The limited research on the benefits of women gaining secure rights to land and property suggest positive results: an increase in women’s participation in household decision-making; an increase in net household income; a reduction in domestic violence; an increased ability to prevent being infected by HIV/AIDS; and increased expenditures on food and education for children. Understanding the complexity surrounding women’s land rights is critical to ensuring that those rights are protected and improved.

Property rights to land represent the key institutional asset on which rural people build their livelihoods. In fact, in many countries, landlessness is the best predictor of poverty. The nature of farmers’ property rights to land substantially impacts their willingness and ability to adopt productivity-enhancing inputs and investments.

The Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Development (AFA) and Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (WOCAN) agreed to undertake an outcome-based evaluation of the ten provincial training activities conducted from May –December 2010, under a twoyear Rural Women’s Leadership Project (RWLP), supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) through the Government of Norway.

In view of the 2012 United Nations Commission on the Status of Women’s thematic focus on rural women’s empowerment, the gender team at the Development Centre has launched an issues paper, “Do discriminatory social institutions matter for food security?”.

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is an intergovernmental body and functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) mandated to promote gender equality and the advancement of women. The fifty-sixth session of the CSW, which takes place at the UN Headquarters in New York from 27 February to 9 March 2012, will focus on the theme “The empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges”.

Significant progress has been made over the past decade or so in the development of policy and legislation that support the recognition of customary rights to land, with important legal rulings in Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, South Sudan, and South Africa. At the same time, the strengthening of communities’ traditional rights to use resources has progressed through community forest reserves and community conservation areas.

From 23 January to 6 February, ILC held an online discussion leading up to the ILC-IFAD-FAO side event at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), 27 February – 9 March 2012, New York. The discussion was held simultaneously on the Land Portal and in the FSN-Forum – 70 contributions were received from 32 countries, from grassroots activists, researchers, NGOs and government staff.

Desde el 23 de enero hasta al 6 de febrero, la Coalición Internacional para el Acceso a la Tierra (ILC) sostuvo una discusión en línea con vistas al evento paralelo de ILC-FIDA-FAO en la reunión de la Comisión de la Condición Jurídica y Social de la Mujer (CSW), del 27 de febrero al 9 de marzo de 2012, en Nueva York.

Du 23 janvier au 6 février, l’ILC a organisé un débat en ligne, précédant la manifestation parallèle de l’ILC, du FIDA et de la FAO lors de la Commission de la condition de la femme (CCF) qui s’est tenue du 27 février au 9 mars 2012 à New York.

[From UN-Women] During this 56th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, we have witnessed passionate and dynamic discussion with a very high level of participation from governments and civil society.

En 2010 y 2011, la Coalición Internacional para el Acceso a la Tierra (ILC) financió cinco proyectos comunitarios que promovían el empoderamiento legal de las mujeres rurales. Los proyectos fueron el piloto de modalidades innovadoras dirigidas a fortalecer los derechos de las mujeres a la tierra, pero también identificaron modelos para ser replicados y ampliados.