Full citation: UNECA. (2007). “Women and access to land and credit: discussions and key findings of the African Gender Development Index in Selected African Countries,” June 2007, p.17. – In 2004, the African Centre for Gender and Social Development (ACGSD) launched AGDI, which provides a holistic perspective to gender (in)equality in Africa, consisting of three main areas: economic, social and political. This paper recommends that countries develop innovative strategies to address women’s equal access to land and credit directly and firmly in the economic policies. While countries have been active in developing gender policies, the approach does not have a […]
Record Category: Research Articles
Women’s land rights and gender justice in land governance: pillars in the promotion and protection of women’s human rights in rural areas
Full citation: International Land Coalition. (2013). “Women’s land rights and gender justice in land governance: pillars in the promotion and protection of women’s human rights in rural areas.” Synthesis of contributions by members, partners and individual experts in the International Land Coalition’s network to the e-consultation facilitated by GI-ESCR and IWRAW-AP. – While this document covers all categories of threats, the greatest emphasis is on “pervasive patriarchy, which creates legal, political and economic limitations to the advancement of women. Across the developing world, rural women suffer widespread gender-based discrimination in laws, customs and practices causing severe inequalities in their ability […]
Protecting Community Lands and Resources: Evidence from Liberia, Mozambique and Uganda
Namati and International Development Law Organization (IDLO) publication. – The study’s objectives were to: facilitate the documentation and protection of customarily held community lands through legally established community land titling processes; understand how to best support communities to successfully protect their lands and determine the types and level of support required; and pilot strategies to guard against intra-community injustice and discrimination during community land titling processes and protect the interests of vulnerable groups. Cross-national analysis of the data illustrates that the by-laws/constitution-drafting process had a statistically significant impact on the substance of women’s and other vulnerable groups’ land rights. [Threats […]
Realizing women’s rights to land and other productive resources
Full citation: OHCHR and UNWOMEN. (2013). “Realizing women’s rights to land and other productive resources.” – This piece identifies barriers to women’s access to, use of and control over land and other productive resources as primarily being inadequate legal standards and/or ineffective implementation at national and local levels, as well as discriminatory cultural attitudes and practices at the institutional and community level. The publication provides guidance to support the adoption and effective implementation of laws, policies, and programs to respect, protect, and fulfill women’s rights to land and other productive resources, including an overview of international and regional legal and […]
Providing Farmland Ownership Rights to Women in Rural Mali: the MCC Experience
Full citation: Rolfes, L. and Seitz, V. (2013). “Providing Farmland Ownership Rights to Women in Rural Mali: the MCC Experience.” Washington, DC: World Bank Annual Conference on Land and Poverty. – This paper examines the Alatona Irrigation Project in Mali, which converted almost 5,000 hectares of Sahel scrubland into high-value irrigated farmland. One of the project’s key components was its land allocation activity, through which the irrigated land was transferred from the state to beneficiary families, with a particular focus on ensuring women had access to and control over land. This paper is a short history of project design and […]
Land Tenure Rights for Women Under Customary Law
By Kat Oak
Full citation: Benbih, K. and Katz, J. (2014). “Land Tenure Rights for Women Under Customary Law.” – This paper highlights women’s rights issues in accessing land under dual systems. The goal is to make the knowledge resulting from the use of a platform, such as the Global Housing Policy Indicators (GHI), accessible on an open source to all land specialists, NGOs, policy makers, governmental agencies, as well as a global audience, including women around the world. The cases presented illustrate various difficulties to secure land tenure for women. The GHI assessment tool finds first hand evidence of the discrepancies between […]
Property Rights and Productivity: The Case of Joint Land Titling in Vietnam
Full citation: Newman, C., Tarp, F., and Broek, K. (2015). “Property Rights and Productivity: The Case of Joint Land Titling in Vietnam.” Vol.91(1), pp.91-105. – This paper explores the effect of land titling on agricultural productivity in Vietnam and the productivity effects of single versus joint titling for spouses. The results show that obtaining a land title is associated with higher yields, for both individually and jointly held titles. The study concludes that there is no tradeoff between joint titling and productivity, and so joint titles are potentially an effective way to improve women’s bargaining power within the household with […]
Innovations in land rights recognition, administration, and governance
Full citation: Deininger, K., Augustinus, C., Enemark, S., and Munro-Faure, P. (Eds.) (2010). “Innovations in land rights recognition, administration, and governance.” World Bank Publications. – This paper brings together a variety of studies on land rights. Chapter 4 in particular focuses on efforts to improve tenure security. One study in India examines whether changes in inheritance legislation impact the socioeconomic status of females, and found that when daughters were granted coparcenary birthrights in joint family property denied to daughters in the past, the amendment significantly increased the probability of females inheriting land. However, even after the passage of the amendment, significant […]
Gender, assets, and market-oriented agriculture: learning from high-value crop and livestock projects in Africa and Asia
Full citation: Quisumbing, A.R., Rubin, D., Manfre, C., Waithanji, E., van den Bold, M., Olney, D., Johnson, N., et al. (2015). “Gender, assets, and market-oriented agriculture: learning from high-value crop and livestock projects in Africa and Asia.” Agriculture and Human Values. – This paper explores changes in gender relations and women’s assets in four agricultural interventions that promoted high value agriculture with different degrees of market-orientation. It finds that while projects can successfully involve women and increase production, income, and the stock of household assets, generally men’s incomes increased more than women’s and the gender-asset gap did not decrease. Some threats […]
Enhancing Customary Justice Systems in the Mau Forest, Kenya: Impact Evaluation Report
Full citation: Freudenburg, M., & Santos, F. (2013). “Enhancing Customary Justice Systems in the Mau Forest, Kenya: Impact Evaluation Report.” USAID. – This paper evaluates a project which piloted an approach for improving women’s access to justice, particularly related to women’s land rights, by enhancing the customary justice system in one target area: Ol Pusimoru sub-location, Mau Forest, Kenya. The Justice Project consisted of: (1) delivery of a training curriculum to targeted groups (Chiefs, Elders, women and youth) focused on civic education, legal literacy, rights and responsibilities related to land and forest resources (with special emphasis on rights of women […]