The official development assistance (ODA) of the German government's development cooperation (DC) is the fifth largest in the world. In the first decades after World War II land policy was a neglected field of DC. This changed sharply in the mid-1990s: the German DC has since become actively involved in land policy issues in more than 20 countries around the world. It is also an important actor in multilateral land policymaking. This paper focuses on the Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the technical cooperation arm (GTZ) and the financial cooperation (KfW) as the three key actors in the German development cooperation. The official aim of the German land policy is purportedly to effect poverty reduction. The expression of this policy is the commitment and support to technical land administration and management (e.g. titling, registration, cadastre, land markets). Engagement in redistributive land policies like land reform is almost non-existent. Altogether, the actual focus on land administration and technical approaches is generally blind to the political dimension of land policies. A neglect of political issues - equity issues, redistribution, meaningful participation, human rights - is unlikely to lead to any significant positive impact on the rural poor in developing countries worldwide.
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