Covers analysis of the study sites in Seke, Buhera, Chimanimani and Bulawayo Districts, land and property rights of widows and other vulnerable women in those sites, livelihood strategies, obstacles and options, policy issues and recommendations. The study highlights the vulnerability of widows to property-rights violations.

A serious study of a neglected field, drawing on research, workshops, and personal and organisational testimonies. Covers Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Aims to raise awareness of the heavy impact of HIV and AIDS on women’s property rights and livelihoods, and the active steps being taken by many grassroots organisations to respond to the crisis. Looks at a number of creative initiatives such as the Memory Book Project in Uganda.

This paper presents the preliminary findings of a study on land conflicts between refugees and host communities in southwestern Uganda and their impact on refugee women’s livelihoods. Uganda has a long history of hosting refugees that dates back to the 1940s, when it hosted Polish refugees; Rwandese and Sudanese in the 1950s (Holborn 1975:1213-1225).

The overall objective of the present national cross-sectoral Forest Policy is to achieve sustainable forest management that would ensure sustainable increases in the economic, social and environmental benefits from forests and trees for the present and future generation including the poor and the vulnerable groups.

The study is based on the premise that it is important for women to have effective rights in land and it studies the land rights of women in Tripura, a state in north-east India. The study assesses the extent to which the women of Tripura enjoy effective rights in land and suggests measures for enhancing the effective rights in land that are presently enjoyed by the women of the state.

The research study was carried out by the Tripura Commission for Women and was sponsored by the National Commission for Women, New Delhi.

Contains women’s rights and state-led agrarian and market based land reforms; reinstating the state; engendering customary tenure; rights of indigenous people and marginalised groups; human rights violations; HIV/AIDS; the ‘feminisation of agriculture’. Calls for a new agrarian reform agenda in which the state plays a central role, ensuring that land is established as a common public good, and that its benefits are enjoyed equitably by women and men, regardless of race, class or ethnicity.

Baseline survey which includes a literature review. Findings cover land and livelihoods, land ownership and security of tenure, land rights and decision making, land market and transactions, land disputes. Concludes that the volume of land transactions is too low to support a transformation from subsistence to commercial agriculture, as planned. Smallholder farmers have limited capital options making increased land utilization impossible. Tenure security for women is still far from a reality. There is a need to strengthen land rights of widows and orphans.

The focus of the workshop, funded by FAO, Oxfam GB, and Women Land Link Africa Project (WLLA), was on children’s property rights. The report covers presentations by children, key issues and inspiring initiatives by CBOs, messages from the UN to children, experiences from Zimbabwe, very moving testimonies by children, key recommendations. Following the launch of a UNICEF and UNAIDS global campaign, FAO has been initiating work in the neglected area of children’s property and inheritance rights.

Increasingly, economists are examining how the dynamics within households affect the outcomes of household decisions. This paper uses data from the 1991/92 and the 1998/99 Ghana Living Standards Surveys to examine how the share of assets owned by women in Ghanaian households affects household expenditure patterns. In this analysis, assets include business assets, savings, and farmland. The results indicate that women’s share of assets do have an impact on household budget shares for a number of expenditure categories in each time period.

The workshop was held in Lusaka as part of FAO’s initiative in the area of women’s property rights in the context of HIV and AIDS. Report covers legal issues of, and lessons on, women’s land and property rights in Zambia; Theresa Chilala’s case; testimonies by widows and orphans in Zambia; successful interventions to protect women’s property rights by authorities � lessons from the region; inspiring initiatives by women and grassroots groups; key recommendations; working group deliberations; press release; opening and closing speeches; strategic framework.

Collection of stories of poor women in Kibaale, Luweero, Kapchorwa, Apac, Mbale and Kampala districts about their struggles in securing their rights to land. Contains overview of land issues in Uganda. Topics include land access through marriage, inheritance, the land market, land reform processes, NGO donations and support, urban women and access to land, what needs to be done – recommendations to government.

Recent UNRISD research finds that the new generation of land tenure reforms introduced in the 19990s is not necessarily more gender equitable than earlier efforts, even though women’s ability to gain independent access to land is increasingly on the statutes.