The World Bank’s ‘Market Assisted Land Reform’ in Colombia and Brazil (1994-2002)

The article analyzes the implementation of the World Bank's 'market-assisted land reform' in Colombia and Brazil. It shows that MALR was designed and implemented as a model opposed to redistributive agrarian reform, based on the disappropriation of private lands by the state. It also analyzes the results of MALR in the two countries, arguing that its principal function was not economic, but rather political, to adjust agrarian policy to the neoliberal agenda and serve as an instrument to undermine the popular struggle for the democratization of the agrarian structure in highly unequal societies.

Keywords:
World Bank; agrarian reform; land markets