83% of the total population and an economy dominated by smallholder farming, Uganda must prioritize responsible land governance to achieve sustainable development.

ROME, Aug 28 2017 (IPS) - Indigenous Maasai people in Loliondo region,Tanzania have been facing new cases of forced evictions and human rights violations, a major international organisation supporting indigenous peoples’ struggle for human rights and self-determination warned.

The Party committee and government in Liaoning Province, northeast China, recently issued a document to steadily promote the implementation of rural collective property right system reform.

The document instructs officials to safeguard rural women's legitimate rights and interests in the process of identifying the membership of collective economic organizations.

During the 1990s, a new wave of large-scale land acquisitions for agricultural investments emerged world-wide and in the Mekong region, in particular. Two decades down the road, it is crucial to learn from what has happened in the last two+ decades by:

It is well documented from the work of grass roots, civil society and non-governmental organisations that the women, in Africa, are among the poorest of the poor and their lack of access to land and housing is largely as a result of their limited access to resources. Unemployment and underemployment, particularly for women, and therefore insufficient wages to purchase housing means women have little chance to own their own home. Unfair inheritance and divorce laws also force women into situations of hardship and homelessness.

About 200 people from Kampot and Kandal provinces gathered yesterday at the Land Ministry asking for two separate disputes with development companies to be resolved.

The protesters asked the ministry to take land from the companies for them to us because they were struggling to make a living.

Bo Sambath, a representative of 308 families from Techo Angkanh and Techo Chrey Bak villages in Kampot province, said their dispute over 1,231 hectares with First Bio-Tech Agricultural (Cambodia) began in 2013.