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sources. Individuals and groups with such rightstend to invest in the resources they hold. In general,property rights give people a horizon to planthe future for themselves and their communities.Structure and Goal of this ChapterNone of the above-mentioned benefits can beachieved easily with one-size-fits-all models. Thischapter elaborates the main features of reformwith a special but non-exclusive emphasis onthe poor. Section 2 identifies the most vulnerablesegments of society and the relation of theirpoverty and exclusion to the problem of propertyrights protection. Section 3 briefly assesses thebarriers and facilitators of change, drawing attentionto social actors as well as structural conditionsfavouring status quo or change, while Section4 contains a concise compilation of lessonsand experienced consequences of past reformactivities, and prepares the ground for the maindiscussion, in Section 5, on proposals within thefour building blocks of the property system. Theproposals aim at reforming the property system(viewed as an arrangement of rules defining orenabling bundles and bearers of property rights)in such a manner that it would enable the poor— especially women and indigenous communities— to access and to secure property. The suggestionsshould also help to reform the propertysystem so it could serve as a form of governance,as a functioning market of assets (including thepoor in the chains of value addition), and as asystem of social policy with targeted measuresof capacity building and access to property andhousing.Parallel reform work, sustained by constantmonitoring in all four dimensions, is advocatedin order to achieve real progress. Commonformal features of policy design and prioritisingare dealt with in a special paragraph of Section5. The establishment of fully functional propertysystems and positive effects for the poor is firstand foremost a national and local reform issuedemanding the renegotiation of institutional, legal,and social relations at the national and locallevel. However, an additional section of this reportalso points to important subsidiary and stabilisingaction by donor countries and multilateralarrangements.This chapter deals with the most general featuresof pro-poor property reform and is thus not to beread as a national or local implementation report.It builds, however, on lessons and practices thathave proven beneficial in many different contextsand that have been highlighted in numerous nationaland grass roots consultations of the CLEP.Our recommendations, therefore, deserve to beseriously considered and further tailored to local-realitycontext by property rights reform in thedeveloping world.Although not repeatedly mentioned throughoutthis chapter, the members of our working groupacknowledge the efforts of numerous governments,international organisations, and NGOs inthe field of property rights. And as many membersare themselves part of past and ongoing effortsin the field, our chapter was not written withany pretension to invent a ‘wheel’. The intent isthat it would serve to raise political awarenessand communicate a set of selected policy optionsfor decision makers in the hope of improving substantiallyequitable property rights protection forthe poor and societies at large. The general treatmentof such a sensitive and context-dependentissue implies an inevitable trade-off between simplicityand comprehensiveness.It should be noted at the outset that the chair,rapporteur and contributors to this chapter(named at the beginning of this volume) have all74