“Other briefs in this series examine the history and current status of customary land rights in Africa. These are rights enjoyed by more than half a billion people in sub-Saharan Africa, most of them (75%) definably poor.1 Customary rights apply to lands that are acknowledged locally to be under the jurisdiction of a community. They are acquired, defined, and upheld by modern rural communities to meet present-day circumstances, but shaped by practices (“customs”) which may be longstanding (“traditions”). Customs usually include the right of members of the community to access lands to cultivate and to share use of remaining off-farm resources such as forests, rangelands, marshlands, ponds and streams. Following a century of population growth, capitalist transformation, and evolving policies encouraging large-scale farming, Africa today is characterized by unequal farm sizes, rising rural landlessness, and growing competition between generations and social classes for land access. Unfarmed commons are declining as cultivation and towns expand. These lands are routinely captured by wealthier, politically connected families, including chiefs. Rural class relations often build on and exaggerate historical inequities, including those deriving from pre-colonial relations, to help create a flourishing education based and wealth-based class system. Nevertheless, in 2011 the resources theoretically available to the customary sector in sub-Saharan Africa are immense. Cities and towns absorb only a tiny area—around 3 million hectares. Outside southern Africa, formal land entitlement is limited (1–10 percent coverage in most states, excepting Uganda and Kenya).2