Owing to the fact that women have different knowledge, access to, and control over resources, and different opportunities to participate in decisions regarding resource use and management from men, the study focuses on gendered differences in livelihood strategies, identifying factors that preclude women from benefitting in livelihood projects and accessing livelihood resources. Qualitative data for the study was collected through gender disaggregated group discussions in two districts, Mvomero and Kongwa in Tanzania.

Through six themes: tenure policy; water management; sustainable housing; waste treatment and recycling practices; urban agriculture; and construction practices, nine case studies address diverse urban sustainability challenges facing cities in Peru, Senegal, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Thailand, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Developed in partnership with low-income city dwellers, the authors propose small changes in practice and structure, which can create more balanced, healthy, and sustainable habitats. The book offers insights into both theory and practice.

We draw on empirical results from three case studies of property rights change across forest and fisheries ecosystems in central Vietnam to investigate the circumstances under which collective property rights may make sense. A
generic property rights framework was used to examine the bundles of rights and associated rights holders in each case, and to assess these arrangements with regard to their contextual fit, legitimacy and enforceability. The cases illustrate the interactions between private and collective rights to lands and resources, and the

The security of women’s entitlement to land and land-based resources in the East Africa region has been compromised by a combination of unfavourable laws and government policies, socio-economic change toward greater commoditization of and competition for land and land-based resources, and exclusionary practices defended as ‘customary’. Law, policy, and practice have excluded women in land ownership and control and made their access tenuous.

Through investigating the reactions of commercial farmers to land and water reforms in the Trichardtsdal-Ofcolaco area, Limpopo Province, Olifants Basin, South Africa, from 1997 to 2006, it is shown that water claims are key to land redistribution processes, and that commercial farmers make strategic use of arguments for nature conservation and ecological stewardship to defend their claims to water.

Significant progress has been made over the past decade or so in the development of policy and legislation that support the recognition of customary rights to land, with important legal rulings in Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, South Sudan, and South Africa. At the same time, the strengthening of communities’ traditional rights to use resources has progressed through community forest reserves and community conservation areas.

Seventy-five percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas and most are involved in agriculture. In the 21st century, agriculture remains fundamental to economic growth, poverty alleviation, and environmental sustainability. Increased global demand for land because of higher and more volatile food prices, urbanization, and use of land for environmental services implies an increased need for well-designed land policies at the country level to ensure security of long-held rights, to facilitate land access, and to deal with externalities.

Land is a scarce resource increasingly affected by the competition of mutually exclusive uses. Fertile land in rural areas becomes scarcer due to population growth, pollution, erosion and desertification, effects of
climate change, urbanization etc. On the remaining land, local, national and international users with different socioeconomic status and power compete to achieve food security, economic growth, energy supply, nature

In the last ten years or so, the global interest in, and concerns about, the issue of how the world shall provide a growing population with sufficient food, bioenergy and wood raw material has attracted increasing attention. Will land and water resources be enough, how shall they be best managed to achieve increased production and productivity without causing far-reaching negative environmental and social side-effects, will climate change make solutions more difficult, will there be financial means and know-how available to address all challenges and opportunities?

In this synthesis report, the issue of tenure security is addressed and assessed in several countries where government, civil society, the private sector and development cooperation initiatives have been implemented for decades. The selected case studies from fifteen (15) countries ensure not only a geographic balance but they also represent countries with different socio-economic and land-related histories and that have followed different pathways. The studies’ key findings underline the still precarious state of tenure security in many countries.

The Sustainable Rangeland Management Project (SRMP) aims at securing land and resource rights of pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and crop farmers, while improving land management by supporting village and district land use planning and rangeland management in Kiteto, Bahi, Chamwino and Kondoa Districts in Tanzania. More broadly, it aims at influencing policy formulation and implementation on these issues.