This fact underscores the dynamism of the urbanization process in developing countries. The challenge posed by rapid urbanization, caused by massive rural-urban migration is especially acute in many countries. This paper proposes to use land rents as the basis for a financial mechanism that is transparent, stable and aids in the provision of an adequate supply of serviceable land. This paper was distributed to all the national delegations in attendance as well as the observer states plus various NGO's, local authorities and the press. This paper was written with sensitivity to the needs of the developing world.
Land based revenues can be a vehicle where all stakeholders benefit.
In looking at some of the problems of rural areas, examples of successful projects in land reform using participatory rural development are rare, if only because of the intense political passions that land ownership arouses, especially in rural areas and especially in traditional societies. The scarcity of successful examples is offset to some extent by the powerful positive impact of land reform upon the livelihoods of the poorest of the rural poor when it is carried out. The lack of land reform appears not only to have inhibited any improvement in the economic well-being of the rural poor but also to have contributed to political instability. The recent experiences of rural unrest in Mexico and Peru come inevitably to mind. In this respect, land reform emerges as a form of simultaneous political and economic participation.