Rural property taxes can play a significant role in promoting sustainable rural livelihoods in transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The guide identifies issues that should be considered by those who are responsible for the technical design and implementation of rural property tax systems. It identifies the benefits and problems associated with the introduction of rural property taxes, the relationship to other taxes and organizational constraints, and provides a checklist for introducing reforms. Because of the broad interest in this publication, it has been redrafted for a global audience as Land Tenure Studies 7.

This guide is designed to assist people who design rural development projects to understand why and how land tenure issues should be considered in the design. It analyses contexts such as environmental degradation, gender discrimination and conflicts, where land tenure is currently of critical concern. It provides guidance on how to identify whether land tenure issues are likely to occur in a rural development project, and gives recommendations as to how appropriate land tenure expertise can be built into project design and implementation.

Gender issues are often ignored in projects that aim to improve land tenure and land administration. To support land administrators in governments and their counterparts in civil society, this guide shows where and why gender inclusion is important in projects. In order to help inform policy and implementation decisions, it identifies indicators for measuring the quality and quantity of access to land before, during and after an intervention and outlines recommended principles for gender inclusion in land administration projects.