Land reform, land settlements and cooperatives bulletin

2003/1

The articles presented in this edition of Land reform, land settlement and cooperatives cover a wide variety of current concerns in land tenure and land reform. Two articles in particular address issues relating to land reform and how to institutionalize such reforms to promote their sustainability. William Thiesenhusen analyses the challenges facing key organizations in civil society, particularly grassroots organizations, when developing strategies for land reform implementation. Luz Seño-Ani's article looks at how appopriate participatory planning of the agrarian reform communities has been undertaken in FAO's field programme in the Philippines and adapted to meet the specific local needs. This second article crosses into a technical theme that the FAO Land Tenure Service is developing as part of its research activities in support of field programme activities, namely participatory territorial planning. The article by Paolo Groppo, Sylvia Clementi and Federica Ravera reviews the methodological aspects of this work, and the article by Manuel Alcázar Molina and Francisco Ariza López, which argues that the rural cadastre is a key element supporting rural development, is thus complementary. The inclusion of Nadia Forni's article surveying land tenure policies in the Near East is particularly appropriate, in view of the increasing recognition of land tenure issues in relation to development in the region. Of the remaining articles, two address further specific areas of the Land Tenure Service's technical activity, for which the guidelines are being prepared: land fragmentation (Fritz Rembold) and conflict management (André Teyssier, Ousman Hamadou and Christian Seignobos). The final article presents a village-level case study on agrarian system diagnostics, based in Mali.

Paul Munro-Faure
Chief, Land Tenure Service
FAO Rural Development Division

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