Global concerns about fossil fuel prices and climate change have directed focus on prospects of biofuels. In Ghana, large-scale biofuel development has been entangled with several problems including disputes over land use and a combination of challenges such as low yield performance of Jatropha, food versus oilseed prices and financial viability issues. Furthermore, the exercised land acquisition processes lacked transparency and could not protect the rights of vulnerable local people. One particular challenge is the withdrawal of companies without returning the land to the land owners.

Africa is a continent of youth. However, its high rates of youth unemployment linked to high levels of landlessness suggest a close correlation with youth poverty and access to land. This paper presents the perspective of an approach for capacitating youth through research on land and natural resource tenure in Eastern and Southern Africa.

La sécurisation des droits fonciers a pour objectif de garantir les droits réels d’une personne sur un bien foncier. L’absence d’un régime de sécurisation fiable est un frein du développement socio-économique des pays africains. Cette étude vise la réalisation d’une comparaison entre les régimes de sécurisation foncière en Afrique à travers les cas de trois pays africains en voie de développement à savoir le Maroc, la Tunisie et le Rwanda. L’objectif étant de tirer les atouts et les faiblesses du régime adopté dans chacun de ces pays.

A functioning land administration sector is the foundation for economic growth. Unfortunately, effective land registry and cadastral systems with national coverage exist in only a fraction of the world’s countries. Cadasta Foundation is working to overcome this challenge by developing simple digital tools and technology to help partners efficiently document, analyze, store, and share critical land and resource rights information.

This study examines the effect of land rights on agricultural outcomes in Rwanda. We characterize the effects of land rights from two perspectives. The first one is land rights indicated by the right to sell and guarantee land and the second one is land titling. The agricultural outcomes include agricultural productivity, food security and nutritional diversity. From the results, land rights are found to have a positive relationship with all the outcome variables. The effect of land rights on agricultural productivity is larger if the household head is male.

Foto: ILO/Flickr

Neste artigo se discute a relação entre conhecimento e sociedade sob a perspectiva da produção da verdade. Através de uma abordagem etnográfica, se examina relações cambiantes entre segurança ontológica e segurança jurídica no espaço da profissionalização da assistência jurídica em Timor-Leste1. Sugere-se, em consequência, que posse e alienabilidade da terra são produzidos em múltiplos cenários através de composições, sempre contingentes e emergentes, entre agendas de interesse heterogêneas e técnicas com pretensão de verdade.

Des facteurs variés tels que les politiques publiques en faveur du relogement des populations démunies, la promotion de la privatisation des droits fonciers agricoles, ainsi que plus généralement la croissance économique ont favorisé l’étalement urbain dans les principales villes du Maghreb dont Meknès au Maroc. Cette urbanisation s’intensifie au détriment des terres à fort potentiel agronomique malgré les lois pour la préservation des terres agricoles. À Meknès, les agriculteurs familiaux situés en périphérie urbaine ont fourni la grande majorité du foncier constructible.

Foto: Luis Eduardo Tavares/manufaturadeideias/Flickr (CC

Direitos à terra seguros para todas e todos - mulheres e homens, independentemente de etnia ou religião, ou status civil, econômico, social ou político - são fundamentais para alcançar um mundo livre de pobreza, fome e discriminação sistemática de gênero. Portanto, em 2015, comemoramos quando líderes mundiais reconheceram a importância fundamental dos direitos à terra na Agenda 2030 e nos Objetivos de Desenvolvimento Sustentável. Os ambiciosos compromissos escritos dos Estados-Membros, no entanto, não foram seguidos por ações concretas.