Land Registration and Women’s Land Rights in Amhara Region, Ethiopia assesses the ongoing land registration process and its outcomes for women. While land policy and registration procedures aim to guarantee women’s access to land, practice on the ground suggests more needs to be done to support women’s rights in the implementation process. Land registration, initiated in 2003, stipulates that both spouses should be named on the certificate. However, research findings in one-third of all kebeles in Amhara, found that only 39 per cent of the plots was registered under joint title, while 29 per cent was under female holding (including many female headed households), and 33 percent registered with men. Married women therefore continue to be denied joint titling. Most local land administration committees were only composed of men and local leaders and government officials had not promoted women’s participation. However, where women were part of committees, they were active in protecting women’s rights, particularly of women who were vulnerable and lacked family support or social networks.

Land Registration in Amhara Region, Ethiopia assesses the process to establish a system of land registration and improve land tenure security, and its outcomes for poor and marginalised groups. The registration process is generating conflict at the local level, due to illegal land grabbing, encroachments into common lands and land sales. Those who are likely to be marginalised by the ensuing disputes include youth, for whom landlessness is a real concern, and migrants. Women, especially divorcees, and the elderly are other groups which are vulnerable to marginalisation, as they often have to look to others to sharecrop their land. There is also a fear that land registration will lead to ‘privatising’ common lands, so important for the landless. For land registration to yield the anticipate benefits of tenure security and environmental conservation, more emphasis is needed on awareness raising, capacity building at woreda (district) and community levels, support for conflict resolution mechanisms, and women’s involvement in the process.

Land Registration in Nampula and Zambezia provinces in Mozambique assesses the process of rural land registration in Mozambique and the outcomes for poor and marginalised groups. The research shows that community land registration, under the 1997 land law, can strengthen community rights to use and benefit from their land in relation to outsider interests in land. However, intra-community and intra-household land rights are not addressed, since it is only community land boundaries which are registered. The relatively centralised and complex registration procedures means that  smallholder farmers are heavily dependent on NGOs to facilitate the process, which raises issues of continuity and sustainability. Individual registration of land is  possible too, but is mainly taken up by private investors and companies. There are some serious shortcomings in this process: community consultations, required by law, are often inadequate and there is little supervision to ensure that compulsory land development plans produced by investors are implemented in practice. These issues will need to be tackled in order to for rural land registration be really pro-poor in practice.

Securing Land Rights in Africa: Land Registration in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia assesses the strengths and weaknesses of a simple, inexpensive, village-based land registration system put in place between 1996 and 1998 in one of the poorest States, Tigray, of one of the world’s poorest countries, Ethiopia.  The system worked well and fairly in large part due to those characteristics; but this success also depended on effective local governments which were able to prevent inequities from unforeseen shortcomings.  At the same time, those same shortcomings are analysed and also serve as lessons:  that the choice of a land description technology has consequences in use; that title is a legal conclusion that must be constantly updated to be reliable; that registering all the land of a household together under the name of the household head may lead to unnecessary recording problems and inequities when transactions, such as divorce, occur; and that intersections between registration systems (e.g., urban/rural, individual/community, small-holder/investor, cultivated/forested) may create problems.

Para muitas pessoas, a gestão de recursos naturais é algo comum, mas a maioria não tem a oportunidade de contribuir para as políticas e as instituições que governam seu uso. A iniciativa das Ferramentas de Poder visa a preencher esta lacuna. A iniciativa, coordenada pelo IIED em parceria com ONGs e pesquisadores de políticas na África, na América Latina e na Ásia, desenvolve e compartilha ferramentas, táticas e procedimentos para garantir a influência das políticas para fins de mudanças. A Caixa de Recursos contém Ferramentas de Poder: manual das ferramentas e dos recursos para influenciar as políticas sobre a gestão de recursos naturais, e 26 cartões sumários.

El manejo de los recursos naturales es rutinario para muchas personas, pero la mayoría de ellas no tiene la oportunidad de contribuir con las políticas e instituciones que rigen su uso. La iniciativa de las Herramientas de Poder apunta a eliminar este vacío. Coordinada por el IIED en asociación con ONGs e investigadores de políticas de África, Latinoamérica y Asia, la iniciativa desarrolla y comparte herramientas, tácticas y enfoques para asegurar una influencia en las políticas que lleve a cambios. La Caja de Recursos contiene Herramientas de Poder: manual para herramientas y recursos que influencien las políticas en el manejo de los recursos naturales y 26 tarjetas resumidas.

Land Registration in Western and Eastern Regions, Ghana assesses the process of rural land registration in Ghana and its outcomes for poor and marginalised groups. In Ghana, deeds registration has been in place since colonial times, and enables right holders to record their land transactions. However, very little rural land has actually been affected by this registration process. The research shows a general lack of awareness of the registration process among the majority of cash and food crop farmers. High monetary and transaction costs and a long and cumbersome process also constrain use of deeds registration. As a result, while farmers in both Western and Eastern Regions increasingly make use of written documents to secure their transactions, very few bother to register those documents with the deeds registry. On the other hand, deeds registration is commonly used by agribusiness, and by mining and timber companies acquiring interests in land. In other words, while the deeds registration system seems to cater for the needs of medium to large-scale enterprises, it does not respond to the needs of small holders. The ongoing land administration reform programme needs to address these issues in order to establish institutions and processes that secure the land rights of poorer and more vulnerable groups.

La gestion des ressources naturelles est une affaire de tous les jours pour bon nombre de gens mais la majorité d'entre eux n'ont pas l'occasion de contribuer aux politiques et aux institutions qui régissent leur usage. L'initiative des outils moteurs vise à combler cette lacune. Coordonnée par l'IIED en partenariat avec des ONG et des chercheurs en politiques d'Afrique, d'Amérique latine et d'Asie, l'initiative élabore et partage des outils, des tactiques et des approches permettant d'influer sur les politiques en faveur du changement. Le coffret-ressource contient le livret Outils Moteurs : Guide des outils et ressources pour influencer les politiques de gestion des ressources naturelles et 26 fiches récapitulatives.

The management of natural resources is routine for many people, but the majority do not have the opportunity to contribute to the policies and institutions that govern their use. The Power Tools initiative aims to close this gap. Coordinated by IIED in partnership with NGOs and policy researchers in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the initiative develops and shares tools, tactics and approaches to ensure policy influence for change. The Resource Box contains the Power Tools: Handbook to a set of tools and resources to counter marginalisation in natural resource management and 26 reference cards. The Resource Box will be released in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish in late April 2005.

The focus of the workshop - and of this report - is on the policy and legislative challenges raised by the commons in an era where many vocal actors see privatisation as the only way forward. Such challenges are examined at different levels - local (e.g. local agreements for the shared management of natural resources), national (government policies, legislation), regional (protocols for the management of transboundary resources; treaties on cross-border transhumance) and international (e.g. the Convention on Bio-Diversity). Can policy and legal frameworks help secure the commons against resource grabbing by elites? If so, how can they best do it? How can they ensure equitable participation in benefits by and within local communities? What are the linkages between policy/legislative frameworks and local practice? The report covers the commons in both Africa and Europe.