This briefing paper is an outcome of the project "Strengthening the Documentation and Advocacy Capacity of Indigenous Women for the Advancement of their Rights and Welfare on Land" implemented in Cambodia, India and Indonesia in 2013-2014.

In Africa, land has an emotional and mystical value beyond the economic consideration and
represents the social security and the continuity and independence of a family. In much of rural
Africa, land constitutes the primary source from which millions of people derive their daily
livelihoods (Bhandari 2001)
1
. In sub-Saharan Africa, women contribute between 60-80% of labor
used to produce food for both household consumption and sale to agricultural production while
women’s access to and control over land in Africa remains minimal (FAO, 1998).

In the context of increasing vulnerability to climate change for people dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods, the International Food Policy Research Institute and partner organizations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, and Bangladesh undertook a project broadly aiming to create knowledge that will help policymakers and development agencies to strengthen the capacity of male and female smallholder farmers and livestock keepers to manage climate-related risks.

Although there is ample evidence of differences in how and where men and women acquire information, most research on learning and household decisionmaking only considers access to information for a single, typically male, household head. This assumption may be problematic in developing-country agriculture, where women play a fundamental role in farming. Using gender-disaggregated social network data from Uttar Pradesh, India, we analyze agricultural information networks among men and women.

Gender disparities continue to exist in women’s control, inheritance, and ownership of land in spite of legislation directing improvements in women’s land access. Women are often excluded from traditional patrilineal inheritance systems, often lack the legal know-how or enforcement mechanisms to ensure their property rights are maintained, and often lack initial capital or asset bases to purchase land through market mechanisms.

Urban open spaces are valued for their health, social, economic, and environmental benefits. Outdoor physical activity is important for the wellbeing of youth, while playfulness is crucial for creativity and innovation. It is observed that in Pakistan the access of adolescent girls to public open spaces and school playgrounds is restricted, but there has been no prior scientific study. This research has studied the impediments in four planned and un-planned localities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The restrictions on girls are pervasive and become more severe upon their attaining puberty.

This paper reviews the available data on men’s and women’s land rights, identifies what can and cannot be measured by these data, and uses these measures to assess the gaps in the land rights of women and men. Building on the conceptual framework developed in 2014 by Doss et al., we utilize nationally representative individual- and plot-level data from Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Vietnam, and Timor-Leste to calculate five indicators: incidence of ownership by sex; distribution of ownership by sex; and distribution of plots, mean plot size, and distribution of land area, all by sex of owner.

This publication provides an overview of the findings of a review of land tenure security in Asia and the Pacific region in collaboration with key partners. It highlights the major land challenges, barriers and opportunities as the basis for future decisions about partnerships and engagement in the land sector at sub-regional and country level. The findings are based on an extensive literature review, interviews, a questionnaire, validation at several multi-stakeholder meetings and peer review.

The Feasibility Study is designed to provide a business case with respect to the feasibility of data collection for global land indicators. It gives a concrete analysis of the possibility of having land indicators in the post-2015 framework that are relevant, disaggregated by gender and include outcome indicators going beyond the legal framework. This report demonstrates that it is feasible to collect the data required using available methodologies and data sources, and that countries are able to produce these data regularly and at a reasonable cost.

This issue brief highlights the challenges women are facing on access to lands, and the strategies in achieving gender justice for land rights - based from the results of the scoping studies on women and land in seven Asian countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Philippines).

This publication is a collection of scoping studies on women and land in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Philippines. It outlines the statuses of women's land rights in each country, the legal frameworks covering such rights, the key factors promoting or impending women's land rights, and the strategies to address gender inequality and advance women's rights to own and benefit from the land.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in partnership with the Ugandan Ministry of Water and Environment, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as well as local governments and civil society organizations, have been working to address many of the climate-related issues in the Sanzara community by employing Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) with an integrated Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (EBA) approach to maximize community climate resilience.