Full citation: IDLO, “Accessing Justice: Models, Strategies and Best Practices on Women’s Empowerment,” IDLO REPORT (2013). – This paper highlights some of the challenges and solutions for women’s access to justice in diverse legal systems. It shows that women face structural and cultural barriers to accessing justice – insufficient knowledge of rights and remedies, illiteracy or poor literacy, and lack of resources or time to participate in justice processes. This is all the more so as women usually have intensive family responsibilities. Even where women can access the formal justice sector, the outcomes of the process often fall far short […]
Record Topic: Equal Rights
A Roadmap for Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment
Full citation: Buvinic, M., Furst-Nichols, R., and Pryor, E. C., “A Roadmap for Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment,” UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATION (2013). – This roadmap has a section on the importance of formal ownership and control over farmland for women’s productivity and economic security, hinging on paying attention to social and local contexts. It recommends an integrated suite of services, which target both production and marketing and address social constraints. It notes that land titling programs can help women where women’s names are on the title and where attention is paid to customary rules and the ways they may discriminate. Also […]
Economic Self-help Group Programs for Improving Women’s Empowerment: A Systematic review
Full citation: Brody C, De Hoop T, Vojtkova M, Warnock R, Dunbar M, Murthy P, Dworkin S. (2015). “Economic Self-help Group Programs for Improving Women’s Empowerment: A Systematic review.” Campbell Systematic Reviews 2015:19. – This review looks at the impacts of self-help groups with a broad range of collective finance, enterprise, and livelihood components on women’s political, economic, social, and psychological empowerment in low- and middle-income countries using evidence from rigorous quantitative evaluations. The secondary objective was to examine the perspectives of female participants on their experiences of empowerment as a result of participation in economic SHGs in low- and […]
Women and access to land and credit: discussions and key findings of the African Gender Development Index in Selected African Countries
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 […]
Indicators Of Gendered Control Over Agricultural Resources: A Guide For Agricultural Policy And Research
This paper explores the extent to which it is possible to define simple, robust indicators of gender gaps in use and control over resources that are likely to impact and be affected by agricultural innovation.
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 […]
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 […]