This book provides a significant contribution to the literature on land reform in various African contexts. While the economic evidence is clear that secure property rights are a necessary condition for catalysing broad-based economic development, the governance process by which those rights are secured is less clear. This book details the historical complexity of land rights and the importance of understanding this history in the process of trying to improve tenure security. Through a combination of single country case studies, comparative case studies and regional comparisons, the book is unequivocal that good governance is paramount for improving the performance of land reform programmes. All attempts at moving towards more formal secure tenure require congruence with informal norms, beliefs and values, and a set of clear systems and processes to avoid corruption and unintended negative consequences.

Both direct and indirect linkages between land tenure and food security have been suggested. This study aims for a better understanding of these linkages. Specifically it aims: to improve the current understanding of the linkages between land tenure systems, food security and sustainable natural resource management in Africa; to assess the current land tenure policy reforms in selected African countries; to draw lessons based on best practices as well as failures of ongoing and past policies; to make policy recommendations to assist States in addressing issues of land reform implementation and hence improve their food security situation and the stewardship of natural resources.

This publication deals with key issues in land tenure, especially as they relate to food insecurity and rural development situations. Land tenure issues are frequently ignored in rural development interventions, with often long-lasting, negative results. This guide is designed to assist technical officers in governments and civil society in understanding why and how land tenure issues should be considered in rural development projects. It analyses important contexts such as environmental degradation, gender discrimination, and conflicts, where land tenure is currently of critical concern.

Annotation. In Pursuit of Land Tenure Security is a unique book that takes the reader on an international tour of perceptions of land tenure security. It contains an anthology of essays based on contacts with people during assignments in various parts of the world over a period of several years. The essays describe the human pursuit for a higher level of land tenure security. Because land tenure security is a perception, the use of stories of human experience introduces the reader to an array of issues associated with land tenure, among them controversial approaches to providing land tenure security. In this way the pursuit of land tenure security becomes a captivating story for anyone interested in land related policies, land related studies, and all those who have discovered the importance of protection of the rights to real property by people, all over the world.