Overview of the relationship between gender, poverty and water. The first section explores how, in every corner of the globe, women play a central role in managing water supply and distribution. It also examines how access to water and sanitation has implications for women’s health and economic activities.

Water governance in the Philippines is saddled by several problems. The failure to implement laws governing the watershed approach and the absence of institutional mechanisms has seriously undermined any effort to mainstream and integrate water and watershed plans and programmes into the activities of various agencies involved in water resources management and governance.

This document reports on a workshop held in South Africa in June 2003 to address continuing insecurity of women's land rights. It brought together a broad group of participants covering NGO, grassroots, government, UN agency staff, researchers, activists, lawyers, and women living with HIV/AIDS.

The Land Policy in Tanzania is an example of citizens engaging in a protracted struggle for effective participation in the policy process, despite the long exclusion they have experienced in policy making. This paper looks at the evolution of the policy, and the interactions between civil society and the state in its development.The paper concludes that this was the first serious and systematic civic organizations' challenge to the state command model of policy process.

The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) set out internationally-accepted principles and standards for responsible practices, providing a framework for governments, the private sector and civil society to use when developing policies and programmes for improving food security.

The daily food and incomes of billions of people, particularly the rural poor, are determined by their access to land, fisheries and forests. Societies decide and regulate access to these resources through systems of tenure. Paul Munro-Faure, Deputy Director and Francesco Romano, Land Tenure Officer of the FAO Partnership, Advocacy and Capacity Development Division explain how supporting responsible governance of tenure is critical to achieving food security and allowing families to invest in sustainable production. They describe the FAO policy work, including key policy messages.

O CTV iniciou em 2010 o estudo, análise e monitoria do estado da governação na gestão do ambiente e recursos naturais em Moçambique, culminando com a elaboração de uma serie de relatórios anuais sobre governação ambiental (RAGA), cuja primeira edição foi publicada em Janeiro de 2012. Esta publicação tem como objectivo contribuir para a boa governação na gestão do ambiente e dos recursos naturais e promover maior justiça social, equidade e sustentabilidade no seu acesso pelos cidadãos, principalmente os das zonas rurais.

This report, which focuses on Kenya, constitutes one of four country-wide assessments produced under the overall project. It draws on a literature review conducted by the Kenya Land Alliance (KLA) with additional inputs from IIED, as well as on primary field research conducted by KLA in April 2016 (see Section 1.2 for further information about the research methodology).

The illegal and irregular allocations of public land as chronicled in the Ndungu Report amount to a rip-off that dwarfs the Goldenberg and Anglo-Leasing scandals. Our analysis in this first issue in the series covers Karura, Ngong Road and Kiptagich forests and suggests a loss of public resources in excess of Ksh.18.4 billion. The Ndungu Report covers ten other forests as well as other public land, ranging from road reserves to cemeteries to public toilets and even State House land. As we cover these in future issues of the series, the cumulative loss will certainly be astounding.

Women’s rights to land remain a contested issue in Kenya despite the acceptance of the principle of equality of the genders in law. The 2010 Constitution of Kenya clearly provides for the principles of equality and non-discrimination at Article 27. Moreover, in the land policy principles and the national values and principles of governance, gender equality is included. Despite these clear provisions however, gender inequality in land relations persists. The patriarchal social ordering that privileges men in land holding has been a greater barrier to women’s land rights.

The KLA proposed constitutional principles on land reform as captured in the constitutional draft have become more pronounced with the approach of General Elections and the transition that is expected to see the departure of President Moi from leadership. We therefore, detest the frantic efforts to go to the forthcoming elections before adopting the Ghai draft constitution, because that will be endangering the aroused expectation that at long last we are on the road to sorting out land problems we have lived with since independence.

THEME: “Sustainable infrastructure, services and social protection for gender
equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls”