This report presents strategies of grassroots women's organisations in Eastern and Southourn Africa in working toward land tenure security, including home-based care and counselling, increased participation of women in government bodies, raising awareness about land issues, providing support for women's legal procedures, increasing economic security through skill development and microcredit loans as well as leadership development. The report concludes by giving some recommendations for increased effectiveness and scope for these grassroots activities.

This study documents women’s aspirations in relation to land in Kibaale district, Uganda. The study was designed to identify the gaps between those aspirations and the current reality, the actions required for their achievement, and the implications of those actions. Based on qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, information was gathered from 60 women belonging to the two villages, Nyanacumu and Kanywamiyaga, in the sub-county of Muhorro in Kibaale district. Researchers used appreciative inquiry, participant observation, narratives, focus groups, photos and video recording.

Traditionally, the land tenure system in Southern Ethiopia may be characterised by patrilineal inheritance and virilocal residence. Young girls have very little influence over when and whom to marry. Further, they have to go to a husband that their clan or family has identified for them, meaning that they after marriage move to the home of their new husband and inherit no land from their parents. Bride prices and dowries are commonly used, and girls are seen as the property of the husband and his clan. This also implies that if the husband dies, his wife is still the property of his clan.

This publication, from the Global Land Tool Network, presents a mechanism for effective inclusion of women and men in land tool development and outlines methodologies and strategies for systematically developing land tools that are responsive to both women and men’s needs. Equal property rights for women and men are fundamental to social and economic gender equality. However, women often face discrimination in formal, informal and customary systems of land tenure.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) - currently ratified by 187 countries - is the only human rights treaty that deals specifically with rural women (Art. 14). Adopted in 1979 by the United Nations Generally Assembly, entered into force in 1981. The Convention defines discrimination against women as follows:

This report is the fruit of collaboration between ILC, IFAD and FAO. It provides information on the historical background of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol, the working methods of the Committee, reservations, as well as a summary of information provided in reports of selected countries.

In 2004, FAO, IFAD, and the International Land Coalition (ILC) jointly published a report on progress towards the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), with respect to the status of rural women. This report provided an historical background to CEDAW and its Optional Protocol (OP 1999) as well as an overview on land issues as reflected in the reports submitted by States Parties.

The Working Group on Women and Land Ownership (WGWLO) is a Gujarat-based network of 23 NGOs set up 2003 in a context of increasing recognition of women’s land rights in international conventions, national planning and policies, as well as research, that has not resulted in a reduced gender gap in access to and control over land.

The document describes origin and history of WGWLO, the work done by NGOs and rural women federations in Gujarat at the village level, challenges faced, strategies adopted and their efforts to influence state policy.

This study explores the relationship between HIV/AIDS and land rights in Kenya, with a particular focus on women as socially vulnerable group. Combining participatory research techniques, household surveys, and in-depth person-to-person interviews, the study examines three village case studies in different parts of Kenya, and attempts to distinguish the role of HIV/AIDS in precipitating or aggravating tenure insecurity from other influences.

Dominant arguments about women’s land access stress the vulnerability of single women’s land rights in customary tenure areas. The vulnerability is based on long-held assumptions about customary tenure land governance, land use and gender relations. The paper seeks to contribute to the debate on customary tenure area land access, landlessness and understanding customary tenure evolution. Although single women have increasingly insecure tenure on customary tenure lands, in those systems spaces exist for single women to negotiate access to land.

In 2006, UNAIDS reported that almost half of the adults living with HIV and AIDS today were women. According to estimates, 38% of HIV-positive adults in India are women, and the number of young women, aged 15-24, living with HIV and AIDS is twice that of young men. HIV/AIDS has exposed the social inequities that predispose girls and women to HIV infection, but women need more than rights in order to protect themselves. In India, the AIDS epidemic magnifies the devastation of women’s property violations.

Security of Tenure is one of the cornerstones of Millennium Development Goal 7 on the improvement of the lives of slum dwellers, and is the main focus of the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure