The Regional Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for Europe and Central Asia produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) provides a critical analysis of the state of knowledge regarding the importance, status, and trends of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people.

Only if there is a fundamental change in the way we manage land can we reach the targets of climate-change mitigation, avert the dramatic loss of biodiversity and make the global food system sustainable. The WBGU proposes five multiple-benefit strategies illustrating ways of overcoming competition between rival claims to the use of land. These should be promoted by five governance strategies, especially by setting suitable framework conditions, reorienting EU policy and establishing alliances of like-minded states.

The document aims to help UN country teams, as well as other UN staff, intergovernmental organizations and CSOs to: Understand the issue of land governance, why it matters and why civil society needs to be involved; Understand why UN agencies need to work with CSOs to promote pro-poor land governance; and Identify the opportunities and entry points that exist for such UN-CSO collaboration.

Seventy-five percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas and most are involved in agriculture. In the 21st century, agriculture remains fundamental to economic growth, poverty alleviation, and environmental sustainability. Increased global demand for land because of higher and more volatile food prices, urbanization, and use of land for environmental services implies an increased need for well-designed land policies at the country level to ensure security of long-held rights, to facilitate land access, and to deal with externalities.

The Continental Land Policy Initiative, now the African Land Policy Centre, has made tremendous progress in generating knowledge on land governance since inception in 2006. A key milestone was the formulation of a Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa in 2009 upon which the African Union Declaration on Land Issues in Africa was prepared and endorsed in Libya in July 2009.

In Zambia, security of tenure for communities residing under customary land tenure settings has in recent years increasingly come under threat owing to the pressures of high rate of urbanization, speculation, subdivision and conversion to state land, which effectively excludes marginal populations from accessing resources for their land. While customary land is a major resource for most Zambians, the inadequacy or total lack of documentation leads to tenure insecurity, making people susceptible to forced displacements, and frequent land disputes.

Existing land governance system in Zimbabwe subjects vulnerable groups such as women to ‘land corruption’, which entrenches the already existing gendered land inequalities. This study used secondary data and found that Zimbabwe has witnessed various forms of corruption in general and land corruption, in particular, despite the country having the requisite policy, legal and institutional frameworks as well as other mechanisms to curb the scourge of corruption.

Today, the demographic and economic dynamics stimulate an increasing competition for the access to the urban land. The multiplication of needs and logics of use of this non-reproducible resource activates, more than ever, the question of the regulation of the access to the land and questions the modalities of distribution of property rights between the various actors.

The study reviews the land policy in Zimbabwe and investigates the extent to which the policy provides incentives for investment and technology adoption to increase labour productivity in the agricultural sector. The research is based on a desk study of relevant literature and land policies implemented by the Zimbabwe government since 1980. This is complemented by empirical data drawn from various organisations that have been tracking the progress of the land reform programme.

Community land and natural resources lie at the heart of social, political and economic life in much of rural Africa. While the Zambian government acknowledges customary tenure, it has not established required legislation needed to secure it and support to communities in their efforts to protect their lands.

              Various methodologies are being put in place in participatory mapping programs by actors with the aim of improving the system of land governance. However, they all contribute to the integrated management of resources and the strengthening of local user rights.               The purpose of this study is to explain the role of participatory mapping in the sustainable management of land resources.

The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges of women on land rights, in Tanzania customary practices often required woman to access land through their fathers, brothers, husbands or other men who control the land, so this makes women vulnerable and decreases agricultural productivity. When women loses their connection to this male relative, either through death, divorce or migration, they can lose their land, home and means of supporting themselves and their families.