This book covers land administration and reform in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is highly relevant to all developing countries around the world. It provides simple, practical steps to turn the hugely ...controversial subject of "land grabs" into a development opportunity by improving land governance to reduce the risks of dispossessing poor landholders while ensuring mutually beneficial investors' deals. This book shows how Sub-Saharan Africa can leverage its abundant and highly valuable natural resources to eradicate poverty by improving land governance through a ten point program to scale up policy reforms and investments at a cost of USD 4.5 billion. Formidable challenges to implementation are discussed. These include high vulnerability to land grabbing and expropriation with poor compensation, as about 90 percent of rural lands in Sub-Saharan Africa are undocumented, as well as timely opportunities since high commodity prices and investor interest in large scale agriculture have increased land values and returns to investing in land administration. The book argues that success in implementation will require participation of many players including Pan-African organizations, Sub-Saharan Africa governments, the private sector, civil society and development partners. Ultimate success will depend on the political will of Sub-Saharan Africa governments to move forward with comprehensive policy reforms and on concerted support by the international development community.
This book emphasizes the centrality of cities in China's ongoing transformation. Based on fieldwork in twenty-four Chinese cities between 1996 and 2007, the author forwards an analysis of the ...relations between the city, the state, and society through two novel concepts: urbanization of the local state and civic territoriality. Urbanization of the local state is a process of state power restructuring entailing an accumulation regime based on the commodification of state-owned land, the consolidation of territorial authority through construction projects, and a policy discourse dominated by notions of urban modernity. Civic territoriality encompasses the politics of distribution engendered by urban expansionism, and social actors' territorial strategies toward self-protection. Findings are based on observations in three types of places. In the inner city of major metropolitan centers, municipal governments battle high-ranking state agencies to secure land rents from redevelopment projects, while residents mobilize to assert property and residential rights. At the urban edge, as metropolitan governments seek to extend control over their rural hinterland through massive-scale development projects, villagers strategize to profit from the encroaching property market. At the rural fringe, township leaders become brokers of power and property between the state bureaucracy and villages, while large numbers of peasants are dispossessed, dispersed, and deterritorialized; their mobilizational capacity is consequently undermined.
This Special Issue provides an insight, collated from 26 articles, focusing on various aspects of the Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) concept and its application. It presents some ...influential and innovative trends and recommendations for designing, implementing, maintaining and further developing Fit-For-Purpose solutions for providing secure land rights at scale. The first group of 14 articles is published in Volume One and discusses various conceptual innovations related to spatial, legal and institutional aspects and its wider applications within land use management. The second group of 12 articles is published in Volume Two and focuses on case studies from various countries throughout the world, providing evidence and lessons learned from the FFPLA implementation process.
This Special Issue provides an insight, collated from 26 articles, focusing on various aspects of the Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) concept and its application. It presents some ...influential and innovative trends and recommendations for designing, implementing, maintaining and further developing Fit-For-Purpose solutions for providing secure land rights at scale. The first group of 14 articles is published in Volume One and discusses various conceptual innovations related to spatial, legal and institutional aspects and its wider applications within land use management. The second group of 12 articles is published in Volume Two and focuses on case studies from various countries throughout the world, providing evidence and lessons learned from the FFPLA implementation process.
It is increasingly being recognized that land use and land cover changes driven by anthropogenic pressures are impacting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and their services, human society, and ...human livelihoods and well-being. This Special Issue contains 12 original papers covering various issues related to land use and land use changes in various parts of the world (see references), with the purpose of providing a forum to exchange ideas and progress in related areas. Research topics include land use targets, dynamic modelling and mapping using satellite images, pressures from energy production, deforestation, impacts on ecosystem services, aboveground biomass evaluation, and investigations on libraries of legends and classification systems.
