This special issue is built around a series of impact assessments of land use policies and sustainable development in developing countries, carried out in the EU-funded project LUPIS (Sixth framework programme, Global Change and Ecosystems, Contract 36955). The project targeted at the development and testing of impact assessment tools of land-use-related policies in seven developing countries: Brazil, India, China, Indonesia, Kenya, Mali and Tunisia. This issue presents the current understanding of ex-ante assessment and includes contributions with comparative work across several countries, and case studies in individual countries, addressing important land-use related concerns.