The idea behind the Research Consortium is to create a hub for the collection, sharing, and exchange of knowledge on how to effectively advance women’s land rights. One of the spokes on that hub is the website, which is a repository for curated content on what we know about interventions that have been tried.
Curating the content for these important topics begins with gathering, vetting, and summarizing studies that answer specific questions to create a better understanding of what we know and don’t know about our efforts to secure women’s land rights, and then sharing that knowledge with researchers and practitioners.
We started this curation with the most widespread and common intervention for securing land rights: titling and registration. We collected and summarized all the research we could find that looked at whether adding women’s names on titles improved outcomes for women. We then arranged the information by country where the research was done and by outcome. In each summary, we included a link to the study if the study is available without cost and to the cite if not.
We then added a second topic, on whether changing the law on inheritance had a positive effect on women’s ability to inherit as daughters, wives, or both. Finally, for our third topic, we reviewed what has been written about land redistribution. We anticipate adding additional topics this year, and continuously adding to the content on these three original topics as new research becomes available.
We want researchers and practitioners to seek out the Research Consortium for informative and trustworthy research on women’s land rights. To accomplish this goal, our agenda includes creating a common language and analytical context so that learnings can be more easily compared, shared, and applied – a Conceptual Framework. We are hoping researchers and practitioners will use this common set of definitions and indicators so that our research going forward builds on what we know and adds to a more complete picture of this field.
Another component of the curation, found within the Topics dropdown of the website, is legal issues. We have identified common legal issues we have found related to the topic and have provided examples (both good and bad) of how the issue is dealt with in different countries. We include a short analysis of the legislation as well. If you have legal issues you would like to see covered or have laws you are willing to share, please contact us here.
New content will be added every few months and we are always looking for new research, legal issues, and projects to add to the repository. When we receive a research submission we start by asking a few questions. Has it been published? Is it quantitative or qualitative in nature? Has it been peer reviewed? Does it focus on an intervention? Does it show outcomes? Does a submission include legal issues and/or legal provisions? We use these questions as a starting point for curation; these are not requirements for the submission.
Most submissions will be evaluated and added to the LandWise Library and will be widely available with a few added to the Research Consortium curation. If you would like to submit content for consideration please send an email to rc@resourceequity.org.