The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent unprecedented and increasing global recognition of land rights—especially women’s land rights. Leaders across the globe have included three land-specific sex-disaggregated indicators:
The Land Portal Foundation, Mokoro Ltd and Transparency International co-hosted an interactive webinar on sextortion in land governance and its implications on June 25th, 2018. The webinar featured an interactive discussion among expert panelists. Scroll below to read our interview with Annette Jaitner of Transparency International. She gives us insights into the matter and what sextortion means for land governance.
Women represent the majority of Brazil’s population (51.6% in 2017). However, only 12% of the landowners are women and just 5.5% own agricultural land in Brazil (IBGE, Agricultural Census, 2006). This gender disparity is just part of the immense problem women face in terms of land rights in Brazil. A major issue is the persistent gap between what is in the law and what happens in practice.
A Q&A with Patricia Chaves from Espaço Feminista, Brazil, explains the discrepancies in accessing property and inheritance rights for women in Brazil as well as data that helps to inform grassroots women about their rights. The piece also provides powerful accounts of women's personal experiences.
Moderated by Kalpana Giri from RECOFTC, the panel on "Land Governance and Gender" featured a diverse round of gender experts discussing the inseparability of gender equality and good land governance. With talk of gender more prominent than ever, the session was certainly an interesting and poignant way to close out day two of the Forum!
This blog builds upon Harold Liversage's presentation during the Global Land Tools Network's seventh partners meeting, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya from 23-27 April, 2017. Harold Liversage is currently the Chair of the Global Donor Working Group on Land.
By Jim Grabham (Mokoro Ltd, UK) with Ezekiel Kereri (HakiMadini, Tanzania), team members of the global Women’s Land Tenure Security (WOLTS) project.
Addressing gender disparities in the context of land reforms is not easy. Effectively addressing gender issues takes time and effort, which can sometimes make it more expensive in the initial stages of a project or program. However, evidence shows that integrating gender throughout land reform interventions not only increases benefits for women, but strengthens the intervention overall. Meaningfully including gender into land reform approaches often requires a change in behavior among decision-makers and program participants that, in some cases, may take years, even decades.
The artisanal mining sector in West and Central Africa is a rapidly expanding economic force employing millions of young people, often those who are the most vulnerable. Numerous ancillary informal economies are associated with the export of what are commonly known as “conflict minerals” such as diamonds, gold and coltan. Women grow crops and process food for the labor force of young men digging deep into the ground to pull out the ore and precious metals and stones.
Tajikistan is on the cusp of achieving its vision of a fully-functional market that allows land-use rights to be bought and sold. The transition from a post-Soviet system of regulation and control to market-based principles represents the culmination of over a decade of donor-supported commitment and effort to unlock significant economic growth potential in Tajikistan and support the country’s transition away from donor assistance.
As part of the Feed the Future initiative, USAID is helping the Government of Tanzania to improve communities’ understanding of land rights, support village land use planning, and clarify, document and certify property rights.
Kuluthum Mbwana remembers the day that biofuel investors arrived in her village Vilabwa, just 70 kilometers west of Tanzania's capital. In exchange for more than 8,000 hectares (19,800 acres) of land across 11 villages, including Vilabwa in Kisarawe District, she said they promised to bring much-needed jobs, schools and health clinics to her community.