Land reform aims to redistribute and/or confirm rights in land for the benefit of the poor. Its scope is wide, as are the opportunities for donor assistance. Drawing on experience with official development assistance for land reform over the last 10 years, the author examines the broad range of economic, social and political issues have arisen and how they have been dealt with. Land reform remains an extremely complex challenge, but a number of positive lessons have been learned and can be built upon.

Martin Adams has worked principally on land reform in southern Africa and the Philippines since 1990. For the last six years, he has been a policy adviser in the South African Department of Land Affairs.

The launch will take the form of a Panel Discussion on issues raised by the book, and in response to questions and comments from the audience. Topics to be discussed by the panel will include: equity versus production objectives in land reform; building public sector capacity to implement reform, and state/civil society coalitions to promote reform.