Is the World Bank’s approach to land relations gender insensitive? Is it realistic to pin poverty reduction aspirations on the promotion of credit markets and reliance on women’s unpaid labour? Does the acquisition of secure tenure rights necessarily benefit poor women? How should advocates of women’s rights in Africa respond to the Bank’s land agenda?

The global food system will experience an unprecedented combination of pressures over the next 40 years. Global population size will increase and competition for land, water and energy will intensify, while the effects of climate change will become increasingly apparent. Over this period, globalisation will continue, exposing the food system to novel economic and political pressures.This final report of the Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures Project argues that decisive action needs to take place now. The report identifies five considerable challenges ahead:

Continued agricultural growth and diversification into nonagricultural activities are essential if India is to continue reducing rural poverty. But policymakers hoping to alleviate rural poverty must also be aware of the causes and implications of persisting, if not increasing, inequality within villages. Jayaraman and Lanjouw review longitudinal village studies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives to identify changes in living standards in rural India in recent decades.

Analyses the causes of social exclusion in Cameroon, its relationship to land tenure and the political structures through which it is being addressed

Soil erosion has conventionally been perceived as the chief cause of land degradation, yet the limited effectiveness and poor uptake of widely promoted physical and biological anti-erosion methods challenges this logic. An alternative perception focusing on prior land damage - notably to soil cover, architecture and fertility - permits an holistic, farmer-centred approach which has generated positive response to date.

Population pressures play less of a role in deforestation than earlier studies of Thailand found. Between 1976 and 1989, Thailand lost 28 percent ofits forest cover. To analyze how road building, population pressure,and geophysical factors affected deforestation in Thailand during that period, Cropper, Griffiths, and Mani develop a model in whichthe amount of land cleared, the number of agricultural households,and the size of the road network are jointly determined.The model assumes that the amount of land cleared reflects an equilibrium in the land market.

This paper analyses the livelihoods of the Borana pastoral communities of Southern Oromiya in Ethiopia. It aims to inform policy makers, donors, and development practitioners about the best strategies for protecting and promoting sustainable livelihoods in the region. The study is based on survey data from participatory research carried out in three communities, as well as stakeholder consultations at district and regional levels.

This proceedings issue from a mini conference held in November 2004 presents six papers summarising attempts to establish best practice equity-share schemes on two commercial farms in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The main object of this participatory research was to test and refine land reform policy influencing the role of equity-share schemes as instruments of land and agrarian reform in South Africa.The papers presented were as follows:Land redistribution in Kwazulu-Natal: an analysis of Farmland transactions from 1997 until 2002 by Stuart Ferrer and Allan Semalulu.

Under the socialist regime that prevailed until the start of the 1990s, Mongolia made great progress in improving human development indicators, and poverty was virtually unknown. Through innovative service delivery mechanisms to nomadic pastoralists, almost universal coverage of primary health care services was achieved and adult literacy reached 97%.Political and economic transition in the 1990s ushered in a rapid rise in asset and income inequality, and a third of the population have been defined as living below the poverty line since 1995.

Examines international evidence on the relationship between asset ownership and growth and the impact of redistributive land reform, plus evidence of the impact of land reform in Zimbabwe.Asks why it appears that resettled farmers are among the poorest in the population. Concludes that asset redistribution can be a viable strategy to enhance growth, that the performance of resettled farmers in Zimbabwe is better than is conventionally believed, and that if a land reform programme is well designed, it can have a large impact on equity as well as productivity. [author]

Mozambique has experienced accelerated rates of growth over the past decade, averaging 7.2% per year, with projected growth rates of over 8%. However, this high growth rate has failed to translate into significant reductions in poverty and inequality has increased in almost all parts of the country.This Evidence on Demand Helpdesk Report provides a detailed case study on the evolution of land policy in Mozambique and provide the reader with insights into what is viewed as one of Africa’s most progressive land laws, recognising multiple forms of tenure.