Watch the recording, check out the research, learn about our panelists, and more
During our webinar, What Works for Women on Collective Lands, host Elisa Scalise guided our expert panelists through an exploration of their experiences working on collective lands in Kenya, Cameroon, Indonesia, Jordan, Mexico, Nepal, Tanzania, and Senegal.
Learn from Eileen Wakesho, Celine Salcedo-La Viña, and Philippine Sutz about field-tested strategies and the lessons they learned as they developed, implemented, and measured the success of projects specifically focused on ensuring women living and working on collectively-held lands had a voice in their governance, management, economics, and conservation.
Watch the Recordings
The webinar was conducted in English, with simultaneous interpretation in Spanish and Portuguese.
Read the Research
For more detail on our panelists’ projects and experience, here is a selection of papers published on their work.
Eileen Wakesho
- Group Ranches and the Community Land Act: Will We Correct Mistakes of the Past or Repeat Them? 2020 [ENG]
- Reality or a Pipe Dream?: Securing Women Rights in Community Land Registration in Kenya 2022 [ENG]
- Road to Securing Community Lands in Kenya 2020 [ENG]
Celine Salcedo-La Viña
- On Equal Ground 2021 [ENG]
Philippine Sutz
- A stronger voice for women in local land governance: effective approaches in Tanzania, Ghana and Senegal 2019 [ENG]
- How local rules can promote inclusive land governance in Tanzania 2019 [ENG]
- Routes to change: rural women’s voices in land, climate and market governance in sub-Saharan Africa 2021 [ENG]
- Why simple solutions won’t secure African women’s land rights 2012 [ENG]
Meet the Panelists
Elisa Scalise
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Resource Equity
As a gender and land tenure lawyer, Elisa has worked for over 15 years in the research and 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, improve equity in administration of rights and benefits attached to land, and facilitate enforcement of women’s rights in justice systems. She has worked on projects around the globe, including in Cabo Verde, Rwanda, Uganda, Kyrgyz Republic, China, Lesotho, Liberia, and Morocco. Elisa is also core faculty at the Women’s Land Rights Institute, where she regularly leads their 10-week Foundations course.
Eileen Wakesho
Director of Community Land Protection, Namati
Eileen has been working in the development sector for nearly 10 years, focusing specifically on Women’s Land Rights and Land & Natural Resource Governance. Prior to joining Namati, she was the Women’s Land Rights Advisor for Oxfam International, and has worked with Kenya Land Alliance, Development Policy Management Forum, NCCK, and Kenya Institute for Public Policy, Research and Analysis (KIPPRA). Eileen co-authored a peer-reviewed book on informal justice mechanisms and formal courts in Kenya, and holds an MA in Project Planning and Management from the University of Nairobi.
Celine Salcedo-La Viña
Senior Associate at The Equity Center’s Land and Resource Rights Initiative and Gender Equity Practice, WRI
Celine works to advance the land and natural resources rights, challenges, and contributions of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs), especially women and other internally marginalized groups, in the international and national policy agendas. She also promotes gender and social equity and integration in climate change policies and programs at global, national, and local scales. Her work includes legal and policy analysis and advocacy, tool development, and technical assistance. Her research has been cited in the UN-REDD Program Newsletter, New America Platform, Thomson Reuters, and Sojourners, among others.
Philippine Sutz
Associate of Law, Economies, and Justice – Natural Resources, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
A law, gender, and development specialist, Philippine leads research and field-level projects on the socio-legal empowerment of women and accountability mechanisms in the context of natural resource governance. Her work focuses on supporting the development of participatory approaches to amplify marginalized voices. Philippine’s expertise and experience includes analysis and research of domestic, international and transnational legal frameworks; capacity building; advisory work on the role of law and justice in sustainable development with a focus on natural resources investments and land rights. She holds a Master of Laws LLM from Kings College, London.
Learn More with WLRI
Are you interested in learning more about these specific projects?
Are you working in the context of collective lands and would benefit from a deeper analysis of field-tested strategies for empowering women?
Join us for our upcoming Course 201 | Intensive – Collective Lands.
This intensive will be comprised of four, 120-minute sessions over 2 weeks, and will dive more deeply into each of the projects, lessons learned, and scalability principles.