211-213 rue Lafayette, 75010 Paris, France
Tel: 33(0)1 40 05 61 61 fax 33(0)1 40 05 61 10
email: gret@gret.org
website: www.gret.org

GRET is a professional non-governmental organisation, working on experimental research and development. Focusing on developing countries, its main activities are implementing economic and social development projects, in the urban and rural environment, expertise and advisory work, as well as research. Based in Paris, it comprises around 80 staff, at headquarters and in the field. Its speciality is working at the interface of research and development, on conditions of technical and institutional innovation, and on methods for achieving these.

GRET has participated or coordinated several INCO projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America, in particular on the management of water resources (Inco-DELTA, in South East Asia, 1998-2000) and renewable natural resources (Environmental Law and Management of natural resources, 1997-1999), but also on the dynamics of agricultural businesses in the South (MPE Agroalimentaire, 1999-2001).
The Environment and Rural Development team has built up a large body of experience in the analysis of smallholder farmers and the challenges facing them. It is working on land tenure and the management of renewable natural resources in Latin America (Brazil, Costa Rica), South East Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam), the Indian Ocean (Comores) and Africa.
Since 1995, GRET has coordinated a project supported by the French Cooperation Ministry to establish the state of the knowledge on land tenure issues in sub-Saharan Africa, It has set up and coordinated, in collaboration with various research institutes (IRD, IED Louvain, IIED, LAJP, etc.) several applied research programmes (on land issues in Sahelian wetlands development and, with IIED and IRD, on derived rights of access to land). It has undertaken several expert missions and training workshops on land tenure. Particularly sensitive to development concerns, GRET contributes to a socio-anthropological analysis of the set of stakeholders involved in development interventions, and to elaborate a conceptual framework for land tenure policies coherent with the state of the knowledge on tenure dynamics.

Philippe Lavigne Delville, agronomist and doctor in social anthropology, is a scientific director of GRET. He is also an associate researcher at the Unité mixte de recherche Sociologie, Histoire, Anthropologie des dynamiques culturelles SHADYC, at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS/Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Marseille).
His input will be particularly valuable in Work packages 3 and 4.
He will lead in work package 3 and will provide support and guidance for the research activities in Benin. Recent publications include:
Lavigne Delville Ph. dir., 1998, Quelles politiques foncières en Afrique noire rurale ? réconcilier pratiques, légitimité et légalité, Paris, Ministère de la Coopération/Karthala, 744 p.
Lavigne Delville, Ph., 1988, "Sécurité foncière et intensification", in Lavigne Delville Ph. dir. Quelles politiques foncières en Afrique noire rurale ? réconcilier pratiques, légitimité et légalité, Paris, Ministère de la Coopération/Karthala, pp.264-292.
Lavigne Delville Ph., 2000, " Harmonising formal law and customary land rights in french-speaking West Africa ", in Toulmin C. and Quan J. eds. Evolving land rights, policy and tenure in Africa, DFID/IIED/NRI, London, pp. 97-121.
Lavigne Delville Ph. et Mathieu P. coord., 1999, Formalisation des contrats et des transactions : Repérage des pratiques populaires d'usage de l'écrit dans les transactions foncières en Afrique rurale, document de travail, Gret/IED, 181 p.
Lavigne Delville Ph. Toulmin C., Traore S. dir., 2000, Gérer le foncier rural en Afrique de l'ouest, dynamiques locales et intervention publiques, Karthala/URED, 357 p.

An associate researcher, with post-graduate training in social science will be recruited for the duration of this research programme.