March 2014 – The authors conducted extensive interviews of farmers in twelve villages in southern China, where Stora Enso, a large multinational pulp and paper producer, had acquired large areas of farmers’ forestland rights for its eucalyptus plantations.

March 2014 – Odisha, a state on the eastern coast of India, has endeavored over the years to enact laws aimed at providing land to those cultivating it and redistributing ownership of land. Landesa designed and piloted a model where a local youth (called a Community Resource Person) – identified by the community – is trained to provide additional capacity to local government land administration officials to identify and provide title to the formerly landless families. This model was subsequently scaled to cover 1,042 villages in seven districts of the state.

March 2014 – In most of Africa, land is at the heart of economic, social and political life. Therefore, land and natural resource rights and governance issues profoundly affect and are affected by development initiatives across the continent. To fully succeed and contribute to ending extreme poverty in the post-2015 world, development initiatives must recognize and strengthen the land and natural resource rights of local people, especially the rural poor and women. However, while there is growing awareness of these issues, they are often overlooked.

March 2014 – This paper critically examines how lease farming can be a viable livelihood option for landless rural poor, especially women in India. In the absence of land ownership and education, the majority of landless and semi-landless rural women are engaged as low wage agricultural labourers and remain trapped in poverty and indebtedness. Lease farming by landless women in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh shows a pathway for reducing their poverty and enabling upward social mobility.

Zambia is one of the countries in Africa with a high frequency of land conflicts. The conflicts over land lead to tenure insecurity. In response to the increasing number of land conflicts, the Zambian Government has undertaken measures to address land conflicts, but the measures are mainly curative in nature. But a conflict sensitive land governance framework should address both curative and preventive measures.

Availability of accurate and up to date data and information on land and different land uses, such as agriculture, forestry, mining, wildlife, water, housing and infrastructure, is critical to effective land governance and crucial for planning and managing the use of land and land-based resources. Public institutions and the government need land data and information for appropriate and timely decision-making; while land users, the general public and other stakeholders need it to effectively monitor and influence those decisions.

This is the first issue of the Journal of Law and Rural Development, published by IFAD. IFAD’s mandate to address rural poverty and promote rural development is unique among international organizations. For many years IFAD limited its activities to financing projects and programmes implemented by its Member States, but over the last decade it has begun to transform itself into a knowledge centre and a key participant in the international policy dialogue around rural development issues. The launch of this journal is another step forward in this transformation.

In Sierra Leone, the well-being and livelihoods of many people, particularly the rural poor, are based on secure and equitable access to land, fisheries and forests. Increasing pressure on these resources in recent years has led to an escalation of conflict over access to natural resources.

This document was written by the Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC) with the view of increasing awareness and understanding in the context of the Philippines of the VGGT. This material draws from previous materials prepared by ANGOC as well as from the presentation and discussion during the training of trainers on “Increasing the use of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests among CSOs and Grassroots Organizations in the Philippines” held on 11-14 July 2016 in Tagaytay City, Philippines.

The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) set out internationally-accepted principles and standards for responsible practices, providing a framework for governments, the private sector and civil society to use when developing policies and programmes for improving food security.

Land-use planning (LUP), an instrument of land governance, is often employed to protect land and humans against natural and human-induced hazards, strengthen the resilience of land systems, and secure their sustainability. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) underlines the critical role of appropriate local action to address the global threat of land degradation and desertification (LDD) and calls for the use of local and regional LUP to combat LDD and achieve land degradation neutrality. The paper explores the challenges of putting this call into practice.