Land in Transition Ravallion, Martin
2008, 04-08-2008, 20080101
eBook, Book
Open access
This book is a case study of Vietnam's efforts to fight poverty using market-oriented land reforms. In the 1980s and 1990s, the country undertook major institutional reforms, and an impressive ...reduction in poverty followed. But what role did the reforms play? Did the efficiency gains from reform come at a cost to equity? Were there both winners and losers? Was rising rural landlessness in the wake of reforms a sign of success or failure?Land in Transition investigates the impacts on living standards of the two stages of land law reform: in 1988, when land was allocated to households administratively and output markets were liberalized; and in 1993, when official land titles were introduced and land transactions were permitted for the first time since communist rule began. To fully assess the poverty impacts of these changes, the authors' analysis of household surveys is guided by both economic theory and knowledge of the historical and social contexts. The book delineates lessons from Vietnam's experience and their implications for current policy debates in China and elsewhere.
Land Matters Corsi, Anna; Selod, Harris
2023, 2-20-2023
eBook, Book
Open access
Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), land is scarce and valuable. Demand for land is projected to dramatically increase to meet the needs of a fast-growing urban population. At the same ...time, the supply of land is restricted by weak governance and climate factors, causing the quasi-exhaustion of cultivable land reserves. As a result, a crisis is looming. Yet, land continues to be used inefficiently, inequitably, and unsustainably.
Land Matters identifies and analyzes the economic, environmental, and social challenges associated with land in the MENA region, shedding light on policy options and proposing paths to reform. It concludes that MENA countries need to act promptly, think more holistically about land, reassess the strategic trade-offs, and minimize land distortions. This report promotes a culture of open data, transparency, and inclusive dialogue on land, while filling major data gaps. These important steps will contribute to renewing the social contract, transforming the region economically and digitally, improving women’s land rights, and facilitating recovery and reconstruction in a context of dramatic social, political, and climatic transformation.
It is increasingly being recognized that land use and land cover changes driven by anthropogenic pressures are impacting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and their services, human society, and ...human livelihoods and well-being. This Special Issue contains 12 original papers covering various issues related to land use and land use changes in various parts of the world (see references), with the purpose of providing a forum to exchange ideas and progress in related areas. Research topics include land use targets, dynamic modelling and mapping using satellite images, pressures from energy production, deforestation, impacts on ecosystem services, aboveground biomass evaluation, and investigations on libraries of legends and classification systems.
The Color of the Land brings the histories of Creek Indians, African Americans, and whites in Oklahoma together into one story that explores the way races and nations were made and remade in ...conflicts over who would own land, who would farm it, and who would rule it. This story disrupts expected narratives of the American past, revealing how identities--race, nation, and class--took new forms in struggles over the creation of different systems of property. Conflicts were unleashed by a series of sweeping changes: the forced "removal" of the Creeks from their homeland to Oklahoma in the 1830s, the transformation of the Creeks' enslaved black population into landed black Creek citizens after the Civil War, the imposition of statehood and private landownership at the turn of the twentieth century, and the entrenchment of a sharecropping economy and white supremacy in the following decades. In struggles over land, wealth, and power, Oklahomans actively defined and redefined what it meant to be Native American, African American, or white. By telling this story, David Chang contributes to the history of racial construction and nationalism as well as to southern, western, and Native American history.
Land use is the projection of human activities in space, and it has become an important insight into the transformation and reconstruction of human society and economy. Rural land use in China is ...undergoing rapid transformation driven by the rapid development of science and technology. Effectively grasping the change and transformation process of rural land use and its internal mechanism provides an important reference for revealing the inherent laws of China's rural development. Rural land use is closely related to the rural vitalization strategy and urban–rural integration in the new era. An in-depth study of China's rural land use and policy reform provides the basis of knowledge for formulating and optimizing urban–rural relations. This Special Issue focuses on the changes, effects, and regulation of rural land use in China, focusing on its main contradictions and solutions, building a cooperative network and sharing platform for rural land use research from a multidisciplinary perspective, and further deepening the theoretical innovation and practical application of rural land use research. We invited scholars from various disciplines to contribute to the Special Issue, especially with papers on the subjects of theoretical innovation, technological innovation, and practical innovation in this field.
