This forest policy note (FPN) offers
an outside view of the Moldovan forestry sector, provides
some strategic guidance to help define sector goals, and
identifies opportunities for consideration in the continued
development of the sector and for the implementation of the
Moldova and World Bank (WB) country partnership strategy
(CPS). This study is based on a number of short visits to
Moldova and on a number of background studies undertaken

This is a desk appraisal of the Alliances for Religions and Conservations (ARC) done for the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) by the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Noragric, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).

This publication is a lobby material to advocate the passage of the National Land Use Act. As one of the major outputs of the high level experts forum held last June 4, 2015, this abridged version of the proceedings highlights the experts’ discussion, answering the following key questions related to agriculture:

This paper reviews the experiences of introducing land consolidation and land banking instruments in Central and Eastern Europe, largely to address the structural problems of small and fragmented farms. The introduction has been uneven with some countries having established operational programmes while others have taken steps with differing levels of success, and a few have not taken action. The paper assesses the driving factors for the introduction and the approaches used in individual countries.

Under Mozambique’s Constitution and Land Law (1997), communities may legally govern their lands and natural resources according to customary norms and practices, so long as local customs do not contradict national law. However, rising land scarcity and associated increases in land value are leading some families to “reinterpret” custom as sanctioning the dispossession of widows from their marital lands.

Although there has been a considerable effort to reduce soil erosion and improve land productivity in Ethiopia, farmers’ investments in SWC remain limited. There is a long and rich tradition of empirical research that seeks to identify the determinants that affect farmers’ investments in SWC practices. Nevertheless, the results regarding these determinants have been inconsistent and scattered. Moreover, the impacts of different SWC practices have not been reviewed and synthesized.

Ein Jahr bevor die Frist zur Erreichung der Millenniums-Entwicklungsziele im Jahr 2015 abläuft, bietet der Welthunger-Index (WHI) einen facettenreichen Überblick über die Verbreitung des Hungers und trägt neue Erkenntnisse darüber in die weltweite Debatte, wie Hunger und Mangelernährung verringert werden können. Betrachtet man die Entwicklungsländer als Gruppe, so hat sich die Hungersituation dort seit 1990 verbessert. Dem WHI 2014 zufolge ist seitdem ein Rückgang um 39 Prozent zu verzeichnen.

A un anno dalla scadenza per il raggiungimento degli Obiettivi di Sviluppo del Millennio, fissata nel 2015, l’Indice Globale della Fame 2014 offre una prospettiva articolata del problema della fame nel mondo, che porta nuovi spunti al dibattito mondiale rispetto a dove concentrare gli sforzi nella lotta contro la fame e la malnutrizione. Secondo il GHI 2014, lo stato della fame nei Paesi in via di sviluppo è complessivamente migliorato in confronto al 1990, con un calo del 39%.

Using the 2009 round of the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey, this paper examines the medium-term impact of the land registration on investment behavior by households, particularly the adoption of soil conservation techniques and tree planting. It investigates whether men’s and women’s knowledge of their property rights under the land registration (as measured by answers to a list of questions regarding the provisions of the registration, covering such areas as tenure security, land transfer rights, and rights related to gender equity and inheritance) has an impact on these investments.

Alors qu’il ne reste plus qu’une année avant la date d’échéance de la réalisation des Objectifs du Millénaire pour le développement, l’Indice de la faim dans le monde 2014 (GHI) offre une analyse multidimensionnelle de la faim et présente de nouvelles données permettant d’alimenter le débat mondial sur la question de savoir où concentrer les efforts dans la lutte contre la faim et la malnutrition. Selon le GHI 2014, les niveaux de faim dans les pays en développement pris dans leur ensemble se sont améliorés depuis 1990, diminuant de 39%.

This study was conducted with the objective of determining the returns to sustainable land management (SLM) at the national level in Bhutan. The study first uses satellite data on land change (Landsat) to examine land use change in 1990–2010 and its impact on sediment loading in hydroelectric power plants. The study then uses the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to analyze the impact of land use change and land management on sediment loading. The results from the land use change and SWAT analyses are used to assess the economic benefits of SLM.

With one more year before the 2015 deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the 2014 Global Hunger Index report offers a multifaceted overview of global hunger that brings new insights to the global debate on where to focus efforts in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. The state of hunger in developing countries as a group has improved since 1990, falling by 39 percent, according to the 2014 GHI.