Putting Land First?

Although land is a well researched topic in Sri Lanka, there has been limited research into the links between land and poverty, and whether policy reform is necessary for poverty reduction. These issues were the focus of the 6th Annual Symposium on Poverty Research in Sri Lanka, the theme of which was, ‘Putting Land First? Exploring the Links between Land and Poverty. This volume is a compilation of selected papers presented at the symposium, addressing topics such as the role that access to and ownership of land plays in rural poverty, and the importance of land policy reform in poverty alleviation. For the first time, the publication of the proceedings includes a translation in Tamil and Sinhala of the introductory chapter as well as the abstracts of the different papers.