To say that access to land is one of the most important conditions for the
empowerment of African women, would be an understatement. The cultivation of land is one
of the main sources of income and economic wealth depends strongly on a well-elaborated
system of land tenure. However, developing and protecting land rights1
for women in mainly
male-dominated societies is a long-term work. Even though law initiatives2 may guarantee a
de jure equal access to land for women, the outcome highly depends on the way the culturebound

Despite the crucial role of women in family farms and small-scale agriculture, gender inequality is still present in many ways – jeopardising the food and nutrition security of millions of people.

This report presents grassroots women’s approaches to access justice with focus on land and property rights in Africa. This community empowerment-based research undertaken by the Huairou Commission and its partner groups across seven African countries – Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe – showcases women’s rights challenges and effective strategies to improve women’s access to justice.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation's Rick Gaynor discusses how the Voluntary Guidelines for Land Tenure help to strengthen women farmer's claims to land and improve food security around the world.

Repasa la legislación agraria desde la reforma de 1953, pasando por la constitución del 2009 y la legislación boliviana hasta septiembre del 2013.

March 2014 – This article presents a joint FAO and World Bank initiative to integrate the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security principles on gender equality into the Bank financed land administration projects in six Western Balkans countries. Even though the land agencies generate inordinate amounts of data, these are not efficiently used to inform policy makers, because of lack of capacity and manpower to properly process and link them between sub-sectors and over time.

March 2014 – Inheritance is the overwhelming way land is acquired in India, but societal practices exclude women from inheriting land. The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005, an inheritance law that covers 83.6% of the population of India, corrected some fundamental inequalities in the law bringing the women in equal status to men in the right to inherit land. However, eight years after its enactment, the ground reality is that women still do not inherit land on an equal basis with men.

Once relatively prosperous, Côte d’Ivoire is still emerging from crisis. Two waves of armed conflict and violence – in 2002 and following presidential elections in 2010 – both led to massive population upheaval, displacing around a million people on each occasion. Subsequent conflicts have exacerbated tensions over land between autochtones, allochtones and allogènes. Women have largely borne the brunt of the country’s conflicts and its protracted displacement crises.

In many parts of the world, women’s rights to land and property are systematically denied. Women have fewer or less secure rights than men, and discriminatory attitudes and practices undermine them. This leaves many women vulnerable, and almost entirely dependent on the men in their lives for basic economic survival. 

Dependance on men can lead to entrapment in abusive relationships, less control over sexual relations, and less ability to produce food or secure food.

Publicly elected women representatives in India ought to take advantage of their influence to defend women’s rights.

To ensure that there is sustainability at the community level in its land rights and governance training programme, Land Rights Research and Resources Institute (HAKIARDHI), a Tanzanian national level organization that spearheads land rights of small-scale producers, uses land rights monitors (LRMs) in its program areas. In each of the selected villages of the program districts, two LRMs (a man and a woman) who have received land rights training from HAKIARDHI are democratically elected by villagers.

March 2014 –  This paper discusses a pragmatic, adaptive framework for understanding and taking action to strengthen women’s land tenure security in the context of customary tenure. The Framework defines secure land rights in terms of five elements, which each serves as the basis for distinct, measurable indicators upon which to base project assessment, design, and evaluation. This paper presents the Framework and suggests its potential as an analytical foundation for assessing the security of land rights, for designing projects or developing policies that protect and stren