This Policy brief provides a summary into women’s land tenure issues in East Africa. The brief aims to highlight the gap between women’s land tenure security and the policy provisions to secure women’s access to land. The brief is aimed at policymakers, administrators, women in the community, intermediary institutions and non-governmental institutions who work to improve women’s access to land.

WOLREC undertook this action research in order to enhance women’s bargaining power through improved access and control over land in the patrilineal and matrilineal communities in Southern and Northern Malawi. For WOLREC, as an action-orientated NGO, the exact nature of the relationship between women’s bargaining power in the household and their access to, and control over land is key to deciding which interventions improve poor rural women’s access to economic justice.