1,222 research outputs found
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A preliminary assessment of the economic impact of desertification in Nambia
The present report is the result of a study commissioned by the Desert Ecological Research Unit of Namibia in conjunction with the Ministries of Environment and Agriculture, as part of the preparation for a National Workshop on Desertification held from 4th-7th July 1994. The object of the study was to assist in the development of a framework for understanding and assessing the economic costs and factors involved in desertification, as a basis for further research and action to be undertaken in the context of a national programme to combat desertification. The study is based on the findings of a number of regional case studies and data available at national level about the socioeconomic and biophysical aspects of land degradation
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LEGEND Analytical Paper 1: Tackling corruption in land governance
International surveys such as the Global Corruption Barometer and the East African Bribery Index have shown that institutions responsible for land management are among the most corrupt. The paper analyses the causes, types and effects of corruption in land governance and provides evidence-based recommendations on how governments, donors and the private sector can address land corruption, with a particular focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. It identifies prevalence of discretionary power within land administration, the role of parallel institutions for land management, including overlapping formal and customary institutions and the partial or non-recognition in law of established customary rights, and extensive state powers and non-transparent procedures for the allocation and privatisation of public land, and the capture of land titling programmes by elites as systematic enablers of corruption. In large-scale agri-investments, corruption risks are greatest at the stage where deals are brokered and partnerships formed. Where corruption becomes systematic and large-scale, politicians and high-ranking public officials use land assets and concessions as means of patronage to consolidate power and influence. On the investor side, opaque company ownership structures and a lack of transparency in accounting and contracting create corruption risks
Replication forks, chromatin loops and dormant replication origins
The plasticity of replication origin usage during mitosis is associated with longer-term changes to chromatin loop organization
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The experience of Mozambique's community land initiative (iTC) in securing land rights and improving community land use: Practice, policy and governance implications
iTC is an innovative programme to secure rural communities’ land rights and enable more productive, sustainable and inclusive land use. Mozambique’s 1997 Land Law enables registration of community tenure rights through simple land delimitation processes, as well as private leasehold titling for investors large and small. In a context of rapid growth and weak land governance and administration, private land allocation has dominated, sometimes leading to conflict. Nevertheless iTC has achieved significant results in assisting communities to secure land rights and establish land and natural resource based businesses and partnerships, overcoming misunderstanding amongst state and market actors, and resolving conflicts. Lessons include the needs for more systematic investment in community social preparation, land delimitations in contiguous village clusters, and development of community based land management institutions and legal instruments and practical guidelines to regulate community partnerships with investors and value chain actors. Integrated, incremental approaches to securing rights of communities, producer associations and where necessary individuals, are also required. Institutional issues to be addressed include more decentralised land administration capacity and land governance arrangements engaging customary leaders, farmer organisations, state and private actors, the legal personality of community based organisations, improved territorial planning, and establishment of iTC as an independent national institution working with government to facilitate inclusive land use development
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GIS and participatory approaches in natural resources research
Geographical information systems (GIS) have an important role to play in natural resources (NR) research to support rural livelihoods, in particular, and pro-poor development more generally. In this Guide we do not attempt to address the whole range of issues associated with applications of GIS in development, but address specific questions relating to: stakeholder and beneficiary participation in the data collection process; participation in the planning process: assessment of planning and management options, conflicts and development scenarios; integration of social and natural science information using spatial databases in natural resources research and development. A rationale is presented for the integration of GIS and participatory approaches, highlighting the needs for close interdisciplinary collaboration and the application of GIS to development processes through interaction with local stakeholders. The issues involved are illustrated by examples of participatory GIS applications, and by practical case studies in Brazil, Tanzania and Uganda, and Ghana (found at the end of the Guide), and literature-based' examples from South Africa. The basic requirements for making effective use of GIS are discussed along with, in an interdisciplinary, participatory context, the methodological issues involved in data collection, integration of biophysical and socio-economic data, data management, and data feedback and availability to stakeholders. Areas for further research and development are considered and overall recommendations on best practice are made. A glossary of terms used in GIS and participatory approaches in NR research is provided at the end of this Guide along with a list of further reading and a contact list. Guidance is also provided on suitability and cost-effective choice of hardware and software for GIS and participatory approaches
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A Multi-Country Capacity Assessment of National Statistical Offices Preparedness to Report on SDG Indicator 1.4.2: Global status on land tenure security data collection, analysis and on comparable indicators in the SDGs
