An exploration of the relationship between land governance and development through a systematic review of interventions

Abstract

The importance of land governance to economic development is a theme that usually receives less attention than it is due in academic production. Land, being a physically limited resource, is increasingly under pressure by the expanding world population and climate change and, thus, an constitutes an important subject of inquiry for academics and policymakers. In this paper we investigate the relationship between land governance and economic development through a systematic review of the literature on land governance interventions and its impacts regarding three main areas (socioeconomic, environmental and gender). While we found out that most of the impacts analyzed were positive (76 %), there are still lots of gaps regarding the geographic distribution of the intervention studies, the focus of intervention analyses (most studied socioeconomic variables) and difficulties dealing with bias control. Moreover, we discuss other methodological difficulties and limitations of the study to propose future research agendas in the theme.