This paper is a summary of a case study on gender, land and decentralisation. It addresses how women in rural areas of Niger deal with pressure on land within changing agricultural production systems. A separate focus is on women’s land rights, and the strategies they use to capitalise on these rights.

Assesses the process to establish a system of land registration and improve land tenure security, and its outcomes for poor and marginalised groups in Amhara, Ethiopia .The registration process is found to be generating conflict at the local level, due to illegal land grabbing, encroachments into common lands and land sales.

This study explores the relationship between HIV/AIDS and land rights in Kenya, with a particular focus on women as a socially vulnerable group. It examines: the ways that HIV/AIDS-affected households are coping in terms of land access, use and management; the consequences of these coping strategies on security of access and rights to land; and how changes in land tenure, access and rights to land among different categories of people are affecting agricultural productivity, food security and poverty.

Analyses the range of institutional arrangements being used for gaining access to land and natural resources in two regions of southern Benin.

This case study assesses the strengths and weaknesses of a simple, inexpensive, village-based land registration system put in place between 1996 and 1998 in Tigray, Ethiopia.The authors found that the system worked well and fairly - in large part due to it’s simplicity and low cost. Success also depended, however, on effective local governments which were able to prevent inequities from unforeseen shortcomings.

The 1998 Land Act represents one of the most important pieces of legislation in Uganda, which is predominantly an agricultural country. The role of a consortium of NGOs, The Uganda Land Alliance (ULA), is analysed in this paper, with regard to the enactment of the Act.

This working paper reviews historical and current factors and patterns affecting land use, land tenure, resource access, human settlement, and conflicts over resource access and tenure in the districts around Mt. Elgon in Kenya and Uganda.

Malawi's Community Based Rural Land Development Project was conceived as an effort to alleviate rural poverty by making it possible for land-poor households to buy land where it was available within specific districts. This paper discusses the factors that deter relocation, and those that hamper permanent settlement in new sites after the initial relocation has occurred. The study clarifies that access to new land entails leaving the home village for an unfamiliar environment.

Articles in this edition develop several areas and introduce specific experiences relating to land reform. The main thread running through the articles is that of change; how we can help to understand what change means and how it can be managed.

This report summarise the research findings of a project to examine the current processes of land rights registration in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Mozambique and assess their outcomes for poor and vulnerable groups. It examines the design and process of registration, the governance of those processes and the equity of the outcomes.This research finds that land registration is not inherently anti-poor in its impacts and that the distributional consequences of land registration depend on the design of the process and on the institutions responsible for its management.

Through an analysis of the right to adequate food and the right to land, this civil society report, argued that achieving food sovereignty requires agrarian reform.

This paper explores and evaluates the impact of a new form of large-scale agriculture which is becoming an increasing phenomenon in southern Burkina Faso. With severe ecological deterioration and food deficits, small-scale agriculture is usually seen as the key to economic prosperity, social solidarity and sustainable management of local resources. However, a set of new stakeholders, comprising politicians, entrepreneurs and employees, is promoting large-scale agribusiness as a relevant and viable alternative for agricultural development in the country.