In August 2013, the Government of Uganda gazetted the National Land Policy (NLP) after having initiated the policy process over three decades ago. The NLP is to provide an over-arching policy framework for land governance and management, consolidating the many other policies and laws that have governed land and natural resources since colonial times.

Examines the role of development cooperation in land reforms and the extent to which donor organisations have addressed concerns related to gender equality. Reviews the reforms in 15 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia, with a focus on Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Nicaragua. Legislation upholding gender equality is now present in different degrees in most of the countries examined. However, implementation often does not follow suit and women still face discrimination, in part due to social and cultural barriers and the inaccessibility of institutions able to support them.

Tanzania’s land reform from 1999 has been evaluated as among the most gender-sensitive of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. However there is a gap between the legal framework and what is happening on the ground. This paper analyses the challenges related to the protection of women’s rights to land in rural areas. It provides detailed information on reform implementation experiences so far by analysing a number of government and NGO interventions.

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is a mutually agreed instrument established in 2003 by the African Union in the framework of the implementation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The objective of the APRM is to foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development and accelerated regional and continental integration.

Ethiopia has implemented one of the largest, fastest and cheapest land registration and certification reforms in Africa. While there have been evidences of positive impacts of this land reform in terms of increased investment, land productivity and land rental market activities, the government is now piloting another round of land registration and certification that involves GPS measurement and computer registration.

This chapter uses both classic and contemporary literature to trace how land policies, and particularly land reform, have gained, lost, and regained prominence in development strategies and debates since the Second World War. It introduces contemporary issues and debates on gender and generational issues in land policy and land grabbing involving sometimes spectacularly large corporate land deals, and concluding with reflections on new ideas of food and land sovereignty that drive today’s agrarian movements.

A Digital Cadastral Data Base (DCDB) is a big investment for a jurisdiction tasked with the administration of land boundaries. In the past, the development of such a database produced no real pay-back on investment until many years, and millions of dollars had been committed. The Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) (ISO-TC211 2012) provides a model of a schema in which a progressive creation and improvement of a DCDB is possible, to allow benefits to be obtained even in the early stages of this effort.

Currently, Tanzania faces numerous challenges related to land ownership, especially in rural areas. The challenges include farmers-pastoralists conflicts, tenure disputes, and alienation of peasants. To address the challenges, the current policies and approaches used in the country need to be changed on the grounds that their inherent shortcomings make the policies unable to meet rampant land problems that the country has faced in recent years and continue to experience.