The scarcity of land and resulting high prices have important implications for the prospect of industrialisation in Bangladesh. The situation is yet more complicated due to the weak land management system, which perpetuates land grabbing, high rent generation, and ineffective property rights. This chapter analyses the importance of a well-functioning land management in Bangladesh. It elaborates on the history of the policy reforms and the evolution of rules and regulations related to land administrative and management in Bangladesh and analyses institutional complexities in the current system of land management. It also explores how the SEZs initiative has emerged as an alternative management system and the complexities related to the acquisition of land for SEZs. This chapter shows that the institutional mechanisms of land acquisition and compensation are subject to a range of corrupt practices, which in turn create vested interests that resist change and a bias towards politically connected purchasers, or towards those willing and able to pay bribes. Such an environment is inimical to a good business climate and undermines the strategic economic purpose of the SEZs.

The scarcity of land and resulting high prices have important implications for the prospect of industrialisation in Bangladesh. The situation is yet more complicated due to the weak land management system, which perpetuates land grabbing, high rent generation, and ineffective property rights. This chapter analyses the importance of a well-functioning land management in Bangladesh. It elaborates on the history of the policy reforms and the evolution of rules and regulations related to land administrative and management in Bangladesh and analyses institutional complexities in the current system of land management. It also explores how the SEZs initiative has emerged as an alternative management system and the complexities related to the acquisition of land for SEZs. This chapter shows that the institutional mechanisms of land acquisition and compensation are subject to a range of corrupt practices, which in turn create vested interests that resist change and a bias towards politically connected purchasers, or towards those willing and able to pay bribes. Such an environment is inimical to a good business climate and undermines the strategic economic purpose of the SEZs.

This chapter traces the complex trajectory of land tenure reforms in Benin since the democratic transition and liberalisation of the economy in the early 1990s. It shows that conceptions of the problem of land tenure insecurity and the responses to it have often clashed. Attention paid to sectors (rural vs urban) has varied as well as the timing and the nature of land tenure reforms. The solution of formal land titling propounded by international donor and local supporters has been considered by many as both inaccessible and unsuited to the needs of the majority of the population, hence the search for legal and institutional alternatives. This history of land reforms reveals intricate conflicts involving corporatist struggles, conflicts of interest between different stakeholders, and divergent social choices. It highlights the political economy dimension of land tenure problems and their instrumentalisation by some actors and competing public policy networks, the strengths and limitations of attempts to implement policy reforms, and the influence of donors in reform processes. It also questions the capacity of the intended reforms to modify practices and have enough inclusiveness.

Chapter 5 discusses the evidence presented in the preceding four chapters and its overall significance for the understanding of the development of Egypt during the Third Intermediate Period. The chapter discusses a series of interconnected characteristics identified within Third Intermediate Period culture and society which relate to the political and economic power of regions, the nucleation of both settlements and people, self-sufficiency at a collective and individual level, defence, both physical and spiritual, regionality in terms of settlement development and material culture, and finally elite emulation through objects. These characteristics are also discussed in association with the themes of continuity and change/transition compared with the previous New Kingdom, and also within aspects of the (Egyptian) north and (Libyan) south socio-cultural and socio-geographical divide.