[September 2008]

Within this report, the FAO outlines its efforts to reinforce local institutions and promote policies and legislation that aim for fairer access for both women and men to natural resources (particularly land, water, fishing and forestry) and to the relevant economic and social resources.

It goes on to approach the reasons why land tenure should be taken into account in project design, highlighting ecological issues, questions of gender, conflict and migrations, and the relationships between them.

[via UN-HABITAT] How can we judge if a land tool is responsive to both women and men’s needs?

Despite progress on women’s rights, rights to land and security of tenure are not enjoyed equally by women and men in many parts of the world. This goes against international human rights, and also impacts negatively on households and the economy.

[via UN-HABITAT] GLTN considers gender as a critical cross-cutting theme in the work on promoting pro-poor, large-scale land tools (for more information on GLTN see www.gltn.net). This short report summarises an analysis undertaken by the GLTN Secretariat to assess how women’s rights, and specific needs, are being addressed by selected projects in the GLTN land tool inventory—a database consisting of numerous international development projects in the land sector is available on the website.

[via UNDP, 2008] These 4 Policy Briefs from UNDP show how increasing knowledge about gender relations and empowerment has highlighted the importance of access to and control over land within intra-household gender relations, and what this implies for broader concerns about empowerment of the poor.  Moreover, significant knowledge gaps are also found in discussions on the link between land policies and cultural, territorial and gender empowerment issues.

[via UN-HABITAT] Women’s equal rights to adequate housing, land and property are well elaborated under international human rights law but are often elusive in practice. This document is a reference guide to international human rights standards identifying both the substance of women’s rights as well as the commitments made by States with regard to improving women’s rights to adequate housing, land and property.

[via FAO] This report is based on the proceedings of the Technical Consultation on Gender, Property Rights and Livelihoods in the Era of AIDS, organized by FAO in November 2008. It takes stock of where FAO and its partners are in terms of addressing property rights insecurity and provides a proposed framework through which future action can take place.

This background briefing reports on a study of land access for returnees in Rwanda, and the impacts of land access policies in the post-conflict period. It also seeks to understand better the roles international humanitarian agencies and NGOs have played, and how their performance can be improved. It is not suggested that Rwanda is typical, but rather that the centrality of land issues there has thrown up a revealing set of broader questions.

The briefing ends with the following lessons;

The report of the discussion that took place online in September 2012 is now online!!! (Special thanks to Andrea...) Check it in the attachement below. Do not hesitate to contact us for more information, we would be glad to recveive more feed back from you. Jai jagat!

Please find here the report of the online discussion facilitated by Ekta Parishad on the land portal in December 2012 : Is the right to land for shelter a human right? Many thanks to all of the participants for their very interesting inputs, which will contribute to the ongoing negociations with the indian government.

Special thanks to Dominik Pauli for his great support and commitment.

[via FAO] This technical guide aims to assist implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines by providing guidance that supports the Guidelines' principle of gender equality in tenure governance. The guide focuses on equity and on how land tenure can be governed in ways that address the different needs and priorities of women and men. It moves away from long-standing debates about gender equality in access to land, towards the mainstreaming of gender issues to achieve more gender-equitable participation in the processes and institutions that underlie all decision-making about land.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

GENEVA (4 March 2013) – “Sharing power with women is a shortcut to reducing hunger and malnutrition, and is the single most effective step to realizing the right to food,” said the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, while urging world governments to adopt transformative food security strategies that address cultural constraints and redistribute roles between women and men.

The International Development Law Organization

The law is an essential tool for advancing women’s and girls’ rights and equality. A robust and effective legal system based on the rule of law is central to assisting women to become equal partners in decision-making and development. Over the last couple of decades, the international community has invested substantially in programs aimed at strengthening the rule of law in developing countries. Despite this investment, the rule of law continues to mean very little for the vast majority of women and girls.