Contracts, Land Tenure and Rural Development in Timor-Leste

As in other societies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, customary social organization features strongly in rural Timor-Leste. As well as providing avenues for conflict resolution, the influence of customary systems extends to land tenure. As the state, development partners, private investors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and others seek to promote rural development in Timor-Leste, they will be forced to engage in some way with customary ownership and use claims which prevail in the districts. A further dimension of the subsistence nature of the Timor-Leste economy is the fact that the use of contracts in connection with agribusiness transactions is rare. This presents a further challenge to the objective of increasing private sector investment in the rural economy. Based on field visits, this Justice for the Poor (J4P) briefing note looks at the rural economy of Timor-Leste and considers approaches that could help promote productive and equitable relationships between communities and other rural development partners and contribute to mutually beneficial rural development outcomes.