Debates around Common Property Resources and Intellectual Property Rights fail to consider traditional and indigenous rights regimes that regulate plant resource exploitation, establish bundles of powers and obligations for heterogeneous groups of users, and create differential entitlements to benefits that are related to social structures. Such rights regimes are important to maintaining biodiversity and to human welfare; failing to recognize them presents dangers.

Internationally there is growing understanding that water rights are important and that a lack of effective water rights systems creates major problems for the management of increasingly scarce water supplies. However, discussion of water rights has often failed to recognize the range of available institutional options, the rich diversity of lessons from experience, and the need for appropriate flexibility in adapting institutional design to dynamic local conditions.

The overall impact that the National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS) seeks to make is captured in the people’s vision for development and is stated as follows: “A future where individual, community, business and government partnerships contribute to a sustainable quality of life for all Nauruans”.The five long-term goals for Nauru remain unchanged from the 2005 NSDS.

This report is the fruit of collaboration between ILC, IFAD and FAO. It provides information on the historical background of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol, the working methods of the Committee, reservations, as well as a summary of information provided in reports of selected countries.

This is a report of a research project conducted in the Volta region of Ghana on women’s access to land. The authors conclude that women’s land tenure in this area is pervasively insecure. Specific customary norms in the matrilineal society perpetuate this insecurity and demonstrate the lack of implementation of legal measures set up to protect women against property rights discrimination. The authors give recommendations for improving women’s secure access to land, targeting the local community, NGOs and legal aid clinics as well as the government.

This is the report of a workshop held in Zimbabwe on HIV/AIDS and property rights women, with the aim of empowering widows at the grassroots level, as well as orphans affected by insecure property rights. The report makes recommendations on how to increase tenure security for women and children affected by HIV/AIDS.

You can download this report from the FAO website.

The authors address questions such as: (1) how do parents allocate land and education between sons and daughters? (2) how do changing returns to land and human capital affect parents' investments in children? (3) what do gender differences in land and schooling mean for the welfare of men and women? (4) is gender equity compatible with efficiency and growth? The book is based on intensive household surveys in Ghana, Indonesia, and the Philippines." -- From Text

"While ample evidence documents that urban children generally have better nutritional status than their rural counterparts, recent research suggests that urban malnutrition is on the rise. The environment, choices, and opportunities of urbanites differ greatly from those of rural dwellers' from employment conditions to social and family networks to access to health care and other services.

"This study attempts to analyze changing patterns of land transfers and schooling investments by gender over three generations in customary land areas of Ghana's Western Region. Although traditional matrilineal inheritance rules deny landownership rights to women, women have increasingly acquired land through gifts and other means, thereby reducing the gender gap in landownership. The gender gap in schooling has also declined significantly, though it persists.

With urban dwellers purchasing 80 percent or more of their food, understanding urban employment is critical to designing policies and programs to address urban hunger and poverty. Reviewing the literature, but also using data from household surveys conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and others in five countries of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, this paper profiles urban employment in developing-country cities.

The Annual Report contains an Essay: Agriculture, Food Security, Nutrition and the Millennium Development Goals by Joachim von Braun, M. S. Swaminathan, and Mark W. Rosegrant. There is an overview of the Institute followed by information on Research and Outreach. Special emphasis is given to Global Food System Functioning, Food System Governance, and Food System Innovations.

Este artigo examina a evolução da reivindicação dos direitos da mulher à terra na reforma agrária brasileira sob o prisma dos três principais movimentos sociais rurais: o Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), os sindicatos rurais e o movimento autônomo de mulheres rurais. O mérito maior por levantar a questão dos direitos da mulher à terra é das mulheres dentro dos sindicatos rurais.