Remarks by Gregory Myers, during negotiations for the Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests on March 8, 2012 Ministers, Excellencies, honorable representatives of member countries, civil society participants and guests: This morning we begin our session with recognition of International Women’s Day. Each year the United Nations declares an International Women's Day theme.

Girls Not Brides, a global partnership of more than 200 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) committed to ending child marriage, recently featured an article on how women's land rights can help reduce child marriage. The article describes how USAID’s Kenya Justice project has helped improve girls’ access to education by working with customary justice systems to strengthen women’s land rights in target communities.

In December 2009, Kenya adopted a new National Land Policy with the purpose of resolving the myriad of land tenure problems throughout the country. The policy calls for the recognition of customary community lands and land governance, addressing inequitable land distribution rooted in historical injustices, instituting a transparent and accountable system of land administration, and ensuring the effective protection of women’s rights to land and related resources, including the provision for joint spousal registration and documentation of land rights.

On December 15th, USAID and the Afghanistan Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA) launched a nationwide public information and awareness campaign about Afghan women’s rights to inherit and own land and property. The campaign is part of USAID’s Land Reform in Afghanistan (LARA) which works with the Government of Afghanistan to build the local capacity necessary to design and implement transparent, effective land tenure reform.

Here’s a short video (within the blog post) from Landesa that “connects the dots” between securing land rights and improving educational opportunities for girls. The connection may not be immediately clear so teasing out the links – which the blog does – is important:

This week, the World Bank will host its annual Conference on Land and Poverty in Washington, DC. The theme of the conference is “Integrating Land Governance into the Post-2015 Agenda: Harnessing Synergies for Implementation and Monitoring Impact.”
Throughout the week, USAID staff will chair several sessions, including:

A recent Poverty Matters post highlights some of the differences that mark the Santos regime in Colombia from that of his predecessor Alvaro Uribe. In some ways the two leaders share a vision for their country. The post puts it this way, both want to “attract foreign skills and investment to expand natural resource exports to pay for social investments.” But, author Jonathan Glennie points out that what distinguishes Santos is his decency and his willingness to embrace modernization.

USAID’s Land Tenure and Property Rights (LTPR) Division has released a new suite of tools and methodologies created under the recently completed Property Rights and Resource Governance (PRRG) Project. These tools were designed to enhance the understanding of LTPR challenges and improve programming to advance the global development objectives of the United States, including food security, global climate change, conflict mitigation and women’s economic empowerment.

Guest commentary by Amanda Richardson, Resource Equity, and Ailey Kaiser Hughes, Landesa.
A growing body of evidence shows a correlation between gender-based violence (GBV) and land rights. Awareness of the possible GBV implications of land interventions is critical to understanding impacts on women.

Tim Fella, Land Tenure and Conflict Advisor - USAID, moderating the panel discussion.

A U.S. Agency for International Development team member helps remove rubble form a damaged building in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 30, 2010. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Robert J. Fluegel/Released)

Last week, we shared an example of an innovative participatory project design in Kenya. This week, our example of an innovative participatory project design comes from Kosovo.