Contemporary discourses and contestations around pro-poor land policies and land governance

Jennifer Franco

Jun Borras

January 2010

Contemporary discourses and contestations around pro-poor land policies and land governance

The concern for ‘pro-poor’ land policy has coincided with the mainstream promotion of efficient administration of land policies, leading to the concept of ‘land governance’. This paper aims at better understanding of contemporary policy discourses and political contestations around land and land governance.

Download the paper

Jennifer Franco

Co-coordinator of the CREPE-TNI agrofuels project.

Jennifer Franco, PhD., is an independent researcher. She also serves on the Asia Committee for International Development Programs at the development NGO Development and Peace (Developpement et Paix). Her previous work has focused mainly on rural social movements and democratisation in the Philippines. Her book publications include Elections and Democratisation in the Philippines (Routledge, 2001), with a new book on law and the rural poor in the Philippines forthcoming (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2010). She has published in important academic journals including the World Development, Journal of Agrarian Change, Journal of Peasant Studies, Journal of Development Studies and Critical Asian Studies.

Jun Borras

Associate Professor in Rural Development, Environment and Population at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, Netherlands. Jun is also Adjunct Professor, COHD at China Agricultural University, Beijing; a Fellow for Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy in California, Coordinator for Initiatives in Critical Agrarian Studies (ICAS), and Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS).

Saturnino 'Jun' M Borras Jr. is a political activist and academic who has been deeply involved in rural social movements in the Philippines and internationally since the early 1980s. Borras was part of the core organising team that established the international peasant movement La Via Campesina and has written extensively on land issues and agrarian movements.