Short (4-page) report on this workshop covering why a successful workshop?, why this workshop?, what were the main themes?, key issues raised in presentations, discussions and working groups, the follow up, website links to the full report of the workshop.

The process of decollectivization in Vietnam, leading up to the 1993 Land Law, ensured farming households the rights to market their own produce and to transfer, exchange, lease, inherit, and mortgage their land-use rights. These changes imply a reworking of relations between state, market, and household, but also within households. Although the allocation of agricultural land in northern Vietnam was relatively equitable, allocation by the state represents only one channel of entitlements to land.

In recognition of the problem of land tenure security and its effect on sustainable development, a study on Land tenure systems and sustainable development in Southern Africa was included in the ECA-SA work program. A draft publication on the findings of the study has been prepared. The publication addresses two core land tenure topics: (1) Land tenure security, and (2) Land rights of women and other groups.

This was a major and highly successful workshop on women’s land rights in Southern and Eastern Africa, organised by FAO and Oxfam GB. It attracted an unusually diverse range of participants. This official report summarises the papers, presentations and discussions in the original order of the programme.

The renovation process in Vietnam in the past decade has enabled significant economic growth as well as and greater rights and more important economic roles of farming households. However, much of this reform has focussed on men as head of households, meaning men have benefited more from economic reform, both economically and in terms of their power within the household. Inequalities continue in access to and control of key resources such as land, water, credit and rest time, as well as in access to public services.

The IGTN Advocacy Document for the 5th WTO Ministerial Meeting that was held in Cancun, Mexico in September 2003 focuses on these four issues and identifies critical advocacy positions for each of them. With regard to agriculture, the IGTN asserts that control over agriculture by states rather than the WTO would ensure that small-scale and subsistence farmers have control over farming and food supply; a particularly important concern for women around the world who are those responsible for ensuring household food security and managing family farms.

Contains background, policy responses (PRSP, LSSP, national gender policy), legal responses (Constitution, co-ownership, Land Bill 1997 and Matembe Clause, Land Act 1998 and Consent Clause, Land Amendment Bill 2003), challenges, way forward, annexes.

This publication comes out of the Gender, Citizenship and Governance programme of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Netherlands. The project aimed to develop good practice in changing governance institutions to promote gender equality, enhance citizen participation and build accountability of public administration systems. Action research projects were conducted with 16 women's organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in eight countries in Southern Africa and South Asia (South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh).

Examines some contemporary policy discourses on land tenure reform in sub-Saharan Africa and their implications for women’s interests in land. Demonstrates an emerging consensus among a range of influential policy institutions (including the World Bank, IIED and Oxfam GB), lawyers and academics about the potential of so-called customary systems of land tenure to meet the needs of all land users and claimants. African women lawyers are much more equivocal about trusting the customary, preferring to look to the State for laws to protect women’s interests.

This document is the culmination of a year-long exercise of a community-led process for ground truthing the violations of environmental conditions laid out in the Coastal Regulation Zone approval for a large infrastructure, coal handling and port facility in the Mundra region of Kutch district in the western Indian state of Gujarat. It presents compelling data on the nature of the violations, many of which were anticipated when local community members objected to the Waterfront Development Project (WFDP) of the Adani group in the region.