Improving women’s access to land is high on the agricultural policy agenda of both governmental and non-governmental agencies. Yet, the determinants and rationale of gendered access to land are not well understood. This paper argues that gender relations are more than the outcomes of negotiations within households. It explains the importance of social norms, perceptions, and formal and informal rules shaping access to land for male and female farmers at four levels: (1) the household/family, (2) the community, (3) the state, and (4) the market. The framework is applied to Ghana.

For decades, policymakers and development practitioners have debated benefits and threats of property rights formalization and private versus customary tenure systems. This paper provides insights into the challenges in understanding and empirically analyzing the relationship between tenure systems and agricultural investment, and formulates policy advice that can support land tenure interventions. We focus on Ghana, based on extensive qualitative fieldwork and a review of empirical research and policy documents.

In many Asian, African, and South American nations, indigenous people are being driven from their homes: Government authorities are leasing hundreds of thousands of hectares of land belonging to indigenous people who only in the rarest of cases possess deeds to the land that are recognised by the authorities. Although in many cases their ancestors have lived on the land for centuries, these rights were never recorded in the land registries. The way of life and the livelihood of many indigenous peoples are severely threatened by their land being sold off.

The world food crisis has spurred foreign direct investments (FDI) into arable land in developing countries. While significant financial inflows into agricultural sectors could be beneficial on a global scale, it could negatively affect local livelihoods. This article provides an overview of the different types of FDI in land. In addition, examples of investment flows are illustrated in an overview and a sustainable impact matrix outlines the occurring effects. Finally, requirements of avoiding negative effects are presented, to achieve a Pareto-efficient win-win situation.

The Voluntary Guidelines on the human right to food provide a further instrument of international law in the fight against world hunger.The Guidelines promise to be a powerful new weapon in combating malnutrition.They forge an alliance between development policy and human rights in the struggle for the right to food. The «human rights approach» has become the new watchword in the fight against hunger.

This guidebook provides conceptual, legal and practical tools and resources to help civil society organizations guide communities through the process of documenting customary tenure at the local level. It also provides suggestions for how to build on the momentum generated by the documentation process to develop strategies and actions to defend, strengthen and promote customary rights at community, regional and national level. The guidebook was developed out of practical experience and conversations with local groups in Myanmar that have been documenting customary tenure.

Gender issues are relegated to the periphery in current debates and approaches concerning the sustainable governance of oil palm in Indonesia. However, ongoing research by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) points to the critical roles that women play as workers, smallholders and members of affected local communities. Gender inequities follow as oil palm expansion displaces local women from land on which they cultivate food crops.

Throughout history, conflicts have been waged over land. Confrontations over territory, border disputes, occupation of the territory of one State by another, or grievances stemming from inequitable access to land invariably have dramatic consequences for human settlements. Never before has this been truer than with today?uss very different types of conflict which are increasingly taking place within nations.

Pour de nombreux pays, la mise en place d’une politique rationnelle de gestion des forêts est une tâche difficile. Une des raisons à cela est que différents secteurs stratégiques (politique énergétique, politique du commerce extérieur, par exemple) sont étroitement liés à la politique de gestion des forêts et qu’il faut tenir compte des intérêts d’une multitude d’acteurs.

This paper provides guidance on how to conduct collaborative and participatory risk assessments, paying attention to the human rights of project-affected people. It was written for stakeholders who seek more effective strategies for investigating the human rights impacts of business projects or operations, and who wish to make their human rights impact assessments more inclusive and responsive, or who seek to encourage greater buy-in from other stakeholders.

This briefing note, co-authored with the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the Sciences Po Law School Clinic, outlines a new approach to conducting human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) of business operations or projects, which brings together project-affected people, the company, and other stakeholders to jointly design and implement an assessment.