This report presents the results of the multi-country assessment carried out in 17 countries across the world. The findings of this assessment is expected to directly inform the work of the co-custodian agencies for land Indicator 1.4.2 (UN-Habitat and World Bank) in formulating a coherent capacity development strategy for NSOs at country level, and strengthen their collaboration with land agencies for enhanced data infrastructure needed to regularly report on this indicator. In addition, the findings will also inform capacity development initiatives for other custodians’ agencies working on land related indicators in the SDGs including 5.a.1; and the overall monitoring of tenure related issues in line with other land governance frameworks at global, regional levels and national levels
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Issues in African land policy: Experiences from Southern Africa
This report provides an overview of current land policy issues in the southern African region, drawn from assessments of six individual country experiences. It sets out the issues surrounding land policy development and land reform in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and of wider relevance in the region as a whole. The first chapter offers an overview of major land policy issues facing the countries of the region. Chapter Two provides a brief review of recent literature which assesses the relations between forms of land tenure, security and farm productivity in sub-Saharan Africa more generally. Chapters Three to Five are individual country reviews providing supporting historical material and in-depth analysis for the main focus countries of Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Chapter Six addresses South Africa. The recent experiences of land policy in Tanzania and Namibia are also briefly reviewed in Chapters Seven and Eight. The report concludes by identifying cross-cutting issues for land policy in the region, specific lessons for the cases of Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and highlights the needs for: donor support for policy development processes; careful planning and monitoring of resettlement schemes; avoidance of hasty programmes of tenure reform, without full consideration of their impacts on the poor and for future generations; closer integration of work on land rights and rural development support at local level; the adoption of a poverty focus in land policy work; and support for advocacy on behalf of the poor
Reinforcement Learning for Generative AI: A Survey
Deep Generative AI has been a long-standing essential topic in the machine
learning community, which can impact a number of application areas like text
generation and computer vision. The major paradigm to train a generative model
is maximum likelihood estimation, which pushes the learner to capture and
approximate the target data distribution by decreasing the divergence between
the model distribution and the target distribution. This formulation
successfully establishes the objective of generative tasks, while it is
incapable of satisfying all the requirements that a user might expect from a
generative model. Reinforcement learning, serving as a competitive option to
inject new training signals by creating new objectives that exploit novel
signals, has demonstrated its power and flexibility to incorporate human
inductive bias from multiple angles, such as adversarial learning,
hand-designed rules and learned reward model to build a performant model.
Thereby, reinforcement learning has become a trending research field and has
stretched the limits of generative AI in both model design and application. It
is reasonable to summarize and conclude advances in recent years with a
comprehensive review. Although there are surveys in different application areas
recently, this survey aims to shed light on a high-level review that spans a
range of application areas. We provide a rigorous taxonomy in this area and
make sufficient coverage on various models and applications. Notably, we also
surveyed the fast-developing large language model area. We conclude this survey
by showing the potential directions that might tackle the limit of current
models and expand the frontiers for generative AI
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Global Land Indicator Initiative: Sourcebook for Operationalisation of Global Land Indicators
GLTN and the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich are pleased to share this sourcebook, as a working paper, to assist with the operationalisation of GLII indicators at the country level. This sourcebook provides material for developing a handbook for implementing the land indicators at country level. The aim of the sourcebook is to set out material for further development, discussion and compilation into one or more operational handbooks that provide guidance on the steps required and approaches that can be applied for national stakeholders and collaborating partners to establish practical arrangements for data gathering, analysis and reporting against a harmonised set of land indicators. These indicators have been broadly agreed amongst multilateral, governmental and civil society agencies and with the GLII stakeholder platform, and include headline indicators (including 1.4.2) now agreed and incorporated in the framework for implementing the globally agreed Sustainable Development Goals by the UN Statistical Commission (UNSC)
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Evolving land rights, policy and tenure in Africa
Evolving land rights, policy and tenure in Africa presents and discusses several key aspects of Africa's ongoing land policy debate including legislative reform, the management of land rights, issues of implementation, and policy-making processes. It provides readers with examples of how different countries have approached the highly political and sensitive subject of rights to land and other natural resources. Recent innovative land reform programmes are described, and the authors assess the progress made towards more equitable land policies and highlight the challenges for the future. The book draws much of its material from a workshop on Land Rights and Sustainable Development in sub-Saharan Africa held in February 1999, sponsored by UK's Department for International Development (DFID). IT will be of interest to those in government with responsibility for land matters, development practitioners, donors, scholars, and students. We hope that its readership will span both South and North, and above all, find an interested public in Africa where wider participation in debates about land will help to ensure progressive, workable and acceptable land policies
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