Empowerment and Land Rights

Trends in natural resource investment in Africa

Legal Tools research generates knowledge on trends, drivers and impacts in natural resource investment, and knowhow on the legal levers that can be used to increase local voice and benefit within that context.

Gender, land and decentralisation

This strand of action research specifically studies the challenges posed by gender disparities with regard to access to land and natural resources.

Understanding changes in local land tenure systems

Across rural Africa, land legislation struggles to be properly implemented, and most resource users gain access to land on the basis of local land tenure systems. There is growing recognition that land laws must build on local practice. In recent years, several African countries have adopted legislation that strengthens protection for local land rights.

Can land registration work for the poor?

Since independence, African governments have adopted policies and programmes aimed at increasing land tenure security for farmers, so as to foster agricultural investment and productivity. These policies have usually been based on systematic registration of land rights, ignoring existing customary and local institutions and largely disregarding the distributive issues underlying tenure security ("security for whom?"). The materialisation of their hoped for benefits has been generally limited, and their implementation has enabled elite capture of land and has resulted in the expropriation of the rights of weaker groups. Over the last decade, new approaches to improving tenure security have been devised, usually paying more attention to local/customary norms and practices and to protecting all rights and interests in land.

Participatory Learning and Action

www.planotes.org
Participatory Learning and Action is the world's leading informal journal on participatory approaches and methods. Published twice a year, it provides a forum for all those engaged in participatory work - community workers, activists and researchers - to share their experiences, conceptual reflections and methodological innovations with others.

Power Tools: for policy influence in natural resource management

www.policy-powertools.org
The website presents:

* 26 power tools based on experience from around the world
* Discussion of power tools in theory and practice
* Related research on policy tools in action
* A directory of the many other websites that contain policy tool resources

Supporting pastoral mobility in East and West Africa

Livestock mobility allows millions of pastoralists and agropastoralists to lead productive lives in areas few other producers can exploit. It is critical for local livelihoods, for trade, and for coping with climate change. In several parts of Africa there are important efforts underway to facilitate livestock mobility and to remove the obstacles that constrain the inherent flexibility of pastoral systems.

Strengthening pastoral civil society in Senegal

Decentralisation in Senegal offers real opportunities for local people to have a say in natural resource management and planning, and how their areas should be developed.

Legal empowerment in investment projects

Where local resource rights are weak, investment projects may undermine the ability of local groups to access the resources on which they depend. Weakness of local resource rights may also undermine the position of local resource users in their negotiations with incoming investors; and therefore limit their ability to benefit from investment projects through negotiated benefit-sharing arrangements.

Legal empowerment for secure resource access

Appropriate legal arrangements and adequate capacity to use them can help local groups in Africa have greater control over the natural resources on which they depend. This is the essence of the concept of legal empowerment – using the law to help disadvantaged groups have greater control over decisions and processes affecting their lives.

Land and water rights in the Sahel

In the Sahel, rain-fed farming and pastoralism are the main livelihood sources. In the past few decades, efforts have been made to improve the water infrastructure in rural areas – for example through the creation of new water points and irrigation schemes. These efforts have often failed to consider governance and property rights issues - who decides what and how, and who has right over what before and after the water development project.

Making decentralisation work

Our programme of work on ‘Making decentralisation work’ responds to a policy change in many countries in the African Sahel which has seen the transfer of certain decision-making powers and resources away from central government to elected local government bodies.

Securing the commons

In much of Africa, rural populations depend on access to common property resources such as rangelands and forests. Securing local rights of access to such resources against encroachment by outsiders is key to protecting the livelihoods of local people.

Reinforcement of pastoral civil society in East Africa

While it is true that pastoral production systems are increasingly failing to provide sustainable livelihoods, it is also true that pastoralists’ poverty and vulnerability are exacerbated by inappropriate policies and development interventions. Poor understanding by policy makers of pastoral systems, and the lack of political leverage by pastoralists to influence policy processes are the main reasons for this situation.

Gatekeeper Series

The Gatekeeper series aims to highlight key topics in sustainable natural resource management. Each paper reviews a selected issue of contemporary importance and draws preliminary conclusions for development that are particularly relevant for policymakers, researchers and planners.