Recognition and respect for tenure rights has long been recognized as an important concern for development, conservation, and natural resource governance. This paper discusses why secure tenure rights for local communities, indigenous peoples and women are central to good natural resource governance and important for livelihoods and human rights, as recognized in multiple international conventions. The paper reviews both challenges and opportunities for securing rights in practice and highlights successful cases of tenure reform.

En lo que respecta a la población, en las franjas de edades más pequeñas los hombres son mayoría, pero después de los veinticinco años, las mujeres se muestran con una ventaja cada vez mayor, debido a la alta tasa de mortalidad entre los hombres más jóvenes. Sin embargo, en el área rural hay menos mujeres, a causa de una migración selectiva, con un flujo predominante de jóvenes más escolarizados y del sexo femenino hacia áreas urbanas.

Looks at CAADP plans in Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Zambia. Found systematic policy neglect of women farmers. Plans pay little attention to their needs and rights. Money for implementation is woefully inadequate.

Contains framework for analysing the gender impacts of foreign investment in agriculture; gender analysis of the certification criteria of voluntary sustainability standards and responsible investment frameworks; do voluntary sustainability standards improve gender equality?; lessons for responsible investment frameworks and recommendations.

Impact of an intervention by the Rwanda Initiative for Sustainable Development (RISD) in contributing to the implementation of pro-poor and equitable land policies. Through evidence-based awareness raising efforts, dialogue, advocacy and networking, RISD was able to influence policy implementation and promote the land rights of poor and vulnerable groups, including women. 

Identifies the drivers of the land use changes that have displaced millions of rural people and continue to threaten millions more – particularly women; it unpacks the key land policy guidelines and why they have so far failed to ‘stick’ on the ground, and it sets out 14 actions to get to grips with the problem and push forward community land rights across Africa.

Includes key concepts for understanding land rights; land tenure and women’s property rights in Uganda; land acquisition in Uganda; who owns the land? Perspectives from the local level. Analyses how different ways of defining landownership provide very different indications of the gendered patterns of landownership and rights. Although many households report that husbands and wives jointly own the land, women are less likely to be listed on ownership documents, especially titles, and women have fewer land rights.

Covers land-tenure system in Amhara Region, the land rights registration process, women’s access to and control of land, land use by men and women, marital property rights, inheritance rights, female-headed households, legal services, conclusions and recommendations.

Includes the global scramble for land; drivers of land grabs – global crisis and public incentives; counting the cost of land grabs (disempowerment and marginalisation, displaced communities, human rights violations, women bear the brunt, lost livelihoods and increased food insecurity, social breakdown and cultural impacts); developing alternative models of investment; conclusions and recommendation to governments.

Includes introduction: a new rush for land; framing the issues: historical and development questions; impacts of land grabs on rural women; concluding notes; proposed pointers for action.

Asks why is it still so hard to know how many women have rights? Covers which rights?; what is ownership?; security of rights; land or people?; aggregate measures or nuanced details?; property rights within marriage; where to now?

Examines relationships between inheritance, marriage and asset ownership. Land the most important asset in rural Uganda. The majority of couples (both married and those in consensual unions) report owning land jointly. Men who report owning a parcel of land are much more likely than women to say they inherited it. Inheritance not an important means of acquisition of other assets, e.g. livestock, business assets, financial assets, consumer durables, which are acquired through purchase, for both men and women.