Africa is the youngest continent in the world, with a median age of around 20. This rising generation of youth presents an enormous opportunity for socio-economic development. But for Africa’s young people to unlock their full potential, they need full enjoyment of land rights – a cornerstone for economic opportunity and social empowerment.
Professor Anju Vali Tikoo, a distinguished academic with a career spanning over three decades, delivered a passionate and incisive keynote at the 8th India Land and Development Conference (ILDC). Her address, a clarion call for gender inclusivity in land governance, explored the intersection of law, policy, and lived realities for women in India. With her deep-rooted knowledge of legal frameworks and her personal experiences, Prof. Tikoo brought to light the systemic barriers that continue to marginalize women in matters of land ownership and decision making.
In honor of International Women’s Day, this What to Read Digest offers a selection of some of the must-read publications for anyone wishing to understand the link between land, food security and women.
A Recap of the Recent Land Portal-MRLG Webinar on Gender Equitable Land Governance in the Mekong Region
On Thursday 15 February, the Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project and the Land Portal launched the first webinar in the State of Land in the Mekong series. The series, which will consist of three webinars across 2024 and 2025, aims to shine a spotlight on land issues in the Mekong region during a time of immense rural transformation.
This webinar took place on February 15th, 2024, under the title “Women’s Participation in Land Governance in the Mekong : Moving Beyond Quotas to Meaningful Inputs and Influence”. The webinar featured panelists from researchers to youth representatives. The webinar was jointly organized by the Land Portal Foundation and Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG).
Since engaging in WOLTS training, gender and land champion Sindooi is actively supporting women and widows' inheritance rights in her community.
This session brought together insights on land governance and climate resilience, with a specific gender focus. Women suffer from lack of access to, decision making over, and use of land. At the same time, climate change disproportionally affects women. Research indicates that ‘gender just land governance’ forms the key to use land in a sustainable, climate-proof way. There are many entry points to make land governance just and inclusive of women.
In the past decade, the land rights movement, particularly the women's land rights movement, has significantly made progress in strengthening the recognition of land rights in national, regional and international instruments. Despite the progress, translating these recommendations into legislative provisions and practices in countries has been slow or minimal
On 15 December 2022 the LAND-at-scale Knowledge Management team hosted a webinar Land tenure security revisited: Do we know what we need to know? that presented the preliminary findings of a study on tenure security authored by Guus van Westen, and Jaap Zevenbergen. The presentation of the study was followed by breakout sessions on tenure security and its relationship to women's land rights, the role of the state, land conflicts, and economic development facilitated by land experts and panelists who reported back to the plenary on the discussions with their respective reflections on the findings of the study.
This blog describes the common trends and actions across the projects, and is enriched with additional insights from the LANDac Annual Conference 2022 and other events.
