Evidence is mounting that secure
property rights have positive effects for poor people in
general and women in particular. The aim of this report is
to review what is known about women s access to and control
over land and real property in urban settings, identifying
approaches to strengthening property rights that enhance
women s agency, and sharing key lessons. Section two
synthesizes the evidence on urban women s priorities with

This book examines issues at the
forefront of the debate on land law reform, pays particular
attention to how reform options affect the poor and
disadvantaged, and recommends strategies for alleviating
poverty more effectively through land law reform. It reviews
the role of the World Bank in land law reform, examining
issues of process as well as substance. It also identifies
key challenges and directions, and stresses the need to

Rwanda's completion, in 2012/13, of
a land tenure regularization program covering the entire
country allows the use of administrative data to describe
initial performance and combine the data with household
surveys to quantify to what extent and why subsequent
transfers remain informal, and how to address this. In
2014/15, annual volumes of registered sales ranged between
5.6 percent for residential land in Kigali and 0.1 percent

Risk-sensitive land use planning is
vital for sustainable economic development and effective
Disaster Risk Management (DRM). Urban development programs
should adopt risk-sensitive land use planning to encourage
resilient development guiding the growth of people, assets
and services within and away from hazardous zones. Many East
Asia and the Pacific (EAP) countries have national land use
policy and local plans which incorporate risk assessments;

This report on the assessment of land
governance in Brazil summarizes and discusses the results of
a series of standardized self-assessments of the land
governance situation in Brazil, conducted entirely by
Brazilian speakers. Therefore, these findings represent the
perception of local experts based on their experience of
news and data available. The main aim of this report are
federal and state authorities directly involved in land

As in other societies in Southeast Asia
and the Pacific, customary social organization features
strongly in rural Timor-Leste. As well as providing avenues
for conflict resolution, the influence of customary systems
extends to land tenure. As the state, development partners,
private investors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
and others seek to promote rural development in Timor-Leste,
they will be forced to engage in some way with customary

Land tenure security is crucial for
women's empowerment and a prerequisite for building
secure and resilient communities. Tenure is affected by many
and often contradictory sets of rules, laws, customs,
traditions, and perceptions. For most rural women, land
tenure is complicated, with access and ownership often
layered with barriers present in their daily realities:
discriminatory social dynamics and strata, unresponsive

To implement the vision of fostering
economic development, social equity, and a transparent and
effective government, the Government of Liberia has outlined
key transitions that need to be accomplished. These include
the development of infrastructure (roads, electricity),
schools, job creation and transition from war, civil
conflict and social polarization to a well functioning
society in which economic opportunities are fostered and

This paper provides a brief overview of
the intersection of state and customary laws governing land
in peri-urban settlements around Honiara, focusing on their
impact upon landowners, particularly women landowners. It
suggests that the intersection of customary and state legal
systems allows a small number of individuals, predominantly
men, to solidify their control over customary land. This has
occurred to the detriment of many landowners, who have often

The authors examine the impact of land
reform in Vietnam which gives households the power to
exchange, transfer, lease, inherit, and mortgage their
land-use rights. The authors expect this change to increase
the incentives as well as the ability to undertake long-term
investments on the part of households. Their
difference-in-differences estimation strategy takes
advantage of the variation across provinces in the issuance

Stakeholders' perceptions of
opportunities and constraints to sustainable land management
in Ethiopia was assessed through interviews and a review of
secondary data. Stakeholders included farmers as well as
representatives of development agencies, agricultural
organizations, donors, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
and agricultural research systems. Stakeholders generally
perceive that the numerous, well-intentioned but piecemeal

In India, land continues to be of
enormous economic, social, and symbolic relevance. The way
in which land can be accessed and its ownership documented
is at the core of the livelihood of the large majority of
the poor, especially in rural and tribal areas and
determines the extent to which increasingly scarce natural
resources are managed. Land policies and administration are
critical determinants of the transaction cost associated