Update on Resource Equity
After nearly a decade of working together, Resource Equity has made the difficult decision to close and pursue other opportunities.
We are in the process of trying to secure new homes for the Women’s Land Rights Institute and LandWise legal database, so please stay tuned for more information. In the meantime, these resources will continue to be hosted here.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the years!
COURSE 201 | INTENSIVE
Collective Lands
100% ONLINE PROGRAM
What works for women on collectively held lands? Practical strategies for transforming gendered relations on collectively held lands
Join us in an accredited two-week online intensive exploring field-tested strategies for ensuring women are included in the management, governance, and conservation of community-held land and resources.

Course Overview
Women around the world live and work on lands that are collectively held by indigenous, forest, pastoralist, and other local communities.
Yet these women are often excluded from decision-making about those lands, and their knowledge, skill, and perspective are under-valued.
As a consequence, women living and working on collective lands are disproportionately burdened by threats to these resources, and are less likely to share in the potential benefits that are enjoyed by those who do have formal or customary rights.
This gap is made all the more apparent in the context of climate change and the programs developed to address it, as they often base their interventions on the underlying tenure system.
Additionally, the cultural, political, social, and economic rationales for women’s exclusion can often seem insurmountable to practitioners, policy-makers, and the development community more broadly.
So, what can be done?
Fortunately, there is a rich history of practice addressing how to make substantial change for women on collectively-held lands that we can learn from.
Join Resource Equity’s Elisa Scalise and Renee Giovarelli — as well as several guest practitioners — for a detailed and concrete exploration of proven strategies for women’s empowerment on lands collectively held by indigenous, forest, pastoralist, and other local communities.
Guided by examples from projects that have successfully worked to improve women’s land tenure security and women’s meaningful participation in governance and decision-making, this practical intensive course will specifically highlight:
- Gender-transformative project design
- Concrete actions that can be taken at the national and local level
- Strategies that address climate change and its impact on women
- A summary of challenges and lessons learned
- Recommendations on how these approaches can be scaled and/or replicated in other regions
Each session will focus on a separate project, with one session dedicated to summary, concepts, and synthesis of key learnings.
Course Snapshot
100% online
All content available in online LMS for 3 additional months
Course begins in January 2023
4 sessions over 2 weeks
120 minute sessions
Tuition: $650 USD
Tuition support available on request
What will you learn?
At the conclusion of this course, you will have learned:
Key Concepts, issues, and framing as they relate to project design and implementation, including how to start conducting a project-design oriented gender analysis
Processes for engaging specifically with women and men in the local community
Methodologies for ensuring that considerations of climate justice are included in project design, implementation, and assessment processes
How to adapt project goals to meet women’s needs and realities of daily life, while not distancing men and other important stakeholders
Best practices for identifying and collaborating with allies in the local community
How to work within and consider adaptation in customary, religious, and formal laws covering women’s rights and interests in land and natural resources
Recommendations for the replication and scaling of key project features, processes, learnings, and implementation
Who is this course for?
- Indigenous, forest, pastoralist, and local community leaders, advocates, and activists
- National and regional NGOs
- International NGOs
- Government agencies/departments at all levels who are engaged on land and resource rights and reforms, or women’s rights
- Donor agencies and philanthropic organizations
- Gender focal points on collective land and resource-related projects
Key Dates
-
November 10th, 2022
Applications Open
-
December 14th, 2022
Application deadline -
December 19th, 2022
Cohort announced -
Session Length
120 minutes -
Session Time
17:00 - 19:00 GMT
(Find your time zone >>)
-
January 17th, 2023
Session 1 -
January 19th, 2023
Session 2 -
January 24th, 2023
Session 3 -
January 26th, 2023
Session 4
- Mexico City 11am; Bogota 12pm; Rio de Janeiro 2pm
- Accra & Dakar 5pm; Cape Town 7pm; Nairobi 8pm
- Seattle 9am; NYC 12pm
- Damascus 7pm; Geneva 6pm
Course Cost
The 5-week course tuition is $650 USD for full fee-paying participants.
Tuition support is available based on need (for scholarship applicants, identify in your application form that you would like to receive a scholarship).
Course Leaders

Renee Giovarelli
Resource Equity Co-Founder, Senior Gender Adviser and Lawyer
For 20 years, Renee has focused on the legal and sociological issues central to gender equity in access to land and natural resources. Her work has helped inform core policy positions on issues related to access, use, and control over land and resources for leading international development organizations.

Elisa Scalise
Resource Equity Co-Founder, Gender and Land Tenure Lawyer
Elisa is the Executive Director of Resource Equity and is also a gender and land tenure lawyer. For over 15 years, Elisa has worked on research into and the design of laws, policies, and programs that improve women’s rights to land and natural resources, strengthen women’s involvement in decision-making and governance of land.
To find out more about this course